an eden wedding

We met in 2018 at a South America mission trip interest meeting. Cassidy approached Ely at the end and complimented his shoes, Ely said “thanks”, rolled his eyes, and walked away, and Cassidy swore she never would talk to Ely again. :) We both have a huge heart for missions and our friendship grew with each mission trip we went on. Together we’ve been on mission trips to The Dominican Republic, Bolivia, Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, Brazil, and Arizona. By the time we got to Arizona, we realized that what we had would last a lifetime. So here we are, four years later, and Cassidy still likes his shoes :) Soooooo, what's with “Back to Eden”? In the story of the Bible, the Garden in Eden is presented as the place that Yahweh (the name of the God of the Bible) made on Earth where He, creation, and humanity dwell and live together. Yahweh gives humans the special role of being his representatives to creation by cultivating the land with love and gentleness. Eden is a place where peace and life can flourish because humanity is like Yahweh, and Yahweh is its good king. But our world today doesn’t seem to be a place where life can flourish, and peace seems to be a child’s dream. Humans chose to rule its own way and have usurped Yahweh's throne. We have degraded our earth through our terrible actions towards it and towards each other. Yet, we believe that Yahweh remained so devoted to His earth and to it’s people that He became a human Himself — Jesus of Nazareth — lived the Eden life beautifully, and conquered all human and spiritual corruption by letting our evil conquer him. He then resurrected from death, defeating and undoing all the evil that was destroying our world. Because of this, Yahweh is becoming king again through King Jesus, and offers to every human being who puts their allegiance in Jesus His own Spirit, so that they, like their king, can be resurrected into the Eden people they were always meant to be. We both hope that this wedding can be an invitation for others to see what Yahweh has done and is currently doing: Eden and Earth are marrying each other again, and King Jesus is the head of the ceremony. We are devoting our lives to join the family of Yahweh in planting new gardens everyday in our communities, relationships, and lives until Eden comes again.