A Wife of Noble Character

"A wife of noble character who can find? She is worth far more than rubies." (Proverbs 31:10)

Ok, in this blog I haven't revealed *all* of the goings on here in Uganda! As a lot of you know, I came here for 2 reasons - to see where God would guide Agnes & I in our relationship, and to see where he would guide me as far as the possibility of working with the Kampala Christian Church Network (KCCN) and International Missionaries For Christ (IMFC) - 2 things that He put in my heart to pursue when I was here for 2 weeks last year working alongside these teams with a group from my church. After about the 1st week of being back here I already knew I wanted to marry Aggie. She is an amazing woman - beautiful inside and out, and truly a woman of noble character! After spending a lot of time together over the last 2 months, the desire to marry her didn't change, but I felt I needed to wait for God to make some other things clear (or clearer). One of these was the place he might have here for me with the KCCN and IMFC. He did speak to me about this - to start out small and be faithful to use the gifts he has given me - the strongest ones being serving and mercy - "Those who can be trusted with little will be trusted with much". So that was the direction that I needed.

The other thing I felt I needed to see was his provision for us - for me & Aggie and her (to be *our*) children. I didn't feel that I could ask her to marry me and plan to come back to Kampala until I knew that this provision was in place. We would both really like to work full time in teaching & training and evangelism with the KCCN and IMFC here in Kampala, but we need to have some way of supporting ourselves. So at that point I felt that the ball was in God's court. Over a period of a couple of weeks, God hit the ball back into my court - I felt that he was leading me to do the reverse - to move ahead with plans to marry Aggie, and trust him to provide. Yikes! But the truth of it is that all of this has been his thing - so he is going to provide!

So this past Friday evening I took Aggie to a nice outdoor Thai restaurant - and I asked her to be my wife. She said yes! I already knew she would - she has been patiently waiting for me to ask this question, *grin*. We are planning to be married in the first week of June. I go back to the U.S. on the 2nd of March, will get everything ready to return to Uganda to live in late May, and we will trust God to bring together the provision.

Wow - what an adventure! I have to be honest - I've stuggled with fear and anxiety along the way, but God keeps reassuring me and guiding me and encouraging me step by step. So I know we'll continue to see him do that!

I know a lot of you will be really excited to hear this news! Aggie and I will be away until the end of this weekend - we're leaving Wednesday to take her kids to school up in north east Uganda - which will be an adventure in itself! So I'll catch up with you all (with lots of photos I reckon!) when we get back.

Simon &:-)}

(P.S. The photo at the top of this blog entry is after I asked Aggie to marry me, *grin*)