It is the day we celebrate love. A day of remembering the person right in front of us. I’m not sure if you who are reading this are married, looking to be married or have been married for 50 years. But nonetheless, you have ended up here today. Over the past few days I have shared other love stories here on the blog, and today I will share a bit of our love story. Since often I am the one witnessing and chatting about other stories, I thought it seemed fitting today to welcome you into my little area of the world.
It was 2001. I had been in relationships in college and after a hard break-up, swore off dating anyone to invest my time and energy into the sweet relationships of my friends. After finishing my art degree in 3 years, I wasn’t ready to be done with college and launch into the world and my career. There were other avenues that I wanted to explore and overseas missions was one of them. Over the summer I traveled a bunch- through Mexico, Ecuador, and then throughout the US during with a church planing pastor and his team. Loving what I was doing, and after a chat with another friend, she convinced me to sign up for a semester long missions trip and to possibly explore the option of minoring in intercultural studies. After prayer and talks with my family, I decided to move forward and join the team. One of the qualifications of the trip and the minor was to do all our course work with your team for the full semester as well as do an unpaid internship with an organization in the Cities.
After finding a wonderful organization that worked with at-risk youth, I started volunteering. While there, I met a man with a yellow backpack. The same man I had seen in an earlier class that year on crutches. I remembered him not only because of the bright yellow backpack, but because he would hobble into our 8am class to try to find a seat without interrupting the professor and the rest of the class (pretty unsuccessfully!) Because this was the only recollection I had of him, when paired together to help kids with an art project, it was the starting point of a long conversation for us. Not only did I find out WHY he was on crutches (he fell from a building while trying to scale a wall on a dare), but I also found out that we would be traveling on the mission trip together, and would also have all our classes together the following semester.
This was spring of 2001. We spent the next weeks of the semester together connecting on our love for travel, children, missions, the Bible, and roller blading (seriously, it WAS 2001!) and continued throughout the summer, following fall and mission trip to be together. On that trip, while serving in ministry together, we both came to the conviction (in our young minds) that we were ready for marriage. In the spring of 2002 we were engaged and six months later married.
Looking back on the timing, we know we were both really young (22 and 23!) but we wanted to be married and together. Never for a second do I regret getting married so young. I see it as a grace as we have grown up together. We have had children, lost children, bought homes, sold homes, walked the waters of managing a business, starting a church (if you didn’t know, Kevin is a pastor of a church plant) have had our ups and downs, and everything in between together. We have both been changed for the better and almost 15 years later and 17 years of exchanging Valentines, I can still say he is my one on only true Valentine.
Happy Valentine Day to you and your loved ones today!
Tell me about your adoption journey.
Our second adoption started the moment our first adoption became final. The two social workers that had helped with our first adoption attended the finalization at the court house. As we waited for the notarized documents they asked, “Are you going to get on the list for your second?” We laughed and said, “This adoption literally just finished and you’re on the second?” Then we thought about that 10 month wait just to be approved and found ourselves registering with LSS just weeks after our first adoption was finalized. The paperwork was manageable the second time around and took only a couple of days to finish. In June of 2016 everything we were approved for our second adoption. We went on the waiting list to get into our agency’s “book” (which is shown to birth parents when they are choosing a family to place their child with). We were number 13 on the waitlist and knew that meant we had a 4-6 month wait before we got in. Then LSS had 7 matches in one month and with a blink of an eye we were in the book (much, much sooner than we expected).
What is the most rewarding aspect of adoption?
What do you wish people knew about adoption?
Back when my kids were small, I remember scheduling an in studio session for my toddler and 3 moth old. Getting the kids fed, hair looking cute, outfits on and out the door on time, was such an undertaking. The driving to the studio (which of course opened during my 3 month old’s first nap) and then having to wait in the mall for the studio to open was almost more than I could bear. Once in the studio, I remember working with a photographer who had 30 minutes to get both my girls to smile, and stay in one place together. (And as most of you who have kids know, this is not an easy task for a toddler in the middle of winter and a three month old who needs a nap!)
My favorite Valentine’s Day we’ve shared goes all the way back to freshman or sophomore year of college. I went to UWEC to spend the weekend with Dan. We were broke college kids and he lived in the dorms. He bought me my favorite Disney movie, “Lady and the Tramp”, and made Stouffer’s microwaveable spaghetti in his dorm room. We snuggled up on the futon and ate our spaghetti while watching the movie. I still have the VHS tape even though we haven’t had a VCR in our home for years!
