14: 7-11 says, “When he noticed how the guests picked the places of honor at
the table, he told them this parable: 8 “When someone invites you to a wedding
feast, do not take the place of honor, for a person more distinguished than you
may have been invited. 9.If so, the host who invited both of you will come and
say to you, ‘Give this man your seat.’ Then, humiliated, you will have to take
the least important place. 10. But
when you are invited, take the lowest place, so that when your host comes, he
will say to you, ‘Friend, move up to a better place.’ Then you will be honored
in the presence of all your fellow guests. 11. For everyone who exalts himself
will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”
Coming
on the race I had always wondered the many places I would be. I thought about huts, villages, poor
homes, prisons, schools, churches, and other areas! Never would I ever expect
to be at an Indian wedding. When
thinking about U.S. weddings I can’t really go by much of anything because I
have been to maybe two or three! Actually, weddings aren’t exciting to me! I say there are two things that I fear
the most in life, God and weddings(just kidding, or am I)! Thus, when our
ministry contact came up with this invitation to his sister’s wedding, I have
to say that I was not really overjoyed.
However, the girls were, of course! I did figure that it would be
interesting, and I thought it might would be cool in a P.B.S. channel kind of
way. Nonetheless we went!
We
traveled late the night before the big event an arrived at 1:00 a.m. Thus we slept immediately when we got
to the apartment that was rented for us.
The next morning we had a delicious breakfast at the host’s house. There we met the groom and bride and we
got to talk to them! They both turned out to be really solid Christian people!
They shared their story with us and we sat in amazement of how God has blessed
them. I most definitely was in awe
of how big of an honor for them it was to have us there. We just thought it would be cool to
show up, but they had great passion and were so very excited to have us there! It wasn’t like we had anything to give!
They just enjoyed the fellowship and having foreign missionaries at their
wedding! It was an honor just to be in the mist of people who carry out God’s
work! It was more of a celebration
of lives that do the work of the Lord!
The
wedding was long but truly beautiful! They were literally treated like king and
queens! It was an awesome ceremony!
After the wedding we had a reception! We were trying to find a place to
sit together, then we were ask to sit at the front! We were being honored for showing up! It was so humbling for
us because they treated us so dearly with the love of Christ! At the reception they had a huge throne
where the bride and groom had sat to take pictures! It was really awesome! They sat there for hours taking
pictures with people who showed up!
All of a sudden we were asked to take pictures and not just any pictures
we ended up in the family pictures!
That’s crazy! We didn’t even know until that morning but know we are in
their big family photo! God truly
loved and honored us that night!
It was a beautiful thing! That night we prayed over their marriage and
celebrated with the family! I pray
we as children of God can learn to celebrate people who carry out God’s work as
they celebrated with us!
