3 Weddings + Moving = Busy August

What a busy August this has been! I can't believe it is almost over! I feel like it just started. We started the month out with a weekend in California for Beth's (Tommy's sister) wedding. It was such a beautiful wedding! It was great seeing the family over on the west coast and celebrate with Beth & Joe. I had an awesome, relaxing flight over to Cali that I really needed - the Lord always knows what you need when you need it.

When I got back from Cali, Monday morning I have some horrific pain in my upper back and neck - perhaps that was God's way of saying I need to slow it down? I worked from home the whole week (minus Monday and Tuesday morning when it was too painful for me to do anything except stay still).

The last 2 weekends we have been local and have attended 2 weddings of couples we did our pre-engagement with at our church. It is such a joy to see believers get married!

And since we closed on our new home, we have been trying to pack on the weekends and it's now gone to the week days too, as I need to be out of my apt. by this coming Monday. My roomie and some guys from the church have been a huge help getting my stuff moved over and we went over to clean some of the house today which was a blessing.

Through all of this activity, I feel like I'm running and trying to catch up with life. I'm so grateful to have such a loving, caring, sensitive and sacrifical fiance! This month would have been so much harder without him!! I praise God for His sustaining grace and strength even through this crazy season!

Colorado!

It's amazing how you never really realize how integrated someone is in your life until they leave for a little bit. On Tuesday Tommy flew out to Colorado for his national staff training at CSU. He isn't due to be back in Philly until Thursday, the 30th. Tuesday evening I started to realize that I wasn't going to see him for over a week and began to miss him. But we talked on the phone as often as we usually do, so at least we could still hear each other's voice.

On Thursday on of Tommy's friends offered to pay $400 for my plane ticket out to Colorado for the weekend. I couldn't figure out why she would be willing to do that, but decided that it must be the favor of God - although it is still so random to me even as I am typing this blog. As I began looking for flights at first I found one that was $397, but later realized it was for Aug. and not this weekend. We were both disappointed because all of the flights out this weekend were $700+. Before I went to bed on Thursday night Tommy mentioned that we could try to look again in the morning. I had basically given up on the idea of me going out for the weekend, even though I felt that maybe I should still pack my bag and take my clothes with me just in case. Needless to say, I didn't.

On Friday morning I looked again, this time using other local airports in Colorado and not just Denver and found a flight for $577 that was to Colorado Springs - 2hrs & 15mins away from Fort Collins where there the conference was. Again, me being the logical, frugile one, I was thinking there's no way that I'm going to be able to pay the extra $177 for the flight. After all, we are planning and paying for a wedding, we have to go to Tommy's sister's wedding and I have to pay for my flight out there...which wasn't cheap because I waited until the last minute, we are buying a home and there have been other random things that have needed money as well lately. But Tommy really thought we could figure out how to make this work. He decided that we could shift some things and make the money work. I asked him was it really worth me coming out there for less than 2 days for $177 in light of all our expenses and he said yes, based on the time we would be a part and the fact that he will be flying back out to Cali on 8/2/09 and I won't be going out until 8/6/09 and I would get to meet some of the folks that he considers family and that he's worked with for 6 years. So we decided we would take his friend up on the offer and pay the rest ourselves. I left work on my lunch break, got home in time to back a little bit and take my conference calls from 1 - 3 pm.

Tommy's friend let him borrow his car to come pick me up. Because my flight was delayed I ended up missing my connecting flight so I was able to leave from Denver, which was only about 50 minutes from Fort Collins and Tommy didn't have to drive all the way down to Fort Collins.

Overall, we had a great weekend. I stayed with one of his friend's family and got a chance to meet a lot of people that I had heard a lot about but never had face to put with the name. It was great meeting such wonderful people that truly love Jesus and everyday devote their lives to seeing that lost in the world are exposed to Him and His truth.

This weekend was very encouraging to both of us I believe because it just showed how God will bless us with random things like a whirlwind of a trip to Colorado that wasn't finalized until Friday afternoon. God just provided down to the t on this trip in ways that He didn't have to at all. He didn't have to allow me the provision to go out to Colorado and we would have made it the week and a half without seeing each other, but it was just awesome how He decided to allow a small thing like this to brighten our day, week and month. In this crazy time of planning our wedding, learning how to grow together and love one another, closing on a house, praying about our future jobs/career direction and ultimately learning how to glorify Him together, its the little things like this that make us smile and is a great reminder of how much our Heavenly Father loves us! :)

(This picture isn't from this weekend, but I just liked it.) :-D

House hunting is over!!!

A couple of months after our engagement we began to look for apartments not even thinking about a house.  It seemed like something in the distant future.  Somehow, we ran into a friend through my class who knew of a house that was feasible for us and within the same range as an apartment.  After looking at this house, we started looking into some numbers and brought the matter before the Lord.  After spending a weekend in prayer and surrendering everything to the Lord, we sensed the freedom to begin looking within our price range, which was very similar to our range for an apartment.  (This is one of the advantages of living and ministering in Philadelphia; housing is more affordable than it was in LA).

I never knew that the process took so long and came with rejection.  We learned so much about trusting the Lord and functioning in faith and not fear.  There are many lessons that we are still processing, especially since it feels like a lot of it happened pretty quick.  Regardless it was good to be able to learn how to make decisions together and seek to agree with the Lord's will and with one another.  The first couple of places were sold to others and so we moved on.  

There were many points where I did not feel like moving on and felt like starting to look for apartments, but it seemed wise to persevere and the Lord used Fatimah to remind me about living in faith, rather than resulting to fear.  In this process I have noticed that I love taking steps of faith in the initial phases of moving forward in the Lord's direction, but sometimes can think twice when we are so close to it.  On the other hand, Fatimah may take some time to process a big change, but once she sees that God is in something, she is committed to see it through.  

So....About the 5th time visiting some places with our realtor, we ran into a place that was something that we were envisioning for family and ministry 5 blocks from the first house that we like, but was sold to the other buyer.  It is in Olney, one of the most culturally diverse places in the city.  It's in a great location of Philly...not too far from the church, the campuses, the broad street line, etc.  Thanks for all your prayers.  Our closing date is scheduled for August 14, so we'll see how it all works out.  We are excited to put some roots in Philly and let Jesus shine as we enter into marriage.  

Tommy

When 2 Become 1 the gospel is the most powerful and necessary aspect of engagement and wedding planning.  Many people have often said that marriage is the most sanctifying thing that God has instituted and I can see why.  Before marriage selfishness can be disguised under individualism (especially in America where our culture feeds on individualism), but this gets exposed in engagement and preparation for marriage.  It is the most amazing thing, because each day Fatimah and I are learning how real the gospel of the kingdom is in our lives.  With each day of planning, success, failure, challenge, encouragement I am prompted by Jesus to lay all before Him to follow and love God with all my heart, mind, soul, and strength, and experience the deep joy of loving Fatimah more each day in a way that is pleasing to Him.

I am deeply amazed at His provision for us.  Not only does He provide flower girl dresses for a great deal to fit within the budget, not only does He provide the perfect reception hall in Greenboro, not only does he provide through friends and family, but He also provided the grace to walk intimately with Him, loving Him and loving each other through it all.  I guess a lesson that we are learning from the Lord is to always ask for forgiveness to one another and extend forgiveness, based on Christ work on the cross and His resurrection, to one another.  Its good to be loved and to love in a way that is redeemable.  I'm honored to be able to love Fatimah Shahid-El (a woman who knows Jesus Christ) and to receive love and patience from her, because... we'll just say she is patient with me, as Christ is in the process of growth and development.  Grace and Peace for all who are in Christ

$40 for flower girl dresses?!?

this weekend, i went with dana to look for bridesmaid dresses and flower girl dresses. although we didn't find any great bridesmaid dresses, we were able to find the flower girl dresses for $29.99 each and the bows to go on them for $10...it was so crazy! we thought they would be more than that. i'm so grateful and that's such a blessing!! it's so cool to see God provide things like this.

The Faith that Jesus speaks of...

As Fatimah mentioned in her blog, it has been a journey of waiting, being tried, and be prompted by the Lord to daily depend upon Him.  For a month we have been looking for a place to have the reception that would fit within our budget.  There were many times when we would have incredible hope and other times when we were in despair, wondering what God was doing in our hearts in the process.  As many of you know, it is easier to reflect afterwards, rather than at the moment of wonder or despair, what the Lord is teaching and saying. 

During these past three weeks, the Lord spoke to me very clearly in three specific instances in Matthew.  Between Matthew 6 and 16 Jesus says "O ye of little faith" three specific times.  In the third instance, Jesus mentions this to the disciples in the context of their forgetfulness and lack of understanding.  Jesus reminded them about all that he had already done, similar to God's constant reminder to Israel to look back at all that He had done, and helped them to elevate their understanding about the Kingdom of God and God's redemptive work being about something beyond simple bread.  God is so faithful to remind us that He has been at work this whole time, eventhough we are prone to forget that at times of pressing and stretching.  What a mighty and gracious God we serve.  

In light of our budget needs and the waiting time, you can imagine how we were feeling when we received a call from the Messiah Too Banquet hall, which is 15-20 minutes from the location of our ceremony and the price seemed right.  After thinking about it, Fatimah and I decided to be spontaneous and look into going to North Carolina that very evening if we could get in touch with Barbara at Messiah Too.  We didn't know if it would work out, but after Fatimah got in touch with her and text messaged me that we were going, I got excited.  

When we showed up to the banquet hall, we were impressed with the hall; after tasting the food, Fatimah turned to me and gave me the look of "I love this place and the food" and it was a wrap from there.  Praise the Lord for His provision and teaching us to endure in faith and openness to His direction and timing in the process of sanctification.  We also were able to visit with some of her family, which is always a blessing.  Thanks for celebrating with us.

To Go...Or Not To Go...To Trust Or Not To Trust

Trying to find a reception place has been a crazy process. Every place that we were seeing were extremely expensive...and extremely out of our budget. It was very disappointing to be hoping for less reasonable and only seeing $35 - $125 per person. It was also hard to try to figure out what location would be the cheapest/most efficient to have the wedding. I was frustrated and didn't know where to look...in NC or Philly. After becoming a little stressed about it, I decided...and it was suggested to take a step back and not work on finding a reception place for a little bit. Tommy and Kiera both started searching for places, but finding one place each that seemed to be more reasonable than what I was finding. The lady from Messiah Too called Tommy back and gave him great quotes! It seemed to be a great deal. Tommy was ready sign up for this place, but we hadn't seen any pictures or tasted the food. So Tommy called me on Friday morning and said that this is probably the only weekend we can go down to view it and taste to food so let's go down to do it. I was hesistant, but open to going down. So I called the lady and she didn't answer. So I started praying that she would call us back (Tommy had already called her) and have availability to see us the next day. I eventually called her again and she answered. She said she could fit us in, so I cancelled my hair appointment [:(] and started planning for our trip down to Greensboro, NC for literally just a day. On my drive home to pack my clothes, I started to realize that if this ended up not being the place that we would be wasting money, time and effort...so this was going to either go really good or really bad. None the less, I decided that I still wanted to go and take the chance.

When we got to the place, we were so excited about what we saw! It was set up for an anniversary party and looked great! Once we tasted the food, it was official!! We are so overjoyed for how God has blessed us with this location...and we should be about $20 shy of our budget for the reception! I am so encouraged by how God is showing Himself strong in all of the planning for the wedding thus far. It has definitely been challenging me to trust Him more for all of these things. And even though some of these things are pure wants and not needs, it is so awesome to know that He enjoys blessing His children with their wants as well as their needs!! And even in the little things, it is just a testament to God support of our marriage and His love for us.

This time is stretching in many ways but I am truly encouraged to see God's hand in the midst of it all.

Fatimah :)

We'll See How It Goes

So I created this blog for us...but I'm not sure how well we will do at actually using it. Tommy is good at writing newsletters to his supporters, and even journaling. I, on the other hand, can be bad at returning emails. So, no promises, but we'll see how it goes!

My hope is that we can capture some of our thoughts in this blog through the process of becoming one. I pray that God is glorified through what we share and that His works are seen to be powerful and beyond anything we could comprehend...and that it wouldn't just be real and evident to us...but also to you.

So I pray that this blog is edifying to you, as well as to us.

Fatimah :)