My hair is gettin' long now where is that aisle song!

I think we are in love and getting really
good with selfies

You wouldn't believe it!

Ok, maybe you would, as you are, or know many brides or brides to be that go a little nuts with wedding songs looping through their heads 25/7, with all the decisions to be made, admittedly making them go a little 'loopy' as the day draws closer. So sure enough Charlene falls in line with the rest of them!

 Yes, I have the dress! Its my creamy vintage delight! Yes I have the stunning countryside church garden venue! Honk at the fine South African Holstein herds as you cruise by! Yes I have a few family and friends sacrificing a lot to come all the way down here, November 28th,
 to join the rest of this family to celebrate Mennonite-Xhosa style! Now what that will these two worlds colliding look like? Oooh a pre-view of heaven is my prediction! We shall see how many slick dance moves my dad has been holding in all this time! The dream is happening people!

All of this planning and scheming with Mawande has been...I must say, insightful! So what is it that causes little boys to most commonly reach for sticks and and rocks, and little girls, from the first day of dress-up, to prance around in make-belief wedding heels? Women, we have been designed to love love hey? No matter the cost, the fight, the pain, the painful wait, to the bottom of where we try to stuff it, we find we are at our best being loved and loving. This, ideally resulting in that happily ever after sunset photo shoot some day, when all is made right...riiiiight...!?

And then... Ive been told the crash landing back to life happens, there really is the day after. The fairy sparkles in each other's eyes turn into crusty sleep that your loved one annoyingly picks out more so because it is distracting to the conversation about the electricity bill that they are trying to get you to focus on in the morning. Ha as I'm clearly speaking from NO experience, but stories of those who have taken this leap of faith ahead of us, this is real and is why Mawande and I have been plunging ahead in a nine month marriage counseling course.

Don't get me wrong, we are joyful! We believe in marriage more than we ever have! But we are also aware that as a wholesome marriage can champion one another into their best, raise a family in a victorious Godly Kingdom lifestyle, and lay foundations for healthy nations to build upon, marriage is one of the enemy's greatest enemies. He hates it. He hates everything it has the potential to create, to nurture, to protect, to conquer.  Offering self sacrificing love and unmerited grace to one another, as Jesus daily gives us, within a marriage, defeats all fears and insecurities and insufficiency in ourselves, in our present circumstances of heart-aches, and in our unknown futures. Our loved one is ment to believe in the unbelievable about ourselves and our Father for us when we cant, to stand for us when everything else has fallen and come out over-coming full of hope for anyone else to walk into victory then, as we have.

The enemy knows how world changing marriage can be, thus he wields its power against us for absolute devastation in so many who attempt to unite under the wedding arch. Over fifty percent of you reading can testify to this in your own broken marriage, so many more of you as children can tell the same story in your agonizing childhood.

The beautiful Kristina Zacharias, my former MCI student
was passing through Muiz...

Wild Fires right above our Muizenberg mountain that blazed
for a couple days, breaking open certain spieces of plants that
are only activated by fire. We heard it crackling for days.

So you might be wondering where is this idealistic 30 year old want to go after all this? I want to boldly believe in marriage as we start this thing from scratch. I want to be a part of the Kingdom of Heaven reality of believing in marriage again..for young women to dream white daisy-in-the-hair dreams again...

As Mawande and I have been meeting with a few single young people from our Xhosa family church, get this tragedy, there has been such historical damage done to the family structure beginning with the intentional separation of husbands and wives, that the little girl "one day my wedding dress" instincts themselves have vanished. Marriage now is associated with entrapment, suffering and suffocated dreams. In our church of 60 people, there are a mere two married couples. These same young people look at us in awe, wondering what in the world has compelled us to willingly want to step into this covenant together. God's greatest model of how he longs to freely and joyfully exchange love and sacrifice for us, as a committed unto death man does for his wife, has turned into the very picture of lifelong imprisonment of unhappiness and betrayal.

Time out on the town with my new lil sis' Sive Mani!

Thus, we are equipping ourselves now as we have this feeling the battle will be long and hard. Weekly we attempt to humbly sit down on that brown counseling couch, bracing ourselves for the next subject that brings up more selfishness and insecurity to stare us in the face. It is already not easy...even among pre-wedding honeymoon butterflies to help lift us through! We have this deepest gut feeling that if marriage is God's dream in the first place, than it will be worth every drop of work and tears when mutually submitted to Him and one another. Its just got to be a genius idea if it was all started by the happiest loving wise Being and Father of all creativity?!

We want to play our part in His vision for the redemption of marriage in this generation, for the generations to come. We believe that as marriages are made right, churches can function healthily, and the marvelous manifold wisdom of our beautiful God can be displayed for all to see that he really is the best. Thus, for those of you wondering why we chose to do our wedding here in South Africa, I hope this gives you understanding of the big picture of what story God wants to start here through our 'big day' on this land particularly.

Psalm 126 (The Message)

1 It seemed like a dream, too good to be true, when God returned Zion's exiles.
2 We laughed, we sang, we couldn't believe our good fortune. We were the talk of the nations - "God was wonderful to them!"
3 God was wonderful to us; we are one happy people.
4 And now, God, do it again - bring rains to our drought-stricken lives
5 So those who planted their crops in despair will shout hurrahs at the harvest,
6 So those who went off with heavy hearts will come home laughing, with armloads of blessing.

My new Mountain view counsling happy space!

Least to say, life has been full and good and hard and worthwhile on this side! In other news! I received one of the highest compliments a few weeks back when one of the people I have been counseling, ran up to the man training me, boasting out of breath how amazing she was doing after spending time in my office for several weeks. Her work space had been terrorized by an angry gang member, leaving great fearful impact on the whole organization.
 But voila! fresh first fruits of his love being made alive in and through me! Its not often we get to hear about instant results like that when working with people, so this was very affirming as I'm just getting my feet wet in this beautiful and muddy field. Its fun watching Jesus at work (maybe even wearing rubber boots out there in the muck with us dare I say?!), He's really good at what he does, he actually knows how to heal everything.

Thriving at 30

Did I mention I turned 30 last month?! Why not I say! I feel healthy and free to love and be loved by Jesus firstly, and then am heaped full of affection by so many wonderful people in my life as all the bonus love and cherries on top (or at least I'm beginning to try to learn to see it like this!) Birthday family breakfasts with Mawande by the sea and homemade pizza at my sisters for dinner, with a sunny afternoon of relax and cheese tasting sandwiched in between with friends! I truly lived a blessed life! I want to thank each one of you loving me by listening to my heart as you read through my stories. I pray the Spirit of Jesus uses my words and world to speak hope and love into yours. You truly bless me. Cheers to another 30 years!

Ice creaming nephew time at the sea side, they make me so happy

As I sign off here...I urge you to search for those "dusty wedding shoe boxes" in your life, to start dreaming again with us as we start fresh in our marriage journey. Amidst a seemingly all hope is lost circumstance today, and I say that with all respect for some of the extremely painful places some of you find yourselves in, lets start daring to lift those lids again with the thought that just maybe sunset photo shoots are not too good to be true.

Lets be willingly crazy together and let our Father take a peek inside again.

Its His favorite thing to do.

He's the Fixer.

"...So those who went off with heavy hearts will come home laughing"

192 days to go!!!
And then the real fun begins!

Love Charlene