Our rehearsal was Friday evening, the night before the wedding, and I was driving over to the chapel when an eighteen wheeler stopped short in front of me. I got on the brakes as hard as I could and it wasn't enough. The car was destroyed. I walked away from it without a scratch, and I don't have another word for that besides a miracle. I stood on the shoulder for a long while waiting on the tow, watching them load up what was left, and it kept hitting me that by every reasonable account I should not have been standing there at all. Then I had to call Kristine and tell her, which was not the phone call either of us expected to be making the night before our wedding.

I have thought about it every day since. One day earlier or one day later, or a few feet of difference, and Saturday would have been something else entirely. Our Lord let me get up and walk away from that car so that I could kneel at the altar the next afternoon and be married. I don't know why He spared me and I'm not going to pretend I do. I only know that He did, and I have spent the week since trying to be worthy of it.

The next afternoon we were married at a Solemn High Mass. Our families were there, and the music was a setting I wrote myself, sung by twenty some friends of mine with harp and strings and organ. I have spent years playing other people's weddings and funerals and Sunday mornings, and it is a strange and humbling thing to sit on the other side of it and have people show up and sing for you. Whatever happened the day before, that Mass was everything we hoped it would be, and I would not trade a minute of it.

What is left now is the practical side. I don't have a car anymore, and I need one. My insurance company came back and said to fix would be $15k and that it was a total loss. I direct the music at my chapel every week and I teach during the school year, and both of those are a drive. There is no version of my week that works without a vehicle, and what the insurance will give us is not going to put me back in one, but thankfully paid to total out my previous car..

On top of that, Kristine's immigration case is still working its way through, and the filing and legal fees come due on their schedule and not on ours. It isn't something we can set aside for a few months while we sort out the car. It keeps moving and we have to keep up with it. Either one of these alone we could have managed. Both of them in the same week we were married is more than we can carry on our own. On top of us going on our honeymoon in two weeks.

So we are asking. If you are able to help us get on our feet as we start out, we would be grateful for it. If you are not in a position to give, please pray for us instead. I have been on the receiving end of God's mercy once already this month, and I would rather have your prayers than anything else you could send us. Even if we don't meet our goal I know God will ensure the rest will come soon after to get something for our future family.

Guillermo and Kristine