2 Corinthians 5:13-14 (NLT)
Our Story
There have been a lot of people asking us about our crazy love story - thought we would just share the story we had in our wedding pamphlet....
August 16, 2009, at about 9pm I had an unexpected phone call after the Sunday evening service at St. George Baptist Church in Orangeburg, SC. It was from the music minister at St. George, who is also the principal at Livingston Christian Academy, Mrs. Ronda, concerning my friends, Gabe and April. April’s grandfather had passed away and they needed someone to hang out with the kids for the week while she arranged funeral plans in Texas. I signed up and went from zero kids to four in a couple of seconds flat. It was truly a blessed experience. Monday morning came all too early, I took April to the Columbia Airport at about 3am, and then I came back to Neeses to take Gabe up to Columbia for his first day at his new job so he could pick up his new work truck. On the way back from Columbia for the last time, at least for that day, April called me and asked me to stop by Livingston Christian Academy (LCA) and check on the kids. I got to the school to check on the kids, and by the time I got to the seventh graders class room, my heart was beating and I was nervous and couldn’t figure out why. I soon realized my nervousness was due to the fact that I was about to ask the teacher, Miss Soult, out on a date. I checked on the kid and got out of there quickly and made my way to Ronda’s office. I told her that I felt like God was leading me to ask Miss Soult out on a date, she started crying. That struck me as strange, so I asked her why she was crying. Her response was that I would find out soon enough… Yeah?!?!.
Tuesday rolls around, and I get up to get the kids ready for school after feeding them my version of Paula Dean’s pork roast the night before. They apparently didn’t like it because it was too spicy (but then that is how Paula Dean does it). When we arrived at the school I told Ronda that I was going to pray about asking Miss Soult out before I took that step. She concurred, and I made my way to the church. No one was at the church so I took the opportunity to go to the altar. It was one of the most convicting images I have ever had run through my head. When I walked into the sanctuary, I had this vision of God sweeping me off a place before the altar. When He was done sweeping, I knelt before Him to offer up my concerns in life at the time. .—Now I am not a big fan of going to God with all my needs (even though I know He takes joy in meeting our needs) because I feel selfish asking Him for more than what He has already blessed me with, but I decided to lay it all out there for Him.—I had three things on my mind that day, pretty big things actually. I began to pray and ask God to forgive me for allowing the altar to become obsolete in my life. I asked God to help me figure out what I should do about graduation. I also prayed about the Datsun 280zx I had for sale. I could not sell that thing to save my life. Finally, I asked God before I made any kind of move at all if I could take His daughter (Miss Soult) on a date. I began to meditate on my prayer and listen for the voice of God. The answer was simple; I couldn’t make these things happen clearly because God wanted to give me the opportunity to step out in faith. If you can see what you are stepping into, there is no need for faith.
The sun rose again on Wednesday, and it was time for me to take my step of faith. Miss Soult knew that I worked at the church and would be too busy to make the kids a dinner worth eating, so she baked a lasagna the night before so all I would have to do is heat it up. Actually, I think she just felt bad for the kids after I put them through the Paula Dean situation on Monday. I thought it was sweet gesture; I mean, any woman that can cook is worth asking out, right? So I waited for her to finish the day and walk out of her room so I could ask her out without her students around her. She said yes to a Saturday evening fundraiser and realized later that she had actually said yes to a date. Some how she got me asking her on a date confused with me asking her to a fundraiser. (You’ll have to talk to her about that.)
Thursday came, and I spoke out at the chapel service for LCA. While I was in Ethiopia, I recorded videos of the children at the Kale Hewitt School singing American church songs like, “Deep and Wide.” I thought that would be an opportune time to show the kids at LCA how truly blessed they really are. After the chapel service was over, Mrs. Ronda asked me to take the new praise guitar back to the church with me while I was going to return the projector. When I got to the church, I saw two women I had never met before setting up for a Child Evangelism Fellowship banquet that evening for 600 guests. I figured that was a lot of work for two women so I asked them if I could help. They said yes and put me to work. A few moments later, one of the women came up to me and asked me who I was. I told her my name was Logan Bennett and that I worked with the middle school students at the church. She got all excited and told me her name was Vicky Soult and that I was taking her daughter out on a date Saturday night. She told me about her daughter’s entire life and then said she had a story to tell me. She said she thought I was a guy who could understand this story but that I needed to prepare myself. Now I am beginning to wander if this is the story Mrs. Ronda was telling me about. Sure enough, it was, and at this point, I was prepared to hear it. She told me that back in May of 2008, the same month I sold Low Country Mobile Carwash to Jon Davis and Mark Eckert to go into full-time ministry, a pastor was traveling through North, SC, and saw the sign for Livingston Christian Academy. Pastor Robbie Parnell felt like God had a word for him to share with someone at the school. The problem was he didn’t really know anyone at the school and wasn’t sure he even knew what to tell the person. He just knew God wanted him to go so he did. When he got to the school, he found Mrs. Ronda and told her his business there. About that time, Miss Soult, with one of her students, walked into the cafeteria where the pastor, Mrs. Ronda, and Mrs. Gallagher were sitting. Pastor Parnell looked at Miss Soult and told her that she might want to sit down, that God had a word for her. She sat down to listen to him with her student, Kara. The pastor informed her that God wanted her to know that her seven years of tribulation were over and that God was preparing a man right now with a mission and calling in his life. He told her that God wanted her to stay where she was and that this man would find her here (at LCA). He told her that she was going to be the fertilizer to the calling in this man’s life and that she would help his ministry grow and flourish for the glory of God. Pastor Parnell then told her that he didn’t know why this was important, but the man was short. Needless to say, Miss Soult was in tears… she had just broken up with her boyfriend of seven years that January and was also considering moving to Florida to take a job that paid pretty decent money. Vicky said she was obedient and stayed at LCA. Now, put yourself in my shoes for just a moment… What just happened? This story definitely blew me back. Well, we finished setting things up, and I went to Belk’s to buy an outfit for the banquet that I just got invited to that night. While I was gone, Vicky rearranged the seating chart and had me sitting next to Liz. After the banquet was over, we had these couples come up and tell us things like, “This is so incredible; we see God’s hand in your relationship.” The strange thing was there was no relationship! We hadn’t even had the chance to talk about a relationship. After we got everything cleaned up, I told Liz maybe we better talk about this. So, we went to my favorite place in the world, The Waffle House. I’m not going to lie, everything that Liz said was everything I had been missing my entire life. I started floating away; I couldn’t believe I was sitting in front of the girl that was everything I could ever dream of, pray for, beg and plead for, or conjure up in my life. We talked about all kinds of stuff. Well, as the old story goes, time flies when you are having fun. When I looked over at the clock on the wall, it was 4:30 in the A.M. (I’ll go ahead and add in here, during the times of me being gone from the kids, my friend Emily came and watched them.)
So, I rushed Liz home and went to go get the kids ready for school. Friday came a bit too soon, but I got to thinking this really was my kind of girl—one willing to spend all night talking with me at the Waffle House. After school was over that Friday, my job as “Mr. Mom” was over, but Liz came by to help me clean up Gabe and April’s house so it would be clean when April got home. After that, we planned on watching a movie, but instead just sat there and talked all night long again.
Saturday morning we met a family at the Edisto River so I could baptize a girl named Emmy who had accepted Christ at HisPlace, a ministry that I was involved with before summer started. After we got out of the river, Liz had a towel for me, which was interesting since I didn’t even think to bring one, but it was awesome that she was already prepared for my slackness. Things began to come together in my mind. After the baptismal service, we went up to Columbia so I could buy a Bible that would help me with this class I was teaching at the church, Evangelism 101. When we got back, it was time for us to go on the date I had asked her on to begin with. So, we loaded up the canoe and headed to Santee. We paddled across the lake into Stumphole Swamp and I hung my hammock up between two trees. We watched the sun set and the stars come out, pretty romantic. A few minutes went by and a storm started billowing in. Liz looked at me and said, “It’s about to rain isn’t it?” I said no like it wasn’t going to, but honestly, I just wanted to be stuck out in the swamp with this pretty girl in the rain. IT POURED for about ten minutes. It was interesting to me though, after it rained the symbolism hit me. Canoe + Hammock + Forest + Water + Rain = Amazon Rain Forest, where I am getting ready to move. So I asked her if she could spend the rest of her life in this hammock with me. She told me she would stay by my side wherever God called me to go. It was finished for me; I knew then she was the girl God had for me to spend the rest of my life with. I needed no other clarity. I would choose everyday, every moment to love this girl as Christ loves His church. We packed up the hammock and headed for the landing to go eat some Waffle House, again. We talked all night, again…
Sunday morning and time for church, we walked into the R.O.C. and the whole congregation turned around. Word had spread like wildfire, the middle school told all the high school, and some of the adults had been praying about this for a while now. It was like they already knew it was going to happen and were just waiting for the day we would walk into the church together. Pastor Jimmy was preaching homecoming in Bonneau, SC, so Ike, the associate pastor of the church, took over the service. His message was on marriage. At this point, I was like alright, got it, I caught the hint, but God wanted me to do something that I wasn’t too sure about. I felt like He wanted me to take Liz to the altar to pray with her. This was strange considering there could still be people in the church thinking I am engaged to another girl. I was obedient, and we went to the altar and prayed about our relationship—that God would be the rock on which it was grounded. It was pretty amazing actually; I had never been to the altar with a girl. After the service was over, we went to her parent’s house to eat. After lunch, we sat down in the living room with her parents for four hours. I shared my testimony, Gene (her dad) shared his, and the end of the conversation blew my mind. Gene came up to me and shook my hand and told me something to the effect that I was the guy that he and his wife had been praying for for Liz since before she was born and that if I was taking her to Brazil with me, I would have to marry her first.
Two and a half weeks later, I asked Gene if I could marry his daughter. He gave us his 100% blessing and support, and I went and got a ring. The plan was to wait until the following Monday to ask Liz to marry me, but God had something more intimate planned. Saturday night we were at Waffle House talking about all the things going on. At this time people had begun to come to us and tell us they would help us out with our wedding plans. Liz said she didn’t really want to talk about the wedding until she had a ring on her finger. So I hit my knee on that grease-ridden floor right there in Waffle House and asked her to be my bride.
Love your story! So blessed by God! Love you guys
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