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| | A GOD STORY
The story of how we met
Every year around October, I head out to U of I for CFC’s annual Revival. When I go, I usually stay with my close friend Danny Tang. Danny and I had been accountability partners back when I was a student at U of I and amidst the wrestling to love God more and fighting our sins, we often came across the topic of girls. =P We’d often joke with each other that we’re not praying and fasting hard enough for each other and that’s why we’re both still single =P. When I had booked my tickets for Revival that year and contacted him
asking if I could stay over, it was no different. Our conversation went something like this:
Danny: Hey.. you married yet?
Me: Nope.. obviously, you haven’t been praying hard enough for me.
Danny: Actually…
Apparently, Danny had someone in mind he wanted to introduce to me. Now you have to understand something about me.. I’m not a fan of setups. I was always very happy to hear when my friends got setup, but deep down, I’d always chuckle a little. God seems to have a sense of humor =P. I told Danny not to even tell me who it was and that I wasn’t interested at all. His response: “ok whatever”
Fast forward a few months. At revival, its tradition that I hang out with Danny’s small group… he has this weird habit of printing out SG pictures for me so I can post it on my wall to pray for them.. he calls it “drive-by-praying”. Anyway, after the second night of Revival (Friday, Oct 19, 2007), I get a call from him shortly after revival saying "hey.. my small group is hanging out in the tunnels at CRH.. just knock on the door and someone will open up... make sure you’re there." I didn’t think much of it and as I walked in, I introduced myself: "Hi, I’m Bow-Nan.. from New Jersey.. I’m an alumni visiting for the weekend." As I said that, from across the room, someone else said "Oh! I’m an alumni too!" Something in my mind clicked.. this was the girl Danny wanted to introduce me to!!... and because I’m not really smooth.. I scuffled to the opposite side of the room and made conversation with the guys.. deathly avoiding her. Toward the end of the night, Danny was giving out ride assignments, and he cleverly said "hey.. Bow-Nan, can you ride with Curtis (Alice’s ride)? I need to drive SG people home!" and on the ride back, we talked briefly. That night while Danny and I were chatting before we slept, I asked him: "So.. is Alice the girl you wanted to introduce me to?" to which he responded "Yup!" Trying to be *cool*, I responded "she seems like a nice girl"..
That weekend, Alice and I didn’t talk very much. Aside from the brief conversation on the car ride back, the only other time we talked briefly was Sunday after church when all of us went out to eat together... needless to say… I was VERY interested =P. So much so that when I got home from Revival, the first thing I did was call my mom and say "mom.. so I met this nice Taiwanese girl.. Danny wants to introduce me to her.. can you pray about it?" To which she responded... "OK! Send me a picture of her!!" (I later found out she had printed this picture and put it on top of her computer.. oh mom =P)
After we got back from Revival, we "friended" everyone in Danny’s small group and started exchanging facebook messages. One message lead to another... led to emails... led to AIM conversations. We found out that oddly enough, we had a lot of things in common: We were both Taiwanese (and our families were both very pro-Taiwan)… our family backgrounds and upbringing were very similar (she had an older brother too and two solid Christian parents while I had a younger sister and two solid Christian parents)... we did the same ministries in college… just different semesters… went to the same missions trip (Inner City Chicago).. just different years… both were out-of-staters at U of I (her family was from Omaha Nebraska)… both wanted to stay for a little longer after graduation, but got rejected from U of I for grad school… a lot of things.
About 3 weeks into knowing her, as odd as it is to say, I was pretty sure she was the one God had prepared for me… and so.. I asked her the question that if you’ve spent *any* time at CFC, you’d know that this is the universal "I’m interested in you" question: "Where do you feel like God is calling you in your life? What do you get excited about?" For me, I wanted to make sure we were moving in the same direction and I knew that there were 2 things I feel "called" to... things that I just get really excited and passionate about. The first is teaching/training. Looking at the opportunities God’s given me in the past and the direction He’s bringing me, I feel very strongly that He wants me to play some sort of teaching/training role.. this could mean teaching Sunday school.. or teaching at a university.. or working with setting up different ministries. The second thing I felt God was calling me to is family. I feel very strongly that family is 50% of my ministry and I want to really be a good husband to my wife and a great father to my kids. If she was called to overseas missions... or called to become a CEO and work and travel like crazy, then we probably wouldn’t be a good fit. It’s not to say that God might not call me to something like
overseas missions.. but in the near-term, I do not see that.
She answered that she gets excited working with youth.. and that for her, family was very important. It was a match! :)
Every year, we go out to OIL Retreat in Montrose, PA. A lot of people from U of I caravan out and so during one of our conversations, I asked Alice whether she was planning on caravanning out for OIL or whether she was going to fly out. I also suggested that if she flew out, I could pick her up from the airport and since Danny usually hangs out in the east coast a few days after OIL, that if she wanted to, she could join us and I could find a place for her to stay. So only 2 months after we met before we started courting, she flew out for OIL and met my parents and she and Danny stayed a few days after OIL to hangout. Needless to say, my parents loved her immediately!
My original plan was to use the days following OIL to ask her if she’d be willing to pray about allowing me to court her.. but... at OIL, I got convicted that God wanted me to wait. There were specific reasons I felt like He wanted me to wait: 1) I was not done with my studies yet.. and I knew that that semester would be work-intensive with my defense and thesis due. 2) I didn’t have a job yet.. so how would I even support a family? In addition, I wasn’t sure which part of the country I’d be in yet. 3) I wanted to finish off the last semester with my fellowship and church well and really invest in them before I left.
I wanted to convey my thoughts to her (in an indirect way of course).. and so while we were sharing about what we learned at OIL, I shared that I felt God wanted me to wait on a few things… things like job... future family... etc. Later on, she told me she got the message. :)
A few months later, I flew out to Chicago and we took the train down to U of I for a lockin. The Saturday after lockin (April 19, 2008), we took a walk around campus and ended up on one of the benches near the undergraduate library. As we were walking, the sky was a bit dark and gloomy.. it looked like it was about to rain. I’d planned to ask her if she’d be willing to pray about allowing me to court her that afternoon.. but there were major butterflies in my stomach ;) Finally... I figured I should probably say something before it started raining... and so I started:
Alice... there’s something I’ve been praying about for the past few months... I went on to explain that I felt like there were 4 main reasons I thought we were a good match: 1) Culturally, we were very similar with our family background, church experience, etc. 2) I felt like in terms of direction God was moving both of us, we matched well in terms of calling and things we got excited about in ministry... 3) Timing seemed really good… I had just finished my thesis and defense... and I had a job lined up… she had already been working for 3-4 years and was in essentially a "holding-pattern"... and 4) I felt like we could really serve together. And so on that afternoon, I asked her "would you be willing to pray about allowing me to court you?" To which she responded shyly "ok!" When I’d
finished talking... the sky had cleared and it was bright and sunny… we often joke with each other that Jesus did us a favor that day. :)
What’s amazing is that after our feelings were "out in the open", we started sharing about what we felt during each occasion. The day after Revival 2007, I called my mom saying that I had met a nice Taiwanese girl that loves God and asked my mom to pray about it. Well it turns out that the day after, Alice had done the exact same thing! It was amazing to hear that both of our families and extended families had already been praying in earnestness for both of us 6 months before we even started courting! We talked about when we were thinking about getting married (we were both pretty sure and I was thinking 1-1.5 years)... and as I asked her, she shyly said "a year.. year and a half?"... another match! I went on to share that I felt called to be in Boston.. and she responded that she figured that and was already planning to start looking for jobs as soon as I moved out there. That day, we also set boundaries… things like no lip kissing until our wedding and the like.
Things moved really quickly after that... my mom called her mom a week later to introduce herself... the same summer, I went to Taiwan and visited her grandma and aunt and uncle... then when I came back, I flew out to Omaha to visit her parents. In September of this year, my parents flew out to Omaha to meet her parents. Things were so clear and moved quickly with the support of our friends, Pastors, and immediate and extended family. Praise God!
Looking back, I’m just amazed at how God works. How I’d end up with a Taiwanese girl who loves God and who’s family loves God from Omaha Nebraska just blows my mind. When I think about our relationship, the thing I’m most blessed and challenged by is how intimate God’s hand was at work in preparing both of us and working things out. Had we met a year earlier, things probably wouldn’t have worked out… He’s the one that brought us together at the right time and place… prepared both of us for when we’d meet... and we are confident that He will be the one that sustains our relationship. Our confidence is not in the fact that we can be a good husband or a good spouse… or that we can, by our own strength, grow our future family, our confidence and hope is that God spent a lot of energy bringing us together and He has a plan for us. Thank You Jesus!!
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The Proposal
I had known how I wanted to propose to my future wife several years back.. the idea popped into my mind while I was taking a network security class. Although I kept it in the back of my mind (with the details to be fleshed out)... I was glad when I met Alice that she was just as dorky as I was and the knew plan would work :)
While we were courting, we had exchanged hand-written letters. The past weekend, I flew out to U of I for Revival and as part of our time together, I suggested that we take out all the letters we’ve exchanged and go to the place I had asked her out, and re-read the letters again to each other to "celebrate" us meeting at Revival 2007. What she did not know was that I had written a letter when we first started courting and "encoded" it into each letter I wrote her. It was also convenient that that Sunday was October 19, 2008... exactly 6 months from when I asked her out (Saturday April 19, 2008) and exactly 1 year from when I met her (Friday October 19, 2007)... this was totally a God thing as I didn’t even realize it until after we started courting and had prayed for a date God wanted me to propose on.
Anyway, after church and lunch on Sunday, we took a walk and "ended up" where I asked her out and started re-reading our letters to each other. After we finished reading all the letters, I told her I had written another letter for her. Then, I took all the letters I wrote her over the course of the past 6 months, put them in chronological order, and asked her to read the first word of each line going down silently, as i read it out loud. 20-25 pages later… the last line read "will you marry me?" By the time I got to the last few sentences, she had already started crying... so when I popped the question, she just kept nodding... of course later on she said “yes” :)
The second surprise was that her parents drove in from Omaha and my parents and sister flew out from the east coast and we had a nice meal together as one family! I have to say.. it was a bit odd to have to call Alice’s parents "mom and dad"... but I suppose I’ll
get used to it!~ :)
When I look back at our time together... all I can see is God. This has been "A God Story" from the beginning and its our prayer that our lives will be "A God Story" no matter where He takes us in the future. Though there are ups and downs, we are so thankful that He’s worked everything out and continues to work everything out for His glory. Please continue to pray for us!!
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Here's the letter i "encoded" into her letters :)
Dear Alice,
It was exactly one year ago on this very day October 19 and on this very campus that we met. Although we did not talk much that weekend, I remember leaving with a deep sense of God’s amazing love. I had struggled a lot with what God had in store for me and in particular, who He had prepared for me to serve with. After meeting you, I just kept thinking that if someone as great as you existed, then surely God had someone just as awesome prepared for me.
One thing lead to another and six months later, on April 19, I asked you if you’d allow me to court you. At the time, I had reasoned and shared 4 things on why I felt we were a good match: it seemed that we were moving in the same direction in terms of calling and what we got excited about, it seemed that our backgrounds were very similar both culturally and spiritually, it seemed as though timing was very good in terms of life-stage, and it seemed as though we were compatible in serving together – we’d be a great team. From my own perspective, everything looked great. Little did I know that God had already been at work long before. That day, you shared with me how like me, you had called your mom shortly after Revival weekend to ask her to pray about me. When I heard that you and your extended family, like mine, had been praying for this for 6 months, I was once again floored by how God worked!
Today, exactly 6 months later, despite many struggles and failures, I feel even more strongly than ever before that we were meant for each other. I cannot imagine anyone else I’d rather grow old with. You have been my support, my treasure, and my joy and I am just blown away that God would allow me the privilege of serving with you. I said once that I couldn’t promise you a nice house in the suburbs... or a comfortable life... but one thing I promise… is to love God with everything and let His love flow to you. Today, I reiterate that promise. Alice, I love you. Will you marry me?
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And the letter i wrote her parents to ask for her hand... i think this might be a draft of it.. i forget which copy i took pictures of (my parents said my Chinese is totally chicken-scratch and 2nd grade language =[):
| | | Posted 10/26/2008 3:39 PM - 134 Views - 10 eProps - 5 comments
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