At the end of October, Nardia Perez and a team from Jamaica will be travelling to Cuba to join her husband Julio and his local church for a humanitarian and evangelistic mission. Married for two years now, it will be the Perez’ first official missions ministry together.
How they became a couple is a supernatural love story.
A KAIROS MOMENT
It was January 2005, while pursuing a B.A. in Theology at the Jamaica Theological Seminary, that Nardia Wilson met Julio Cezar Perez Olivares. A young Cuban in the same programme, he was warm, kind, and very helpful to all his schoolmates. “That’s how I remember him!” Nardia recalled. “He was kind with everyone.”
Julio returned to Cuba in 2010, and they never communicated again until ten years later, in September 2020, when Nardia received a message on Facebook Messenger, “Hello, Sister Nardia. How are you?”
Had it really been ten years since they had gone their separate ways?
It took Nardia three days to respond to his message. “Hello, Brother Julio. How are you?” He replied immediately, and they began chatting via Messenger.
“I had hesitated,” Nardia explained, “Because the day before I contacted Julio, I had had an encounter with the Lord. I was driving to work when I felt God’s presence so strong in the car. He said, ‘Aren’t you going to be still and receive what I have for you?’ I knew he meant a husband because He had been speaking to my heart about this. However, I was very fearful because of a prior broken relationship, and I wasn’t eager to start another one. The Lord told me to lift up my hands and say, ‘I receive.’
“Can you imagine?
“At this point, I came upon a red traffic light, and recognising that this was a kairos moment, I raised both hands and said, ‘I receive.’ It was the following day that Julio and I reconnected online.”
“I HAVE A PROPHECY FOR YOU, SISTER NARDIA”
Ten minutes into this first conversation after a 10-year break, Julio suddenly said, “Sister Nardia, I have a prophecy for you! When I see you, I am going to marry you.” Nardia’s entire frame was jolted. It was like she had run
smack into a wall! They had never communicated on this level before, had not spoken for over 10 years, and now, clear out of the blues…a marriage proposal?
“It was as if I was in a corner of the room listening to myself slowly replying, ‘Okay, Julio, please…let’s spend some time praying about this.’” The thing is, the Lord had already told me that Julio was the man I had held up my hands and received the day before at the stoplight, but I was still wavering, and who wouldn’t? I hadn’t been expecting anything as flabbergasting as all this!”
Nardia described the remainder of that Friday as an agonising time seeking the Lord, asking for more confirmation because, although she knew the answer, she was terrified to surrender.
Saturday morning dawned and she jumped into church clothes. There was one place she knew that had daily services, and although it was not her church home, she felt led to go sit in the sanctuary at Tarrant Baptist.
Dr. Moshe was ministering. “He pointed at me to come to the altar,” Nardia said. Our eyes met, and he stated, ‘The Lord says to tell you that He is giving you an AMAZING husband!’ At his emphasis on the word ‘amazing,’ I felt like something leapt from his mouth, hit me in the stomach, and knocked me off my feet. He did not touch me, but I fell to the ground laughing uncontrollably, igniting the church as well.
“When I rose, I felt as light as a feather, and it was then that I heard the Lord’s instruction—‘Say YES.’ I couldn’t wait to reconnect with Julio that afternoon. I was excited to hear him repeat the words so I asked him to propose again, and when he did, I said ‘yes.’”
LOVE INTERRUPTED
Was it smooth sailing after that? No, for the next two years, it became extremely brutish weather and choppy seas for the couple. Julio lost both parents and his grandmother, and Nardia got so ill that at one point she couldn’t even walk.
They were depressed and stopped communicating primarily because Cuba’s internet system became even more erratic as COVID-19 intensified. With no planes flying into or out of Cuba, it was a disheartening two years of nothing, and then the Lord intervened.
Nardia described how on a Sunday morning at church, the presence of the Lord was so rich that she bowed to the ground, worshipping. From the floor, she heard the Holy Spirit say, ‘Go,’ and immediately, there was a release like something had shattered.
Everything subsequently changed: communication was restored and all travel restrictions were lifted. God confirmed His approval for her to now travel to Cuba by supernaturally providing her plane ticket. When people heard that she was going to get married, she received a new wedding gown, tiara, shoes, and bouquet. Even the dress she wore on the flight from Jamaica to meet Julio was a gift.
QUE HORA ES?
Vacillating between nervousness and excitement as the plane finally lifted into the air, Nardia heard the Holy Spirit ask, “Que hora es?” Not that much acquainted with Spanish, she questioned the meaning and was quizzed again, this time in English, “What time is it?”
“1 o’clock,” she responded, but the question was repeated in Spanish, “Que hora es?” Even after she and Julio were reunited that day, the query still bothered her; until the next morning, while she was having devotions, she asked the Lord to tell her the real reason she was in Cuba, as all the events since they had re-met were so supernatural.
She was looking forward to seeing Julio that morning, for they had had little time to really talk the day before, busy meeting his family and neighbours and trying to assimilate everything she had heard before about Cuba.
Her Bible was open on her lap when he finally emerged and just stood watching her. “I thought he was hesitating to speak because he wasn’t sure if he was disturbing my quiet time,” she shared. “But no, Julio divulged that he had not been able to read his Bible or pray in a long time. Then he broke down in tears. I was stunned. I felt such compassion that I held him and began crying and interceding for him.
“That was when the Lord said, ‘For such a time as this, you have come to deliver my people, beginning with my son.’ That,” Nardia concluded, “was when I realised that the Esther anointing had been released over me. God was setting me up to do evangelism missions in Cuba.”
_____________________________
In the will of the LORD, we will share more next week on how the two finally became one, and the birth of their missions ministry, Helpers For Christ International.