Written by Eva Maria Trans

Joshua Skov is married to Cristina from Columbia. They have been married since 1997 and have just seen their living miracle their daughter Emma Sofia, which came into the world in February 2005 after seven years marriage. The waiting had been long and certainly not easy, but always they kept the belief that God could create the life of what was dead. They were prayed for and prophesied to, and when it all was most hopeless, Christina was pregnant. Today they say that it was worth waiting, but the it has been a very tough process. We'll start from the very beginning:

Orphanage.
Joshua grew up in a Christian home, but did not live in accordance with what he believed. A day in the church he heard a sermon that the harvest is great and the workers are few. Although God didn't fill much of his life, the preaching spoke to his heart.
- When I got home I saw a two pages ad for street children in a Christian newspaper. Two months after I had given up my good job, sold the house and car and was bound for Venezuela as a 22-year-old, he says.
On the other side of the world waited Cristina, who was raised Catholic and had learned to know God personally, while she went to university.
- When I was 29 years and went on bible school, God spoke to me and my friend to start an orphanage for street children in Venezuela. God spoke so clearly and independently of each other to us both that we just had to do it, she says.

Married after three months.
Cristina and her friend began without the least experience. First, they should have contact with street children, but after some time it started, and when Joshua came down there, it was a working orphanage. Although there were more than seven years between him and Cristina, the emotions began to grow. Joshua had in Venezuela made a completely new experience in that he could rely on God and that He would care for him. While he prayed and asked God what he had to do in Venezuela, and while he did accounts together with Cristina, God let the love for her grow in him. At the same time, God also worked in Cristina, although she found it hard to believe it, because she had always imagined an older man. When Joshua told her about his heart condition, she asked him again to go directly to the church leadership and to confirm whether it was from God. But the pastor already had seen them together in a vision it was no problem with their blessing. Then they got married three months later.

Going to Denmark.
Right from the start of their marriage, it was their dream to have children, but it just didn't happen. Instead, they became foster parents of three children from the streets already a few months into their marriage. After some years in Venezuela God called them to work with marriages in Denmark. They still had no children, although they had plenty of prayer. In some weird way they got the money to the ticket and could in 2000 travel to Denmark, where they worked for Marriage Ministries International, and was with the courses and meetings across the country. Since the child still seemed to stay away, they got more and more frustrated. Many people had dreams or visions, where they saw them standing with a girl. But there was nothing. It was a tough time when Cristina several times went up to a month over time. There was considerable disappointment each month, but they tried to maintain hope.
- Basically, I thought all the time, that it should happen, but when Cristina once again was disappointed, it was difficult to encourage her again, said Joshua explanatory. Cristina exposed all the time her visits to the doctor:
- It was so hard to be disappointed. Each time we waited as long as possible to buy a pregnancy test, just so we could hope a little longer ...


Didn't want to be like Sara
Two years later they sought the help at the doctor. Joshua had been operated in the testicles as a child and his semen was not good: 75 percent of his semen cells were dead. Doctors concluded that the chances of having a child was very small.
- We did not go ahead with the examinations at that time. Instead, we continue to hope for a miracle. I knew that God was on our side, and that he could give me a child at any time. I also said to him that I would not be as Sara in the Bible, who waited until she was 90 years, says Cristina.
Their marriage was hard hit, but they were determined to be together. Sometimes, they tried to convince themselves that it was easier for them to serve God without children, but the desire was always deep in both. The issue of artificial insemination was also raised. The same was adoption. In a period Joshua talked a lot about adopting, but it was not Christina's dream.
Slowly, they started to slip a little bit away from God. They compromised in various areas of their lives. As life was more superficial, the wish about a child also grew smaller.


Zero point
At that time Joshuas younger sister lived with Evangelist in Goerloese. Joshua and Cristina came to visit her and attended a meeting where the situation was revealed and they got baptized with the Holy Spirit. Only a few months later God called them super natural to start a home for women, for addicts under Evangelist. Joshua and Cristina started without being ready. Shortly after the start of the womens home, everything fell apart and their marriage was a zero.
Then they came back to Goerloese, where they lived separately and were boyfriend and girlfriend until they were ready to be united again:
- We needed to be built up individually and get a fresh start, so that we could win each other in holiness and purity, Joshua explains. During the period they were both set free from many demons, and when they gave each other their 'I do' again, they could immediately feel the change. God blessed them in all ways, and in relation to this, it was therefore difficult to accept that Cristina still was not pregnant.

Gave the doctors one more chance
- A day our leaders asked, whether we had intended to try artificial insemination. We had not. I wanted God to give us the child, not doctors, but we were told that it was a human way of thinking. God could still work through the doctors. Perhaps through all this, He would start it, says Cristina.
Joshua and Cristina decided to give doctors a new chance. He was examined again, but once again it appeared that Joshua had almost nothing to give. "Fertility must be considered established very strong sense", the doctor writes in his journal on the 20th April 2004. Cristina was told that she, because of her 38 years would have difficulty in accepting so little. Doctors doubted
highly that it would succeed. In fact, they said that it was almost impossible. Nevertheless, Joshua and Cristina went ahead with the process. It was particularly gruelling for Cristina, because there were so many humiliating and painful examinations. However, they didn't get started with neither hormone treatments nor artificial insemination. A summer holiday came in between, and when they came back in the system after the holidays, God had intervened.

Congratulations daddy!
In June Cristina was called to an examination:
- While we saw my eggs on the screen, I was vain and waiting for the doctor to say: "You are pregnant." I knew that God just had to touch a little with His finger to create a miracle, says Cristina. Approximately 14 days later telephoned Cristina to the doctor because she was ill and had gone 15 days over time. The doctor asked her to submit a urine test. Soon after she came in with a completely vacant face and told Cristina that she was pregnant.
- I asked whether she was aware that it was a miracle. The doctor did not reply, but told only on the measures I have to take in connection with pregnancy, says Cristina. Cristina was, of course extremely happy, not least because she didn't need further treatments. From the doctor Cristina phoned home to Joshua and said: "Congratulations daddy"!

Nothing was wrong.
Then a process started, where it was difficult to understand that it finally had happened. To begin with, it was absolutely unreal, but when the pregnancy was clear, they began to realise the miracle for their little family. Cristina had a full smooth pregnancy, but there was a period when she feared that there would be something wrong with the child.
- One day at a meeting Lena Loebner came to me and said: "There is nothing wrong with your baby." It was so great, because I had not told it to a single person, says Cristina. She continues:
- I had to say: "God forgive me."


God did the impossible.
On the 18th of February 2005 Emma-Sofia Daza Skov came to the world after seven years of marriage. Birth began at four in the morning and continued until 10 next evening. Of course it hurt, but everything went well. Cristina tells how exciting it was to see her eyes. She lacks words for the feelings of having Emma-Sofia lying on her chest just after birth.
- The mother instinct is something God has placed in us women. It is a great responsibility. I am happy when I can breast-feed her or change her, and are happy to see how she develops. Sometimes, I look at her and thinks: "Are you really here."
Joshua continues:
- Ever since she was born, God gave me a new love. Like a new chip in a computer, which brings something with it, which was not there before. She was worth waiting for.
- I can sit for hours and just look at the Emma-Sofia, everything she does is just so huge, Cristina smiles.
- If we are to have a child? For us it will be another miracle, but God can always give us one, two or three more. But first we just want to have time to enjoy Emma a little!

Evangelist magazine no. 2, 2005