Wedding Speech For Mark

Family, friends, and honored guests of the bride and groom—mostly the bride—and brothers and sisters of the faith, Good afternoon.

When Mark asked me to be a groomsman at his wedding, I was honored and pleased. But when he asked me to say a few words on friendship, well, I was speechless. Literally.

You see, while we both went to Stanford and are both EE—I an Electrical Engineer, and he an Economics and East Asian Studies major—we really didn’t have too much else in common.

He loved trance. I liked soft love songs. He missed class to go snowboarding. I skipped snow trips to go to class. He was an extrovert and loved to talk to people; or maybe just to talk; I don’t know. I was very quiet. So it is surprising that we would have anything to do with one another.

But by the grace of God, he showed up at church one morning with some of you in the audience. He came to the Fellowship in Christ at Stanford. And after a year of soul-searching, he committed to staying there.

For the next three years, I was his small group leader and staff. Despite my shortcomings, I witnessed his rapid growth in passion and knowledge. He was a sponge, soaking in everything he can about Christianity.

As he read voraciously, asked piercing questions, and served fervently, it became evident that he lived his life with purpose and conviction. What attracted me to him—sorry, Megumi—was his passion to preserve the purity of the gospel, and his boldness in proclaiming it. We would spend many hours talking after small group, meeting up for lunch, or just meeting up, praying together and talking about spiritual matters, from sin, to church, to the world, but especially about what the gospel means to us.

Any of you who knows Mark knows that he expresses his opinion very strongly. But it was through his intense love of Christ that God opened my eyes to a much grander view of the gospel than I had before.

He has a gift for teaching, and the conviction to put that gift to use. He is, after all, here in Japan, serving faithfully at Oyumino Presbyterian Church, marrying a local woman, and is preparing to go to seminary—all signs of a veritable missionary.

Mark, I know I haven’t been the best at keeping in touch, but I know that no matter what, we have something special: a brotherhood, a fellowship not of similar interests or of worldly ambitions, but a friendship and partnership in the same gospel, the same faith, under the same master, who rescued us from the same sinful state. In the end, this is a bond that is eternal and cannot be broken, because it is forged by the blood of our God, our Lord Jesus Christ.

Megumi, it is my pleasure to finally meet you after so many months of wondering, “Is she real? Has anyone actually met her?” Just kidding. Seriously though, I am pleased to meet you of whom Mark thinks so highly, and hope to enjoy fellowship with you and Mark in the years to come, Lord willing. I look forward to what God will do in and through your marriage. God bless you two.