Hello Family and Friends!

Ed and I would like to formally thank you for celebrating with us in the union of marriage. Whether if be near or far--we appreciate the prayers, encouragement, friendship and love you each have given to us in each stage of our relationship.

Ultimately we thank God for being a sovereign and gracious King providing a Savior who saves all who repent and believe.

We put our faith in a loving God, bringing two sinners together to live a life as one to bring more glory to Him.

Thank you for being a part of our life!


Love,
Ed and Cindy

......Just kidding. Nobody outside of me has ever said these things or anything remotely like it... but as much of a fan as I am of Cindy's and my love story, there is certainly one much much greater than our own. We say with absolute certainty that everything we have in this relationship is dependent on the Gospel and nothing we have is possible without the saving power of Jesus Christ.

10 things we believe::

1. We are not perfect. We get upset at each other, we get in arguments, think bad thoughts, and we do not always love each other perfectly as we should.

2. We believe in a perfectly just and perfectly loving holy God who views anything short of His perfect standards as “sin." And because He is a perfect God, sin can never be in His presence.

3. Since we believe God is infinitely holy and infinitely perfect, any imperfection or sin is infinitely offensive to God. This means we are infinitely guilty. And in our sin, we cannot be in heaven with God which means we are deserving of hell. We believe this to be true of ourselves as well as any of you who read this.

4. There is a Heaven and there is a hell. Heaven is eternal awesomeness and hell is eternal suffering. And when we die, people end up in one or the other for all eternity.

5. We believe everyone is born imperfect and sinful and so everyone deserves to go to hell.

6. In order for this infinite debt to be paid, we need an infinitely great Savior.

7. We believe that in His great love for us, God gives us a way out of eternity in hell through His one and only Son, Jesus Christ.

8. We believe that God sent His Son, Jesus Christ, into the world to live a perfect life without sin, then to die on the cross for our sins as the perfect sacrifice. He endured the wrath of God and became sin for us to pay the debt that we should have paid for all sins past, present, and future.

9. We believe that God raised Jesus from the dead 3 days later and in doing so, Jesus conquered sin and death. His death and resurrection washed away our sins and gave us all a chance to believe He is our Savior, to acknowledge and repent of our sins, and if we believe and repent, to have eternal life in Heaven with Him.


That’s crazy love! That God sent His only and perfect son to die for imperfect people like ourselves so that Christ’s righteousness would be ours and that through Jesus, we’d be able to be called God’s children! John 3:16 says, "for God so loved the world that He gave His one and only son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life."


10. At the heart of it all, we understand that left to ourselves, we can and will never be good enough to earn our way to Heaven. We praise God that in our imperfection and in our sin, He has given us forgiveness through Jesus Christ alone. We are still sinful and we are still imperfect, but we understand that above all else, as we prepare to live life as husband and wife, what we need isn’t money, a fancy job, or comfort. What we need most is a Savior. And we praise God that our foundation in marriage and in our lives is in Jesus Christ alone!

"For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast."

Ephesians 2:8-9 (ESV)

I first met Cindy at college when I gave her a ride to Lighthouse Bible Church one Sunday. After that one fateful ride to LBC, I made the big decision to ask her to be... my facebook friend. She declined.

My first memory of her was when I hung out at her apartment. She was passing by and I had decided to poke fun at her to which she replied, “I think I’d be offended if I had any respect for you.”

I knew then and there that she was “the one.” Just kidding.


It’s weird. Cindy usually has a certain proclivity towards meanness, yet I think “mean” is what characterized our first few interactions with each other. She claims she doesn’t remember these incidences, but my theory is that much like when Austin Powers was cryogenically thawed and his body didn’t know how to react, Cindy’s heart had the same reaction when it was thawed by the intense warmth of my friendship and kindness.

Anyway, we eventually became real friends and more importantly Facebook friends. Fast-forward to our last year in college, she sat me down one night during a dinner and called me out for being stupid. But this time, it wasn’t mean. She had been noticing patterns in my life and in my actions and asked how any of it was glorifying to God. She told me I needed to man-up. I didn’t have a response because I knew she was right.

I knew then and there that she was “the one.” This time for real. I had never met anyone with the audacity and the gumption to call me out like that, and through this God-honoring rebuke, He revealed to me that this one trait was what I should’ve been looking for in a future spouse all along: one who is able to challenge me and spur me on towards being a man of God.

So with full assurance and confidence that Cindy was someone I wanted to pursue a relationship with, I asked her if she wanted to go out. She declined. In yet another life-changing rebuke, she told me that she wanted to date with the intention of marriage and so she needed to trust that whoever she dated would turn to the Bible first in everything he said and did. She told me she did not know me well enough for her to trust that I was that person. So she told me, “No for now.” (We’ll get back to this). The good news is that she gave me a bookmark as a consolation prize (yay...)

Oddly enough, this heart-breaking rebuke that she unleashed upon me highlighted the very reason I was drawn to her..so much so that I actually told her after she rejected me that I found myself more attracted to her than before. (Creepy...yet oddly romantic, RIGHT?!? I KNOW!)

Afterwards, I fell into a deep depression and questioned everything from my salvation to how I could call myself a leader (see Zoolander. Seriously though, I got owned. The following week, our church was having a relationship seminar in which Pastor Patrick rebuked the ladies at our church for giving guys false hope by trying to soften the blow of rejection and saying “no for now” when they should just stick with a firm “no.” With her words “no for now” still echoing in my head, I immediately e-mailed her after the sermon to ask her what she thought about it. She responded with this exact quote: "In regards to "no for now, but not forever." I really hope that I didn't give you false hope. And so I guess if I could take it back or change what I said. I guess a simple no should suffice. I am sorry if I made it unclear or if it gave you that ounce of hope to cling on to for the next 6 years."

(Repeat Zoolander clip x17).

With the rejection complete and my ego destroyed, in this process of tearing down and rebuilding, God made it clear to me that I couldn’t treat Cindy any differently and that she was still a sister in Christ above all, so that’s exactly what I did. Not long after she rejected me the second time, I saw her studying at Geisel Library and I walked up to her and said hi. She fully expected me to walk away and be awkward to her for the rest of her life, but instead I pulled up a chair and started studying with her. I didn’t think anything of this, but for her, this was a pretty big deal because it showed her that maybe I was more mature and awesome than she had given me credit for. For me, I was just like, “Time to get my study on, shoooooot.”

We resumed our friendship as normal and by the grace of God, we got to know each other more over the last few months of college. Shortly after graduation, I thought back on my initial reasons for liking Cindy and realized that they were still there if not more so, so I decided to give it one last go. I mean besides rejecting my initial facebook friend request, my real friend request, my asking her out the first time, and my e-mail after the relationship seminar, what would be the chances of her rejecting me 5 times in a row, right?

Well luckily this time, she had gotten to know me a little better and saw some potential in pursuing a relationship with me, and she said YES!

Our relationship has taken us from San Diego to San Jose to Ithaca, NY, all the way to New Jersey/New York City. And in it all, it has been an incredible 4 year journey that has been a constant affirmation of why I pursued Cindy in the first place. In all the good times and especially the bad times, by the grace of God, I can humbly say that we have been able to sharpen each other, to spur each other on towards being a better man and woman of God, all while submitting to the authority of God and the Bible.

I know without a doubt that there is no other person I would rather live the rest of my life with and to continue worshipping God in our lives with than Cindy. And on June 24, 2011, together with my church family at Maranatha Grace Fort Lee, I proposed to Cindy. (Please see video on right.)

Cindy and I have been incredibly blessed to have so many of you be such an important part of our relationship and our lives. Thank you for letting us share this story that God has weaved, and we are looking forward to celebrating with all of you on our wedding day!

Click here to see some of their engagement photos!

Edward and Cindy are registered at:

"Thank you for your care as we
start our journey as a new family!"