She honoured Josephine, for the tremendous joy she'd brought into their life, and all the wonderful experiences they had. Then what blew me away... (weeping)
[Mike Connell] She said that each year, when they had Christmas, and had her birthday; that they remembered the family that had lost her, and were deeply grateful that: our loss was their gain.
Of course that's very - you can imagine how we felt about that; because every year we'd remembered: we'd lost a daughter. It was quite heart-touching, for both of us, for her to say that. We both stood and shared; and I just shared that: there hadn't been a year go by that we hadn't thought of our daughter, and prayed for her - and that it was a great loss.
We just appreciated Josephine for her willingness to allow us to come back into her life; so it was quite - it was unbelievably heart-touching. You could hear sobs down the back. I didn't even dare look around to see who's - there are tears everywhere! I didn't even dare look around, and see who's sobbing down the back; because we realised that right through the whole of the group, there were broken marriages. There were adopted people, there were people who'd lost children, there were blended families, there were all kinds of things there; and when people are in the presence of honour, it unlocks their heart.
[Joy Connell] It makes way for the Lord to come in and...
[Mike Connell] It makes way for God to do things.
[Joy Connell] ...it's a powerful thing to experience: that honour does make way for the Lord to come.
Josephine didn't want us to say too much at the reception, if her parents didn't say too much, so we were kind of positioning ourselves. But when both her mother and father spoke quite well, and quite long, she gave us an opportunity to speak; and again, we wouldn't want to say too much, but just wanted to honour her - for how beautiful she looked; and what she'd done to open her heart for our family.
Steve - the most amazing thing about her fiancée; well two things. First of all, the very first time she visited us in our church, she went back to her flat. While she was away, one of her flatmates got baptised in the Holy Ghost. She said: I know what you're on about - I've been to my birth dad's church - and I know what you're on about!
The second thing was, she had a few other relationships... and then when Steve came on the scene, she's like: I knew you'd like this one - because one day, Steve was prayed for by somebody like Mike - planted down on the ground for 20 minutes with a back injury, and came up totally healed! So he had a real awareness of the power of God. She said: I knew you’d like this one!
But the week before the wedding - the Saturday before the wedding - he was 28 metres below the sea, and out of air. He had to shoot up to the surface; he got the bends, and was flown in a decompression unit - and got released two days before the wedding!
I'm just so grateful for Steve - that he was with us, that God had kept him. I wonder if it was a demonic assignment actually, when things like that are so difficult. God's got a great purpose and destiny for people's lives and I believe that's still being unfolded.
But I honoured him for what he'd done; and again said: it was not by rights - it was a significant event to be a part of, but we really had no rights; just that God is so incredibly good, the grace of God, and the goodness of God. So we both just had a chance again just to acknowledge God, and acknowledge and honour which again was part of the process.
[Mike Connell] We'll just finish with a couple of things, but what was amazing was the impact on people. There were lots of things I won't disclose, because they were just very, very precious; I just feel it wouldn't be appropriate to share them.
But there was a couple of things that were really thrilling.... One was that Jo has a son called Alex, who's seven years old; and prior to the wedding, he had been talking to Steven. Steven asked him: “Do you want me to be your step dad?” He said: “No - I've got a dad - I don't need a step dad. I'll just call you Steve”.