Providence!

Greetings!

As we celebrate our “eleven-monthaversary” we wanted to write and tell about God’s goodness to us over the past year. We are so thankful to Him for bringing us together and it has been a joy to consider how He has worked in years past to bring us together as friends and most recently as husband and wife.

We have both been at TMC since the fall of 1999. Joanna came from the city of Visakhapatnam in the state of Andhra Pradesh, India and came to TMC to participate in the one-year Bible certificate program known as TMI. After completing the program she continued on to get her Master’s degree in Biblical counseling and then began working full-time in the college library. Cameron came from the town of Farmington, Maine, also for the purpose of studying in TMI program, but after one semester transferred into the regular bachelor’s degree program to study music, influenced by his involvement in the college chorale. After two years as a full-time student, he began to work full-time in the Computer Services department at TMC while pursuing his education part-time.

We didn’t really meet that first year and it wasn’t until the latter half of our third semester at TMC that we met through some mutual friends. Through the next couple years we had some occasional contact through school or church (we attended the same church for awhile), but we didn’t really get to know each other until Joanna needed someone to help her learn to drive. We had some interesting moments on the streets of Santa Clarita, including an unplanned excursion down the freeway (due to Cameron’s poor direction J) for a couple of exits, and we had some time to converse during those times.

After that summer of driving together, we became much closer friends. For a time we had house- and/or apartment-mates that were siblings, and so it seemed like we regularly got together as a group for various celebrations (or to help Joanna and friends move to a new location, which happened about once a year J).

Although the thought had occasionally come to Cameron in those years about whether to pursue Joanna, he waited until December of 2004, when he asked her to TMC’s annual Christmas concert series, only to find that she was going with a friend. He asked her out again to coffee in early January of 2005.

We began spending time together, learning about each other in a more determined fashion, even taking a trip to San Francisco to visit some of Joanna’s relatives. After about four months of dating we broke off the relationship and didn’t communicate for the majority of the summer. We both knew that there were issues we needed to deal with in our own hearts (issues of communication, mainly), but we stubbornly and sinfully refused to humble ourselves to the point of seriously considering our ways and asking forgiveness. As God worked through mutual friends to convict us of our offense toward each other, and as we began to discuss with each other the issues between us, it became apparent that not only were we working toward our restoration as brother and sister in Christ but also toward a deeper, more committed relationship than what we had before.

Once our relationship was restored, it became very clear that we were headed toward marriage. We began attending the same church and enjoying more time together, often taking long evening walks on the footpaths near the house where Joanna lived, spending time in conversation and prayer.
When Cameron’s parents went out to Arkansas to visit his sister and brother-in-law, we decided to capitalize on the chance to catch most of his family together, and so we surprised them (with his sister’s help) with a weekend trip to Little Rock. It was actually a last minute decision to go on our own part, but God was gracious in providing the chance to go (and in keeping us from missing our outgoing flights, despite our best efforts J). He gave us a wonderful time with Cameron’s parents and sister and her husband and parents-in-law, and we experienced a wonderful time at their church in Little Rock.

Cameron had already purchased the engagement ring before the trip, but he waited another two weeks afterwards to propose. After sharing the good news with friends and family we discovered that our plans of a wedding just before Christmas weren’t going to work for so many of our friends, and so we moved it to December 3rd, giving us five weeks to plan and execute what we both described as a “simple” wedding.

You may think that five weeks is an impossibly short time, but Providence was the theme of our wedding! Each day and every detail and all the precious moments were a blessing from God’s hands. As days passed, we continued to enjoy long walks, visited friends and enjoyed fellowship with the saints into whose lives God has placed us. Through the help, generosity, and sacrifice of faithful friends, the Lord provided all that was needed for our wedding to be on the 3rd. The list would be really long if we mentioned the name of each person that God used to provide for this wedding, and we are so appreciative of His gifts to us through many of you who have been pleased to serve as His channels of blessing. We have received so much encouragement from many who were able to attend the wedding, and we are thankful for everything that was given. We do not want to forget those of you who went beyond what was asked or needed nor do we wish to minimize what we received as the smallest token of your love to us. God saw your heart of giving and we love you and truly thank you and rejoice in God’s goodness through you all.

Thank you!