A Dream, Believing Is Faith...

Waking up to reality was somewhat hard to accept. Tiffany and I had been married only a few short months, and it was right about then that we noticed Tiffany started to get very sick. Little did we know, as newlyweds, she was pregnant with our first baby!

We really did try to be careful, but God did have plans unforeseen by us, and He does have plans for our little April. I was five years through my schooling and still had five more to go so it seemed. Time was ticking down for Tiffany to go on pregnancy leave and not able to work, and I needed to step up as the man of the family.

The first thing that seemed most responsible at the time was to finish up my studies at Ozark Christian College in Joplin, MO and graduate with two associate degrees. I had just enough credits to finish up two separate, non-related, degrees, but not enough to finish a bachelor’s degree. Like I said, at the time it made more sense to get a full-time job and wait for a time to finish my education.

Before Tiffany and I got married, we both felt in our hearts that God had called us to some kind of mission work. Tiffany mainly leaned towards inner-city mission work, and I felt the Lord directing my heart towards ministry in Mexico among orphans there. Rewinding a bit, Tiffany and I were able to go on a mission’s trip to Mexico prior to getting married and it was there we decided to dedicate our life to His service in cross-cultural missions, which we kind of ended up doing both inner-city and Mexican missions among orphans when God called us to Mexico City, Mexico… how much more inner-city can you get? It was in October of 2004 when we as a couple took a step out on faith and dedicated ourselves to doing His work among the nations as missionaries at the National Christian Missionary Convention. I had planned to work until I was able to study again, thinking I would probably finish up my degree at OCC before beginning any missionary work, but God on the other hand had different plans for our lives.

I remember as if it were yesterday. You see, my testimony of faith goes well before I married my lovely wife. I was new to college-life at a Christian Campus, and was introduced to mission work in Mexico during spring trip to Saltillo, Mexico. The Lord took hold of my life and placed a burning fire in my heart for His work in Mexico among street children. It was something I could not deny, nor stop thinking about. I instantly began studying and learning Spanish. It was something I desired so badly to learn. I began making friends from other Latin cultures, and I began going on every trip to Mexico I could. I even took a 6-month internship to a children’s home along the border of Brownsville, Texas and Matamoros, Mexico.

It was during this missionary internship that I dreamt a dream I will never forget, because it came true just as God gave it to me. I was sleeping hard during a time of rest. A friend invited me back into the States to get a weekend away from the stress and craze. I was dealing with nearly 40 orphaned children day-in and day-out, and I was only nineteen at the time.

Although the dream was so real while dreaming it, there were unrecognizable and untouchable faces of beautiful children and a woman I did not know. This woman had no detail within her face, but I recognized her hair to be a golden-blond. The unrecognizable faces of children were somehow known to be my children, and an unknown spiritual figure that was also somehow known to be my child. I remember feeling such joy in my heart throughout the dream, and then a voice, which my heart somehow knew that voice to be my Father God, spoke and said, “These are your children, and this is your wife. This is your ministry.” I then woke up, and wanted so badly to go back inside the dream and try to make out these beautiful faces once again.

When I woke up and began to reflect upon the dream, I realized I saw two children who seemed to be my own, I could not make out there genders, but I assumed they were boys. We were in Mexico, working in a home for orphans, and these little children of mine were all dirty and among several little Mexican children, also dirty, but playing and having so much fun. All I knew is that they had blond hair and beautiful blue eyes, and heavenly white skin. The spiritual child had no face, and I was unable to make any sense out of his story at the time, and the woman, all I could remember was her glowing, unrecognizable face, which had no details, her long golden hair, and the desire to have this woman as my bride.

Needless to say, I pushed the dream to the back of my mind, but never forgot what I had seen and heard in this dream, until I met my wife, Tiffany. I didn’t tell anyone of this dream, until I realized I was slowly falling in love with Tiffany. I shared the dream with her, thinking she would call me crazy, but her reaction was not at all what I had anticipated. She simply smiled and said, “God does sometimes speak to us in dreams, you know.” As Tiffany and I grew closer, even before we were engaged, Tiffany must have told her little sister, Jessica, who has now gone to be with the Lord, about the dream because I will never forget when she said, “So, you’re going to have little blond-hair and blue-eyed children?” while looking over at Tiffany with a look that basically said, “You’ll probably get your wish if you end up with her!” She never had to say a word! The implication was all over her face. My little sister-in-law always could say a thousand words with one single look.

Now, the night I dreamt that dream, I remember telling God, “I choose to believe that was from you, Lord. May it be as you have revealed to me,” and then I stored that dream away in my heart, and hid it there until He spoke the dream into existence. First the Lord gave me Tiffany, the most beautiful woman, both inside and out, I had ever seen with heavenly characteristics and lovely golden-blond hair. She is the woman of my dreams! Then came April, blue-eyes, blond-hair, and beautiful white skin… not a boy, but the description was accurate. Then tragedy hit our lives while we were in language school, and we had a miscarriage, but that miscarriage turned to joy as we announced the birth of our little Matthias, also meets the description. This was our spiritual child, but God chose to give us Matthias, who was our gift of joy! And finally, God gave us our third baby boy, Alexander, who also fits the description as seen in my dream.

Two of my children were born in Mexico, they all played and got dirty among their Mexican friends, who also played and got a little dirty in the Mexican outdoors. My dream, spoken to me in a dream at nineteen years old, has become reality. Could I consider it a coincidence? Yes. However, I have chosen to consider it by faith an answered dream, given to me by God. I have lived every day of my life realizing that it is by faith that God moves and acts in our lives, and as a family, we have decided to submit ourselves to a life of faith, and God has directed our path each step of the way.

This is just one incredible story of how God works in our lives if we simply trust, totally and without doubt, that He is who He says He is and will do what He says He will do. When God gives you a dream, hide that dream away in your heart. Share it with those when He leads, and faithfully wait and believe that it will be as He says.

Until next time, keep walking in faith folks!