Loving You - Silver Jubilee Edition

The song I wrote for Vanessa 25 years ago for our wedding day has grown by yet another verse as we celebrate our Silver Jubilee Wedding Anniversary today.  These verses capture my love and our life at each milestone in our marriage as we have journeyed together to fulfill the vows we made as husband and wife...

Wedding Song

When I hold your hand
And look into your eyes,
I can’t help to reminisce
The days gone by.
For I see the Master’s plan
Has brought us hand in hand,
And I know His Spirit’s
Touched us with His love.

Loving you, holding you,
Has filled an empty place 
Within my life. 
Praise you Lord, thank you Lord, 
For giving me the one I truly love. 

Friends we were and are
And will for ever be.
We would laugh and cry and share
Each others dreams.
Lord, you took two separate lives,
With love you harmonised.
Now we’re joined together
By your precious love.

Loving you, holding you,
Has filled an empty place
Within my life.
Praise you Lord, thank you Lord,
For giving me the one
I truly love.

20th February 1993


First Wedding Anniversary

As we celebrate
Our Anniversary,
I am thankful for your love
And company.
For I know within my heart
Our lives will never part,
While Jesus is the
Centre of our love.

Loving you, holding you,
Has filled an empty place
Within my life.
Praise you Lord, thank you Lord,
For giving me the one
I truly love.

20th February 1994


Fifth Wedding Anniversary

You and I have shared
Our love these past five years,
Though we’ve faced some storms and shed
Some painful tears.
We have given God His place
And drawn upon His grace,
So we’ll stay committed
For eternity.

Loving you, holding you,
Has filled an empty place
Within my life.
Praise you Lord, thank you Lord,
For giving me the one
I truly love.

20th February 1998


Birth of Children

We have come into
A new reality
As you’ve given birth to our
New family.
First, a precious little girl
Was born into this world,
Closely followed by a
Handsome baby boy.

Loving them, holding them,
Has given me a joy
I can’t explain,
Praise you Lord, Thank you Lord,
For this family of mine
That I’ve now gained.

7th April 2000


Fifteenth Wedding Anniversary

Fifteen years ago
I gave to you my life,
On our wedding day when you
Became my wife.
I declared to you my love
Before the Lord above,
Which we celebrate on
This, our special day.

Loving you, holding you,
Has filled an empty place
Within my life.
Praise you Lord, thank you Lord,
For giving me the one
I truly love.

20th February 2008


Twentieth Wedding Anniversary

For two decades now
We’ve lived each others dreams,
Which have filled our lives with joy
And memories.
There is nothing I would trade
For the life that we have made,
And the path the Lord has
Granted you and me.

Loving you, holding you,
Has filled an empty place
Within my life.
Praise you Lord, thank you Lord,
For giving me the one
I truly love.

20th February 2013


Silver Jubilee Wedding Anniversary

On this day we mark
Our Silver Jubilee
Of the covenant between
You, God and me.
Now this journey God ordained
Has brought about a change
That has left our children
Far across the seas.

Loving you, loving them,
Has filled my life with joy
Throughout the years.
Praise you Lord, Thank you Lord,
For strengthening our faith
And family.

20th February 2018

Echoes of Another

"In my distress I called to the Lord, and he answered me." (Jonah 2:2)

There are about 50 people huddled underneath that
tarp with about another 100 below deck in the
cargo hold and 50 more on the stern.

It was around 3:00 am sandwiched between my camera bag, where I was leaning my head, and a group of teenage girls who were literally sitting on top of each other in a desperate attempt to shield themselves from the rain, that I felt a level of distress I cannot ever recall experiencing before.  We had already been on the boat for 35 hours on our journey back to Honiara from the east coast of Malaita, and the conditions on the open sea had deteriorated with waves splashing onto the deck and rain lashing against the tarps that were flapping furiously in the wind, providing minimal protection for the 200+ passengers on board.  Together with an electrical fault that caused the rusty metal floor in front of us to become electrified, nobody was having a good time!   

In that moment, I did call out to the Lord in my distress from underneath the pandanas mat my travel companion unselfishly shared with me in an attempt to protect me from the elements.  Somewhere between my tiredness and borderline seasickness I found myself praying, 'Lord, get us to dry land or end it now!'  From the security and comfort of my living room my prayer now sounds a little melodramatic and somewhat irrational for a man of faith.  However, after two sleepless nights on an overcrowded, unseaworthy vessel with a crew who were uncertain of our exact location (the disadvantage of sitting next to the cabin with someone who could understand the frantic conversation between the captain and crew), rational thought had long escaped me!

God answered me in a most unexpected way!  Dry land was still three hours away and the boat stayed afloat, but God confronted me with a very personal and powerful reminder of a family who took a similar journey to Australia five years ago.  For the first time their story that had previously received deep sympathy from me, now evoked a deeper empathy as a small part of their journey became my reality.  These conditions that I had absolutely no control over all of a sudden made their story very real for me!

I remember when I first met the Afshar family from Afghanistan.  As I listened to their story of how they escaped serious threats from the Taliban by boarding a small boat that took them on a long and dangerous journey through Malaysia, I struggled to imagine the sort of conditions they would have experienced.  I had absolutely no doubt that their story was true.  But as a person who at that point had never sailed longer than an hour on a comfortable and well equipped passenger ferry, with room to move around and enjoy the journey, it was difficult to really connect with their experience.  Their journey across the ocean was a compelling tale that was far removed from anything I had ever experienced or could imagine experiencing.  Until now!  

While the similarities between our respective journeys start and end with a boat trip, I found this uninvited reminder of another family's distress in the midst of my own a profoundly emotional experience.  It right-sized my own circumstances and redirected my reality towards the reality of another.  For the next few moments I imagined myself sitting alongside the Afshar family with their bodies leaning against mine, sharing the same pandanas mat to protect each other from the discomfort of a shared experience.  In my distress I was given a rare gift to feel the distress of another more deeply than I thought was possible.  Pakistani novelist Mohsin Hamid is quoted as saying, "Empathy is about finding echoes of another person in yourself."  Out there on that ocean in the dead of the night and during a raging storm, I found the echoes of another family in myself.  My prayer now is that those echoes will resound through a more empathetic life and ministry as I continue to pursue a passion for the LORD, the LOST, LIFE and LEADERSHIP!

Would I want to go through an experience like this again?  Absolutely not!  Am I grateful that I did?  Overwhelmingly so!!


This post is dedicated to the courage and resilience of Aziz & Masuda with their children Ali, Nagus and Zara, and Mohammad & Mariam with their children Satiash and Daniel. 

Mission Trip Reflections: Solomon Islands Ministries #4

Solomon Islands Ministries - South Malaita Visit

Follow our journey as I share thoughts and reflections about the development and growth of The Salvation Army in the Solomon Islands [click link to read].