the first time
the first time i got an email from S in march, i didn't really think much of it. he had come across my blog through some mutual friends or the navigator blog ring and was so intrigued by my posts, he had to write. (of course, he didn't say that to me at the time!) it was fun to discover that there was a fellow who was both a navigator and an "overseas worker" (the best of both my worlds, in my opinion), but it was the furthest thing from my mind that we would become any more intimately acquainted than maybe, at most, three email exchanges. i didn't realize then that he was, in fact, making an entrance into my life.
but if truth be told, by the fourth email, i was already swept away. i didn't admit it, of course, but this man definitely had my attention. being four years out of college and quite obsessed, alert and aware of my own personal calling to being a long-termer overseas, i had come across many young men who were willing to go overseas but none of them were on their way out - at least, not any time soon. but S was different. he was already there! he was writing me from the field where he had committed two and half years to serving the Lord. i was impressed.
our email exchanges had the thrilling nature of being like a discovery of an old friend we have always had. he was a kindred spirit. strangely so familiar somehow. as if we had been friends all our lives. we had things in common that didn't seem possible to have in common. from the most important things to the most trivial. it wasn't uncommon to breathe the words "me too" throughout the reading of an email from the other. how in the world was this possible? who was this guy anyway?
i didn't want to admit it, but he was definitely getting under my skin... and into my heart.
refusal to pray
but it wasn't only because we had the same vision and calling for our lives or that we had so many "me too" moments. it was this other thing. and it shook me up pretty good. every time i prayed for him, God would answer my prayer. as specifically as i prayed.
the first time it happened was the first time i really sat down and prayed for him. i brought up to God that S had really offered himself up, gave up a lot, left everything to follow Him and honored Him greatly in that way, so would He be so gracious as to honor S's honoring of Him? how about allowing S to reap fruit in the last five months of his ministry there? how about if he would bring someone to S who was curious and eager to know the good news? how about if this man initiated this conversation and S wouldn't even have to coax him?
the next day, i received an email from S. a man he had befriended awhile back had approached him and said, "i see that you have this peace. i want it too." does that seem like an answered prayer to you? it did to me. i was in utter shock.
it was in these early days that S & i had our first experience co-laboring together. he was telling me that he was planning to share the good news with this man. he said he'd use the bridge illustration. that got me all excited because that's how * i * share the good news with people too. but S didn't know the short version of the bridge - but i did! so upon his request, i wrote this up for him. at the bottom of this email, i wrote, "i'm so jealous that you get to share the good news with someone this week!" but in a way, we both knew that we were sharing in that moment together. and we loved it.
the following week, i felt compelled to pray for him again. this time i asked more specifically that God would bring to S a man who was of the specific minority group that he was there to love (the previous man was of the "majority" group). the next day - the very next day! - i received an email from S, telling me that a minority man had contacted him and was asking questions about Jesus. *whoah*
it felt so natural to pray for S. it felt like i was doing what i was supposed to be doing whenever i would take up the sword and fight for him in prayer. but what surprised me was that once i got started, the prayers would naturally roll into praying about "us". there was no "us" at that point. we had been writing for maybe four weeks by then, and still we hadn't met! but for some reason, my words would flow into praying for "our" ministry, and "our" relationship, and "our" lives. i kept having to stop myself from praying those prayers so i could pray again for him, simply him, but it wasn't long before i started praying about us again. it got me so badly that i refused to pray for him for days at a time!
meanwhile, he had no idea any of this was going on.
email quotas
we were writing *a lot*.
i had never met anyone who could match me in verbosity, but i had finally met my match! it was so fun to write that we had five email threads going at the same time. that means - five emails per day talking about everything under the son!
but this was not good. he had five months left of his term overseas and i had five months left serving with my sending agency. we eagerly desired to be faithful to the tasks that the Lord had assigned us and to finish well. we acknowledged that writing emails to each other all day would not assist us to that end. so we established an email quota: one email per day.
we certainly had good intentions, but it was almost absolutely impossible to keep to it. we exceeded our email quota every other day. it was hard to resist writing!
so what did we do? we changed the quota policy - to one email a week. this somehow worked a whole lot better...
email silence
and then there came a week in may of email silence when he went on a retreat with his teammates. he sent me an email upon his return, which i received with delight. the next morning, i woke up and realized something. i had feelings for him which i had not hitherto recognized nor acknowledged! it sent me in a bit of a panic.
i immediately prayed, "Lord, if he's not the one, please shut the door!" it was, in fact, something i had been praying all along, but all along, God had never shut any doors.
i drove to church that day becoming quite cognizant of the fact that i had always prayed that God would shut the door, but i had never actually prayed that God would open one. reason being, how could God "open a door" in this situation? what could happen? we hadn't ever met. he was a million miles away. even if he liked me and confessed that he did, then what? would we then be in some sort of limbo-like state of undefined friendship? i didn't want to be in that sort of relationship.
but on the drive back home, i was reminded of isaiah 55:8-9. wasn't it possible that God could do something that i couldn't fathom or imagine? couldn't He make a way where there didn't seem to be a way?
that night after i had written all these thoughts in my journal, i involuntarily prayed aloud, "Lord, would you open a door?" -- as soon as i said it, i wanted to take it back. wait, wait, wait. did i really mean this? *scary moment standing at the edge of a precipice* which way do i go?
well, why not? the next words also came out of my mouth involuntarily, "Lord, i pray that you would open a door. have S say something to me - this week. have him say that he will come to the bay area for a visit sometime in the fall/winter, and that he wants to visit me - but in some way that i would not feel uncomfortable."
now, S is from louisiana. and he does have some relatives in the bay area. and by the end of august, he'd be back in the states. so this prayer wasn't a complete random fleece i was putting out there. but believe me, i wasn't "testing" God. it just came out of my mouth as if Someone had given me the thought.
the next morning, i received an email from him, "guess what. good news. i'm coming to the bay area to visit in december and it would be great to see some of you guys." *talk about feeling floored.* God had indeed opened a door!
later that day, i shared with colleen, one of my best friends, about it excitedly and half-jokingly lamented, "i should've asked for august." she quickly responded, "you still can!" she was right, and so i did.
slaughtered, on the altar
it's hard to explain what happened the following weekend. sometimes my own sense of logic defies me. perhaps it was just my way of protecting myself. sure, God had answered my prayers (many of them!), but what did that mean really? S was still a million miles away and i had never met him!
and it suddenly dawned on me that weekend how much i hated long-distance email relationships. it's difficult when the other person is so far away. the time it takes to communicate and really get to know the other person moves in slo-mo. it may take a year of long-distance correspondence to figure out that the other wasn't right for you when it would've taken 3 weeks to discover that in real time. i didn't want to drag my heart through the mud just to end up with mud.
so i decided to stop writing him.
after a week of silence, he wrote me a short, friendly email to say hi. (unbeknownst to me, i had sent him in a panic. i didn't even figure it would matter to him, since i hadn't figured that he actually liked me! but apparently, i was totally wrong about that. oops. sorry, S.)
driving home from work the following day, i realized that it would not be honoring to S if i dropped our correspondence without at least some sort of explanation...
so i wrote him an email about my desire to keep to the task that the Lord had assigned to me. "keep to the task" was a motto we had coined, and it alluded to some of our previous conversations about refraining from writing so much so that we could keep to the task.
this was my goodbye email. i had no plans on writing him again after that. i had put it on the altar and slaughtered it pretty good.
intentions
after two days when i still had not heard from him, it hit me that it was really over. and i was experiencing the pain of the slaughter. there was absolutely nothing wrong with this brother -- except that he was a million miles away.
but that reality check was good enough for me. he was a million miles away! well, Lord, it's absolutely all yours.
the very next day, i received an email from S. here's some of what he wrote:
"...the reason it's been so hard to restrain myself from writing you is that I've really enjoyed getting to "know" you ... It's been neat hearing about how the Lord has been working in your life ever since you first knew him, about your contagious passion for the Lord which you spread to people all around you, about your life as a Navigator, about how you're seeking the Lord with all your heart and seeking His will (no matter how hard or impossible or crazy it sounds to other people), about how He's given you a passion for the unreached and to go to the farthest parts of the earth even though you don't like dirt, about the things you are learning from Him, about our "me too"s, and the list goes on. It was even fun to have co-labored with you in the very beginning...pertaining to the One-Verse Bridge illustration. The more I get to know you, the more impressed I am at how you seek to be a woman of integrity whose motto is "to know Christ and to make Him known" - and who actually lives it out to the fullest. And that is the most attractive thing about you, Mary Ann... which is why I wish to walk in the direction of possibly pursuing a deeper relationship with you -- of more than just friendship.
Of all people, believe me, I realize how unusual this sounds. After all, I've never even met you....But, I felt it best for both of us to communicate my hopes and intentions for the purpose of being completely transparent with you...making intentions known and clear.
I still insist...that we may both individually be persons of integrity who love the Lord with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength -- especially as we both have time-sensitive Work, responsibilities, and ministries that should be done heartily as unto the Lord -- and "being all here", as Jim Elliot would say. And I... (want to) work harder on the questions..."How do I honor her? How do I guard my heart? How do I guard hers?" as well as "How can I treat Mary Ann with integrity?"
i was totally floored. wow, he likes and appreciates me for all the things that i would want to be appreciated for! i felt *seen*, *known*, *noticed* and pursued. 
that night, i prayed and asked, "Lord, are you really doing something here?" the answer came back at me in a flash, "mary ann, have you been paying attention?" i thought back to the last few months - to all the answered prayers, strange miracles, uncanny similarities and timings about things (he actually loves to memorize verses as much as i do!); our hearts and lives were echoes of each other; it seemed as though we were two bookends made from the same piece of wood - called to the same purpose, made of the exact same stuff, but just slightly and in the slightness, beautifully different! of course, God was doing something. he had been doing something all along.
the first phone call
the first time we talked to each other on the phone was that weekend.
in anticipating the phone call, i hadn't been able to sleep at all two nights prior. i was deathly afraid of heartbreak and of the past hurtful realities in relationships spilling into the present. i only knew what it was like to have my heart mishandled. would it happen again?
God responded to my fears with verse after verse about trusting Him. i got the picture after i had about twenty verses. well, "trust God" i surely could do, but how could i trust S? i didn't really even know him.
but God said to me, "trusting me right now means trusting S. trusting S means trusting me." *whoah* now that was a scary injunction!
the next morning while i waited for the phone call, God reminded me of isaiah 43:18-19. "forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. see, i am doing a new thing! now it springs up; do you not perceive it? i am making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland."
that passage had never spoken to me so much as it did that morning. 1. forget the past! 2. i'm doing a new thing! 3. i'm making a way where there was no way! -- yes, God, let it be so!
i don't know who was more nervous for this phone conversation. i found out several months later that he had apparently been thinking and praying a lot and even fasted over this phone call! no wonder it went so well.
the most memorable thing he said to me that day was, "even if you're not the one, you certainly have raised the bar for what i am looking for in a wife." that was good, because he had "ruined me" in terms of what my expectations now were for a man!
we decided that since we had 2.5 months left in our terms and we still had not met, we wanted to commit the remaining time to get to know one another more, and encourage each other in one another's walk and ministry. in august, he would be coming home and could drop by san francisco, could he see me then? oh, the resounding yes!! (i got what i prayed for!)
waiting
as if to confirm our decision, God did a fun thing for us the very next day. in the morning before work, as i prayed for sam and his ministry, i asked the Lord to bring someone new for him to make friends with. about an hour after i had gotten to work, i received an email from him. he excitedly told me about a "strange" thing that had happened. he had been walking along with his teammate when a random stranger called out their names. they approached this stranger who inquired when they'd be returning back to the states and then offered S his phone number and said they should hang out. God seemed to hand-deliver this opportunity! i knew before i even asked but did so anyway, "S, what time did that happen?" "about 9:30 pm," he said. well, needless to say, 9 pm there is 8 am here. it happened immediately right after i prayed for him!
it was a great 2.5 months of getting to know each other better and waiting on the Lord. i can't really tell you how we did it (i'm not sure myself), but we were able to guard each other's hearts and keep a reign on our emotions. (i think perhaps it had to do with the verses we studied together about waiting on the Lord). our greatest hearts' desire was to run hard and fast for God during that summer.
the last email i wrote him right before he left the field said this:
"Well, so we will see each other for the first time in just a few days. It's been a good period of waiting. Any longer would've been death. Any shorter wouldn't have trained us how to trust. The timing is just perfect. I can't wait to see you.
I'm so glad that when we see each other, we have no regrets about this past summer nor about our time together post-dtr and pre-meeting. I feel so thankful that you are a man of integrity. I feel thankful that you put Him first. I feel thankful that this whole time, we've "kept to the task" and were "all there" just as we knew we were called to do. And that we have helped each other toward that end, rather than hindering. I can see you and be glad. Nothing to be ashamed of. It's going to be a great reunion for us on Friday!! 
You make me love God more and serve Him better."
the first meeting
the first time we met was at the san francisco airport. i was so nervous, waiting for him to come out of the gate, i thought i was gonna hyperventilate, keel over and die. but that didn't happen, and we came face to face for the first time on august 12th, 2005.
poor S. he was totally disoriented from not having been in the united states for two and half years, and there he was, spending his first moments with me, a near stranger! and yet, not so strange.
it was awkward, i was nervous, he was disoriented, and we were shy, but it had all the wide-eyed wonder and awe of new beginnings that anyone could want.
we took a stroll together along the bay that afternoon; and in the evening, i made dinner for S, colleen and bernard. after the meal, the four of us had a memorable time rolling on the floor with laughter. it was the perfect way to break the ice.
he and i ended the evening talking about the future. how would we go deeper in this relationship if he was in louisiana or texas and i was in california? right before he had left the field, he had written me to say that maybe he could move to the bay area, find a job and save money for seminary, while spending that time getting to know me more. but it wasn't the most ideal scenario, somehow.
earlier, we had both applied to my spiritual mentor, larry bauer, for some counsel. during the week that sam was enroute to the states, larry had come up with an idea. why not move to san diego, get jobs, deepen our relationship, build bridges for my parents toward the great commission, receive training from navigator staff, and serve and minister together?
i thought it was a brilliant idea. but i didn't think S would go for it. after all, moving to san diego would mean moving to my turf. oh but, Lord, would you give me all the desires of my heart?
i brought up the idea to my sister and two of my best friends. all of whom, to my surprise, exclaimed, "that's a great idea!" i had thought the latter two would protest with hopes of having me go where they were, but they confirmed my heart's desire instead!
it gave me courage that night to share larry's suggestion with S. and to my great, great surprise, he said without even missing a beat, "that's a great idea!" we discussed the ramifications and prayed together, believing that God would make a way where there was no way. God had brought isaiah 43:18-19 to mind again earlier that morning. he was doing another new thing!
courtship
on august 27th, sam and i officially transitioned from friendship to a romantic relationship. we agreed that to do so would mean that we were verbally acknowledging and committing to one another to care for one another, serve each other and serve Christ - and to see if He were leading us to do this for a lifetime. we recognized quite easily that He had been leading us all along and entrusted ourselves to Him to continue to lead us on.
two weeks after our relationship began, God gave us a special week together in texas (God paid my airfare!), where i met his family and we shared our friends with each other (S got to meet my best friend!) as well as dreams and plans for the future. we felt affirmed as others were surprised that we had only been in each other's presence for a few days - for there was such a naturalness to our being together.
a naturalness from supernaturalness. what an amazing relationship it has been.
he *treasures* me and i feel treasured by him. (there's no mishandling of the heart, here!) and this is what i told him:
"I've never met anyone like you - who understands God's heart for the lost *and* the nations, who is intentional in loving others to the Lord, who has Navigator DNA and "m" jeans (genes hehe) weaved thoroughly into your being. I like that you were so determined not to get sucked into the love of the world that you packed your bags and left America...You know God's promises and you claim them; you follow Him in obedience - even when it's uncomfortable for you...It's obvious that you love God more than yourself! And you love His Word so much you're hiding it in your heart...And I like that you share the Bridge with people when you want to explain the good news and you're passionate about getting people into the Word. I like that it gets to you that there are people out there dying without a Savior, because it gets to me too!!! I like that you got the chance to share Jesus with a minority group of people who don't know Jesus (what a dream of mine). I like that it was such a norm for you to tell people about Him and pass out the Book. I don't know too many people who have experienced that sort of "normalcy"!!! I like... so many things about you. I've never met a man like you before. You fit my "list"! And I think that is quite astonishing."
confirmations
the night i wrote that email to S, he had been asking the Lord for confirmation about making the move to san diego. my words of affirmation came immediately after he had asked the question and served as confirmation #1 that, yes, i really was worth pursuing.
the second confirmation sam received was when the Lord gave him Genesis 12:1-3. Verse 1 said, "The LORD had said to Abram, "Leave your country, your people and your father's household and go to the land I will show you." (click here for the rest of the passage) *whoah*
the third confirmation was his parents' favor and blessing and encouragement to go, follow God's leading and pursue me! he got that blessing even though he had been doubtful of the possibility...
there's more, but you'll have to ask him for his side of the story.
so now... san diego, here we come!
conclusion
earlier this year, i had been inspired by rebekah - to be in the right place at the right time doing the right thing -- so that i could be somebody's answered prayer. that was it, that was all i needed to do: be right with God, living and breathing at the center of His will, and His blessings and favor would pour out.
this is my testimony of this God of love who, not only longs to, but actually gives us the desires of our hearts.
go here for the continuation of the story.
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