In front of 20 people on a 70-degree evening in Guatemala City, Christy Wackerly and Dave Sens were married at the San Gregorio hotel overlooking Lake Amatitlán just hours after landing for a week of mission work.
Wearing a tea-length lace dress and pearls, Christy said, “I do” Dec. 14 during CPI’s first ever wedding.
Dr. Fernando Marroquin, the pastor for CPI’s partner church in Guatemala, officiated the marriage in Spanish with his son Dieter there to translate it into English.
“It was exciting,” Reed said. “It was my first time as a wedding planner.”
Reed handled everything from flowers and music to the outdoor dinner and wedding cake, utilizing connections she has made over the years at local bakeries and flower shops since CPI first visited Guatemala in 1996.
Dave and Christy’s passion to go on mission trips helped turn their fellow missionaries into family.
“Everyone was super supportive,” Christy said.
Fellow missionaries Anna Love, a student at the Miami University, Oxford, and her father Dan Love provided the music for the service, borrowing a guitar and violin from Marroquin’s church, the Sembradores de Vida.
In an effort to keep the service “low key,” Christy appointed fellow missionary Katy Reuter, a nursing student at Ohio State University, as maid of honor and Yolanda Gomez, a Guatemalan local, as flower girl.
Reed said that it was amazing “how God put everything together.”
There was no real honeymoon for these newlyweds though, as they spent the day after their wedding setting up a clinic the seven-day trip. Upon returning to the states, Christy made the move from Lexington, Ky. to start her job at Bethesda North Hospital in Cincinnati also as an emergency room nurse.
The couple plans on taking mission trips to Ecuador and back to Guatemala this year and is excited to see Marroquin as the speaker at CPI’s April 23 Seeds of Life banquet in West Chester Twp.
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