Happy Valentine’s Day! The topic of love comes to the fore in the month of February, as we celebrate Valentine’s Day on the 14th. Most of us enjoy hearing a good love story, and it’s exciting when God brings two people together. This past year, the mission has been blessed to watch God’s hand in several marriages.

JOE AND BRIDGET
Joe:Prior to coming to Union Mission’s Foundation program, all I knew was a life of addiction. While in the program, I remember praying for God to prepare a wife for me as I focused on having my heart changed. After graduating, God led me by His spirit to further my education at Word of Life. My first year was in Florida and my second year was in New York where I met this beautiful lady Bridget. I could see how God was most important to her and I remember saying, “This is the kind of lady I want to marry.” We ended up going to a church service together and spending a lot of time thereafter getting to know each other. I grew to love her and today that woman is my wife.

Bridget:God started putting a desire in my heart to have a husband and to get married so I began praying for God to bring a man into my life that loves Him more than he would ever love me. That is just what He did! We had both started to study about marriage and how to be a good spouse even before we met, and I believe that has a great impact on our marriage today.

Today, Joe is a chaplain in the Foundations program and Bridget serves as a volunteer coordinator. Both Joe and Bridget are in life ministry now and encourage others to wait on God, trust in Him and then He will send the right person to them at the right time.

GREG AND DAPHNE
Greg: After going through the Foundations program, I attended Word of Life Bible College for two years and began working at their Florida campus. During this time, I started praying for the woman I was supposed to marry. I first met Daphne at an Orlando church where she helped me translate while passing out Spanish and Portuguese Word of Life literature. The first time I met her, I automatically knew that she was not only a beautiful person on the outside, but I saw the beauty of the Holy Spirit in her. She was everything I had prayed to God about.

Daphne: After Greg and I met, we realized it was difficult to communicate so we stopped talking for a while. I remember praying, “God I don’t want to date anybody unless it is from you.” A few months passed and I started praying again. The next day, Greg liked a picture of mine on Facebook and we reconnected. We were able to get to know each other better using a translator. I am thankful because now I understand that God has good ways and can rewrite your story if you put your life in His hands.

After marrying in 2016 Greg and Daphne moved to West Virginia. As part of their ministry, Greg is an instructor at Union Mission’ pallet shop and Daphne enjoys volunteering to help those in need.

DAVID AND HOLLY
David: After making some really bad choices, it didn’t take long to find myself in jail. It was at that point, I cried out to God for help and He brought me to Union Mission where I attended and graduated from the Foundations program. I had seen Holly online before we finally met. It was important for me to explain everything fully that I had went through and I’m thankful she was open-minded. Things moved slow since she lived in Fayetteville and I didn’t have a driver’s license. The Lord worked it out however, and I was able to get my driver’s license back. I proposed a little over a year ago and we married on September 10, 2016.

Holly: I graduated in 2005 and about a year later became really sick requiring seventeen surgeries. I started getting better a couple of years before I met David. I told him, I don’t know if I was supposed to get sick or if he was supposed to go through what he did, but God worked it out that we both could get better and meet each other. Even though we had two different experiences, I believe everything happens for a reason and it’s pretty clear now we were supposed to find each other.

David is now the shop foreman of the mission’s pallet shop and mentors men overcoming addiction. Together David and Holly’s goal is to raise a family in a godly household.

In addition to these newly married couples, the mission has celebrated the recent marriages of both Estela and Chris, and Steven and Tiffany who are serving the Lord in ministry. We are excited for the new couples and praise God for their ministries.

These and other success stories are possible because of your prayers and financial support of Union Mission Ministries!