On Sunday 1 May we were 'stunned' at King's Church International as our Senior Pastor, Wes Richards, shared the fantastic news about his upcoming marriage to Adriana Bastidas from MCI church in Bogota, Colombia.
Adriana is one of the respected leaders at MCI, a church of over 100,000 people which KCI has close links to. Their relationship blossomed after the G12 International Conference, held in Bogota, in January this year.
Pastor Wes preached a message at the service from Genesis 45:26 that says simply; ‘Jacob was stunned’, having learned that his son Joseph, who he thought he had lost forever, was still alive and was now the second most powerful man in Egypt. You can listen to the podcast of that message on the KCI Mobile App or on SoundCloud.
Jacob thought he had lost everything but God was working a bigger and longer-term plan to bless him, to bless his family, and to bring hope and provision to the world. When he realised how everything changed so suddenly, he was stunned. Pastor Wes could see comparisons to his life and that of Jacob, having lost his wife, Carol, to cancer in 2002 and that he had been 'stunned' by the recent developments in his own life and that God had a plan to bless him after such sadness.
Pastor Wes said; "I’m happy to say that our families have given us every encouragement to pursue this relationship. For me, this has come as a very clear confirmation that we all have hope and a future. I believe that Adriana is a wonderful gift from God and I love her and respect her very much." He chose a selection of photos to help show friends and family elements of the story, which are compiled into the video below.
He also received great support and blessing from Pastors César and Claudia Castellanos, the senior leaders of MCI Bogota and his long time friends Pastors Mike and Linda Peters from St Louis, USA, who all met recently together.
Pastor Wes proposed to Adriana in the beautiful Colombian city of Cartagena on the Caribbean coast days after his announcement to the church congregation and they will be getting married in June. To read the story from Pastor Wes' perspective, please read the updates on his Facebook page, here.