“Do you trust me?” -God
For ten years, I was single. I was comfortable. I was free to get up and go whenever and wherever I felt God calling me. But now I found myself on a plane to Jordan bawling. What happened? What broke? It was a 17-hour flight, and I decided to watch a movie. God used this movie to break me and to make me vulnerable again. In this movie, a woman was in an abusive relationship, and she was hiding. She eventually met a fantastic man, but she was afraid of committing and afraid that the same thing would happen, so she ran. The man pursued her until she broke. I was that woman. I, too, had been running. I was content, but God revealed to me through that movie that I was also fearful. I was afraid that he didn’t exist. Then God spoke to my heart, “Andrea, do you trust me? Do you trust that I have that guy for you?” I weepingly said yes. I was scared, but God had never let me down before. Then we landed. In enters Eyas, a strikingly handsome Middle Eastern man who would become our group leader for the next three weeks.
We ended up working together side by side for almost the entire three weeks. But I remained focused on the ministry. He started coming to find me during meals and would sit next to me and ask me a bunch of questions. After about a week, one of the older women in the group came to me and said, “Andrea, I think Eyas is interested in you.” I said, “Nope! He’s just being nice! I’m not going to assume anything.” Then I noticed he started doing more subtle things. At one point, he told me to take off my sunglasses (so he could see my eyes) as a love song played in the car. That day when we got out of the car, I said, “Why did you do that?” He said, “You’re smart; you’ll figure it out,” then walked away. I yelled after him, “No, I won’t!”
We were coming to the close of our trip, so we went to the Dead Sea to celebrate. I took off swimming towards Israel (I was a swimmer in High School, but also, you float in the Dead Sea, so it didn’t take much effort). The group leader yelled at me, “Where are you going?” I said, “I want to touch the shores of Israel.” He said, “Yeah, go ahead if you want to get shot!” I quickly stopped and floated in the middle of the Dead Sea, back flat on the water, looking up into the sky. Then Eyas splashes and yells, “What are you doing?!” I said, “I’m thinking.” “About what?” he asked. I said, “Well, tell me what that was in the car, and I’ll tell you what I’m thinking.” He started laughing.
This man blatantly said, “I like you.” My response… “Why?” He would then go into detail about all the characteristics that he liked about me. I swore I could feel my jaw drop and hit the top of the sea. What he said were things that only my closest friends would know about me. I was truly blown away. He’d been intently watching and studying me, and not in a creepy way.
I freaked out a little and swam away from him after he poured his heart out. I went straight to our friend Rachel, an American girl who had been working with him for two years. She had this huge smile on her face, and that’s when I knew she knew the whole time. I then asked her many questions about him, which he said I could; she reassured me that he was a great guy, and that he’d never felt this way about anyone.
Eyas and I spoke that evening, and we both decided to fast and pray until the following day. In my time with God, I prayed, “I don’t need this. I only want this if this is from You. So Lord, please make it so obvious to me.” When our group arrived, Eyas shared that he was waiting for his visa from USA or Canada. Rachel told me it could take six years before anyone gets a visa. It had been two years that he had been waiting. So, like Gideon, I put out my goat skin. “Lord, if this is from you, I pray he will get his visa.” The next day we were leaving, we split up into multiple groups to do different things. Eyas and our group went shopping. His phone rang; he looked at me with tears in his eyes. He hung up the phone and said, “I just got my Visa to Canada!” Again, my jaw dropped, and I thought oh man this is real. That day we said goodbye, not knowing when we would see each other again.
When I came home, my missions school asked me to open a children’s home in Haiti. I said yes. Eyas moved to Canada, and I moved to Haiti. Four years later, after many trusting God moments, we finally got married. That was just the beginning.
Andrea Yousif
Andrea Yousif, is a Children's Pastor in Toronto, Canada, with a passion to teach and encourage women in their journey of singleness. She encourages single women to trust that God has that person for them and that He will reveal the right person, at God's right timing and His way. She reminds women that we need to reimagine what we think love looks like. We need to let God lead our story and give up our expectations of how our love story will go. When you join God on His adventure, your story is ten times better.
Andrea is a children's book author and teacher. You can find her new book here!