Our Wedding

 Our wedding took place on July 19th. It was a blessing to have so many people travel to come celebrate with us. I had family and friends fly in from Seattle and a lot of Maria’s family was able to drive three hours from Guatemala City. We also had a few friends come from Cotzal, the town where we work. The same pastor that officiated my sister’s wedding, Ralph Rowland, flew from Seattle to lead the ceremony and the worship band from our new church, Journey Church in San Cristobal, was able to perform some songs. It was a blended and unique mix of people that God brought together for this occasion. My groomsmen were my best friend Adam and my brother in law Sean. Maria’s bridesmaids were my sister Amanda and her sister Clara. Maria’s best friend Guisela was our professional photographer. Micah, my almost 2 year old nephew served as the ring bearer. While looking a bit confused for part of his walk, in the end he ran right to me and handed me the pillow! Our daughters Natalia and Sofia were beautiful as the flower girls. We walked into the ceremony with the song “A Thousand Years” from the twilight movie and later our church worship leader sang the song “Oceans,” a song of great significance to us. It is a song about living in faith and walking on the water in midst of uncertainty. Ralph read our story that I wrote while my friend Carlos translated:


On January 1st, 2013, my dad led our family to write a big prayer for that year on a notecard and then put it under ground to be revisited when the year was over. I wrote: “My big prayer for this year is to provide a partner to go through life with and that you would make it clear when it came to making a decision.” When I reread what I wrote one year later, I broke into tears. I had not remembered the prayer but God had answered it in a big way. In 2013, God changed my life. 

My strong and loving father was about to have open heart surgery and on February 5th, I returned home to be with my family. I did not expect God to put a woman on the plane beside me who would remain at my side to this day. On that day, I felt the Holy Spirit come over me in a way I had never felt before. We began talking and before long, we were sharing deeper and deeper, the conversation flowing between Spanish and English. I shared with her a Bible verse I had been contemplating: Blessed are the poor in the Spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. She began to cry and felt God was calling her to a greater intimacy with Him. At the airport we agreed to do lunch together but lost each other after going through customs. I was astonished to find that we had the exact same gate at the huge Dallas airport. Now God was just having fun. I ran through the airport and we talked some more before her flight took off. I wrote in my journal that day how it was amazing how I felt like I could spend the rest of my life talking with her. Little did I know, I would be. 

The next time I saw her, she picked me up from the Guatemala City airport when I returned to do missionary work. From February to July we talked almost every day on the phone, reading the Bible together, and sharing deeper things about our lives that we had never shared with anybody before. She was the first person in my life who I felt I could truly share anything with. She visited me in Cotzal a few times and I visited her in Guatemala City. I met her children and felt a strong connection with them from the first moment I saw them. She came and visited me in Seattle in August and then pn a trip to Guatemala in October, I traveled with Maria and the girls up to San Juan Cotzal. I was amazed how God used Maria in the homes and how Majo, Naty, and Sofy felt so comfortable in this foreign setting. Before returning home, Maria and I prayed together and during an indescribable moment, God made clear to us that we were to do ministry together.

That November, Maria traveled to come visit me in Seattle. I greeted at the airport with flowers, got down on one knee and proposed to her while people around clapped and cheered. Since then, we have been preparing for life together. We feel called to live our lives in service to God and feel like we are together for an eternal purpose. We are planning on serving as missionaries here in Guatemala for at least a year while we ponder a transition to the United States.

Pastor Ralph shared a message about the beatitudes in Matthew 5. He talked about how they were ways of being, not just doing. He encouraged us to be poor in spirit, to be meek, and to be peacemakers, and our marriage will be blessed.

I said my wedding vows in English while Maria said hers in Spanish and we surprised the girls with heart necklaces with 1 Corinthians 13 inscribed with the date of our wedding. It was a symbol of our commitment to them as part of this new family, a touching and beautiful moment. We lit a unity candle with the song “How He Loves” playing in the background and we walked out to the song “You make beautiful things.”

At the dinner both Adam and Amanda gave wonderful wedding toasts and we did our first dance to the song “Fear is Easy, Love is Hard” by Jason Gray. Afterwards I shared a special dance with my mom while Maria danced with her mom. The dancing went late into the night as Clara and her friends spiced up the night with some Latin flavor. It was a party to be remembered, two cultures coming together, dancing and celebrating a new creation of God. My 23 month old nephew stole the show though, dancing in the middle of the circle, clapping and stomping his feet while spinning in circles.

It was a very special day and to see three distinct cultures represented and celebrating with us was amazing. Our story is God’s story. It is a story of redemption, a story of how God can take brokenness in our lives and make us whole. It is a story of how our superficial cultures melt away when looking at deeper manners of the heart. We are all sinners who need Jesus and we all can celebrate together when God begins something beautiful.