I thought I would take some time to share our story with those of you who don't know.
It all started in October of 2012 in Pemba, Mozambique…
I went to Harvest School of Missions 17 last year to completely surrender myself and pursue my passion for missions. While I was there I told Jesus, "You are all I need, Jesus! I don't need any man in my life right now. My heart and soul is completely and totally Yours!"
Little did I know that Jesus had already begun showing Emanuel that I was the woman He created for him to spend the rest of his life with. I thought Emanuel was a nice guy and we were just friends because I didn't even want to look at guys in a romantic way while I was there. He saw my dedication to The Lord and He didn't want to distract me in any way, so he remained quiet about the feelings he had for me. He prayed that God would set everything up in His perfect timing.
After Harvest School, I continued my missionary journey to Tete, Mozambique and while I was there, Emanuel and I began to message back and forth every now and then on Facebook just checking up on each other. We started to form a beautifully strong friendship just from being there for each other and praying through things together from across the world.
In February of this past year, everyone knows, I had to walk through something extremely hard. The missionaries I was living with and I were robbed, and abused. During that whole time, Emanuel was one of my biggest encouragements. He became someone that Jesus allowed me to lean on as my rock. There was still no talk of feelings for each other or anything at this point.
Shortly after our attack, God called Emanuel to serve with us in Tete as an intern. We were both in Tete together for about two months and while we were together Jesus began revealing things to us about each other. After two months, he felt called to leave Tete and move on to the next adventure that Jesus had for him and it was then when we felt the push from God to enter in a relationship to pursue marriage. He called my parents and asked for their permission to pursue me, they said yes! :)
For the next two months I continued serving in Tete and he traveled to do missions in Sweden and returned back home to Canada. We began our relationship both doing missions in different parts of the world and trusting that if this was from Jesus, then He would bring us together when it was supposed to happen.
We both grew so much in those few months. I could go on and on about all that God showed both of us during that time. The longer I was there, the more God was speaking to me about going back to Tennessee to be with my family and take a season of rest and preparation. I didn't know what that preparation was for but all I can tell you is that's what I heard Him say. So I obeyed Him and made a huge transition and came back to the States. Emanuel lives in Canada so we were still far away from each other. We both felt like it was super important for us both to spend as much time as possible with Jesus and seeking His face about our relationship and timing with everything.
He came down to Franklin a little while after I got home and met my family we just spent time together after being apart for over two months. He went back home after week of visiting and we pressed hard into the heart of Jesus and asked Him for guidance. My family absolutely adores him and completely welcomed him into the family. We both felt lead to take a fast from food and communication from each other for a few days. It was super hard but totally worth it because it was during that time that God confirmed everything about our relationship and told Emanuel when he could propose to me.
He just came down to visit last week and I thought he was just here to visit but he had other plans… He spent a while talking to my dad one of the days that he was here, asking him for my hand in marriage. (I had no idea about any of this btw!) He proposed the very next day in one of my favorite places in the world, Downtown Franklin! I'll save the proposal story for another post…
Something else that makes this story even more beautiful is that Emanuel and his family are from Romania and they moved to Canada when he was 8 years old. I'm from Tennessee and we both followed where God was calling us and met in Africa. One of my favorite parts of this whole thing is that we both had to search the heart of Jesus to be able to find each other.
Never would I have ever dreamed this time last year, that I would be engaged and planning a wedding but I couldn't imagine anything else. He is the greatest gift that God could have given me and I'm beyond blessed that I get to marry the one that was created for me!
