μου [pronounced Moo] meaning (of God) "My own".

The story of God's introduction...

Way back in November 2008 The Stanford-Le-Hope '24-7prayer' boiler room community hosted a UK network day for the 24-7 community. I went along to support and to see what happens and so did some strange (but lovely) women who were referred to as 'Wild Geese'.

May 2009 arrived and with it the return of 2 of the 3 'Geese' to Stanford for a retreat week in which they were to take time out from their normal activities and very intentionally spend time with God. These 2 Women were Catie Raikes (of Aberystwyth) and Mandy Williams (of Gateshead).

At this time I was unable to work due to a loose piece of bone floating around inside my knee, so I had become more involved in the day to day life of the community of boilerroomers shaped around 217 Southend road.

During their retreat I spent a few hours making friends with and getting to know the 'Geese' and as with most connections made by 24-7 related people it was obvious that these friendships were not just for the week but would become a bigger part of the networks we were creating of people around the world focused on kingdom building.

We continued to talk via the Internet and discuss plans, dreams, and the things that really excite us. I was planning a 10 week driving adventure to the Balkans and back, and they were coming to the end of the 'Wild Goose' year. I should point out at this time that Mandy and I had spent more time talking than Catie and I, probably because Catie likes to build deep friendships with everyone, but Mandy's preference is to grow deep friendships with people one by one.

So... I went off to Europe adventuring, and Mandy Williams finished her wild goose year, finished her job and sadly had to move out of her marital home in the lead up to a divorce. We continued to talk and pray for each other and plan a visit on my return to England (Mandy had suggested that her friend Ali Wah would be excellent wife potential, which I've since learned is a massive compliment due to the HUGE love Mandy has for Ali). I had been discussing 4 retreats in a year to various places with James the Gense Gensberg, and considering that Mandy had retreat experience and we didn't, we had asked her and Gareth to host us for our first time.

October 2009 James the Gense and I traveled to the wild Northeast to spend a week with Mandy and Catie (staying at Ellie Clarke's house) praying together, asking ourselves hard questions and digging deeper into some of God's plans. This was an amazing time in which God met us in some astonishing and ordinary ways, and we were able to find some of the roots of some issues in our lives. During part of this time, God hijacked the conversation and began to deal with some underlying and deep rooted things in Mandy's life and he chose to do so through me. After a couple of days of intense listening to God and firmly putting the focus continually on him the retreat was over and we travelled back to the sunny south kidnapping Mandy and bringing her with us because she could and it seemed like a good idea.

Since moving from her marital home Mandy had been on a long journey of releasing and letting go of a man she had loved but who didn't love her and of trusting God to be everything she needs.

Then over the next couple of months we spoke often and our thoughts began to shift... Initially we both backed away from the idea of attraction and possibility of 'relationship' but God continually brought it back and suggested that we should at least look at it. So just before Christmas Mandy again visited as part of a tour of friends around the UK and she tentatively broached the subject of feelings, potential and possibility. I'd decided that it was far too soon to open such a conversation so I allowed Mandy to spell out her thoughts before deciding to share my thoughts, which were quite vague and very non-committal.

I should say that I had not had any previous girlfriends and that my view of this type of relationship is that they should be focused on the question 'whether to marry or not?'. I wasn't prepared to commit anything until I was sure that I could actually live out the commitment.

So for the next few months we talked every day, prayed lots, spoke to friends about it, and allowed God to lead us on a journey neither of us could have planned. We visited, asked questions about each other, evaluated and re-evaluated and gradually our friendship with possibility had become something else...

Around the same time Mandy had chosen to change her surname, because to her it seemed right not to hold onto the name given by her ex husband so that if he re-married there wouldn't be 2 women with his name. She had been called Mandy Moo as a nick name for many years and some people had even assumed it was her surname so she decided to change to Mandy Moo officially by deed poll. Interestingly straight after the change, a good friend (Enola Stevenson) discovered the meaning of the biblically pronounced moo (see the blog title) this was taken to mean that Mandy no longer took her name from her Dad or her husband, but was complete and whole in God's family.

During this time God had spoken to Mandy about moving away from the north east and she explored the option of joining a community in Romford led by her good friends Phil and Emma Togwell. The outcome of this was that She could choose between staying in the north east, moving to Romford, or moving to Stanford. Again having prayed and talked to many good friends about these options she decided to move to Stanford and was welcomed by the community here, and given a space to live for the 1st few months with the community leaders Robb and Sally as the best place from which to really integrate with the community.

Then after several months of praying lots, talking lots, and including friends in the journey we decided it was time to go official, so facebook was told and with that we had to begin using the titles 'boyfriend' and 'girlfriend'. We'd decided way back near the beginning of our discussions not to kiss and not to say 'I love you' because those things are very powerful and need redeeming from the casual world of low commitment dating. Somewhere along the journey of discussing EVERYTHING we talked again about these things and eventually made the decision to express ourselves with these things. It was so powerful to say for the first time with absolute certainty in it's truth 'Mandy, I love you' and to hear her say something similar knowing that it was definitely true.

I think it was probably around this time that we began to discuss time frames and thoughts about marriage, because for us to commit to each other openly in this way meant that we were deliberately heading toward marriage.

The last few months have been spent enjoying each other's company, learning how to understand and communicate better, adjusting and balancing life with another person in such a prominent position, and on my part making a ring.