The Story of our Meeting!

I had been planning on heading back to India to do missionary work at the end of my Youthwork Diploma...and the LAST thing I wanted was a boyfriend, having been burnt before I went to Lifeway College. A guy on my course liked me but I just wasn't interested. Then we were told the Lifeway Kauai School was going to stay at the NZ school for two days before heading off for their mission in New Plymouth (4 hours drive away). They arrived in the afternoon and went down to the Yaxleys' house (head of the school)..at tea time we got our tea and were sitting down when they all walked in. I noticed Erick straight away...don't know why but tell him it was the hearing aid in his ear (LOL), he says it was his mystique!!! That night we had all the tables in one long row as 1/2 the college was away on a missions trip and only the Diploma students were on campus. Erick sat about 3 seats down from me on the other side. We ate and at the end of the main meal Erick started clearing up the plates but then he picked up the spoons and I quickly picked up mine, held it up and said to him "Pudding"...he said "What?", so thinking he was really deaf, I repeated "Pudding"...."What?" (man, he must be REALLY DEAF I thought)....so I yelled "PUDDING!!!"......"Oh, he said, you mean Dessert!"...the whole room erupted in laughter and I felt very embarrassed. At Bible College we only got pudding (NZ name for dessert) once a week and I am a real sweet tooth so the thought that someone would steal my spoon and my weekly treat was horrific! Everytime the team saw me after that they would say "there goes Pudding!".... I was not impressed but when I went back to my room and was praying that night I knew God was talking to me about Erick....I said NO WAY...God I'm off to evangelise for you! That night I had a dream that I had had several times before where I was walking down the aisle and could see a man in a black suit at the altar but the dream always ended with the man turning. this night the man turned and I finally got to see his face....it was Erick. I woke up and cried for hours saying No, No......on praying with older, wiser friend, she said she believed it was God's plan for me and I should submit to God's will as it would seem impossible to work out in the natural. The next day we did activities with Erick's team but he went swimming and because I hate my thighs I chose to go tramping (thinking if he liked me he would chose that)! We spent the day at separate events, that night we played cards and went out for coffee in a large group of others and the next morning their team left for NP. Just before they left Erick gave his address to one of the guys on my course and asked him to pass it on to me. That seemed to be an end of it....we hadn't even talked alone. Three days later I sent some of the team cards wishing them well on their mission but in Erick's card I included a spoon with a tag attached saying "NZ Pudding". When the envelope turned up in NP, they were all sitting around opening mail, when Erick opened his and the spoon fell out, all the boys went "Whow"...as Erick had shared a dream with them before they left Kauai where he had received a letter from his future wife and it had a spoon in it! (They had all thought he was quite mad and all cracked up but of course now it just seemed spooky!!) ..........Part Two to come tomorrow. What happened? How did we get together again? How did we end up getting married 7 months later? Stay tuned....