Our story. From her and his perspectives. Enjoy!
Sarah
“I don’t think I’m
going to date when I go to California for ministry school, but if I do- I think
it’ll be this guy.” I said that to my childhood bestfriend the fall of 2014
after only seeing Neil’s photo on our school’s facebook group. I met this man
in September, a week before our ministry school began. I remember seeing him
for the first time and I literally gasped. We shook hands at church and as he
would say, I looked like a deer in the headlights. The next few days before
classes began a group of us hung out on the beach. Neil and I connected well,
talked easily, and laughed effortlessly. I had never met anyone who intrigued
me so much and yet, I had complete freedom to be myself. Over the next few
weeks we went on walks, hung out in groups, and grew in our friendship. After
about a month, we found ourselves in the produce aisle of the grocery store
where I heard the words “everything has changed. I like you Sarah” I look back
and laugh, how quickly it all went and yet, it felt like I had known this man
for years. I felt safe with him and I’d never enjoyed doing the every day
things more with someone than I did Neil.
The tricky part of it all was that we weren’t allowed to
date for the first semester of our schooling. The next four months held lots of
challenges as we did our best to honor leadership and the rules set before us.
Because of the challenges we faced, we grew closer as I saw a man full of
integrity respond to difficult situations that arose. He was able to come home
with me, to Illinois, for his first American Thanksgiving and spent a week with
my family. He played football with my family, paintball, we cooked together and
the more and more I fell in love with this Canadian. To be honest, returning to
California was hard because I wanted to date this man with freedom and to
celebrate the love I felt. The Lord taught me so much in the following weeks
about the beauty of celebrating and what it looks like to truly cherish our
dreams with the Lord. Christmas finally came and we went our “official first
date.” He picked me up with a single red rose, a love letter, a bottle of wine,
and off we went. I had made a scavenger hunt of several of our “firsts.” Afterwards,
we went to a beautiful Italian restaurant, and ended up on the beach where we
had chocolate chip cookies and chocolate chip cookie dough- neither of us can
decide which we like more. Christmas came and I was able to spend a week with
my family before heading to British Columbia for ten days. Canada is beautiful.
I skied, he snowboarded, we went snowmobiling (or sledding, as they say, eh) I
had moose for the first time, fell into snow up to my waist, experienced thirty
below for the first time, and met his wonderful family. We returned to
California free to celebrate. The last three months have held such joy. We both
love to adventure and the central coast is a stunning playground. We’ve gone
hiking, kayaking, boogie boarding, visited Magic Mountain Six Flags where Neil
went on his first rollercoaster and I was shocked, he ended up loving them more
than me!
We both have a heart for the Western Church. We want to see
North America awaken with the truth and love of the Trinity. We are still
praying about what that will look like in the years to come but have several
dreams that we are excited to see fulfilled in our lifetime.
Ill go ahead and jump ahead to the day he got on one knee.
If you know me, you know I’m a curious one. Neil was determined to surprise me
and I was doing my best to figure out his plans. Because of that, he moved the
planned day of proposal! Monday nights are our date night and he told me he
would pick me up at five. After class, at 2:30 I was pouting because I had
convinced myself we would be getting engaged over the previous weekend. Which
would have happened, if I wasn’t so curious. I called a friend and complained
about not wanting to be disappointed on our upcoming date. She listened and
offered to go with me to get my nails done “to make me feel better” fully
knowing later that night I’d have a ring on my finger. While we got manicures
she gave me a very inspirational speech about how I should enjoy the evening
ahead because I was going to be with a man who loved me, in a beautiful place,
regardless of what happened, or didn’t happen. I got home with twenty minutes
to spare to get ready. “It’s just another day” I kept telling myself,
determined to enjoy the evening ahead. After having dressed up all weekend in
anticipation of getting engaged, I tried on several more dresses before
deciding to throw on jeans and a cute tank in hopes of convincing myself that “it
was just a normal day”. I walked out to meet him “you look beautiful! Do you
mind if we go in and find a dress?” sigh.
Outfit number seven coming right up, “it’s just another day Sarah.” I told
myself. He picked out a white dress I had yet to wear since being in CA. Neil
and I have come to love a little sushi place near my house during our time
here. We jumped in his truck and headed to sushi. I found out later that he
wanted to be at the beach at sunset, two hours from the time he picked me up.
Normally I’m the one taking forever to eat but man, he was eating so slowly.
Asking me all sorts of questions. I, however, was ready to go to the beach. “Let’s
go!” I kept saying. Would you like to get coffee? He asked. I wouldn’t say no
to that, coffee it was. Would you like to go on a drive and see some views?
Sure… By this time I thought we were going to miss the sunset. We made it to
one of our favorite spots on the rocks, just in time. He put down the blanket
and began looking thru his bag- I thought “I don’t think this is a normal day.”
He turned around, “Sarah Dawn, I have a question for you.” Screams and laughter
followed, YES! He had my roommate secret shooting and she came down the cliff
and we took some precious photos as the sun fell over the horizon. We were able
to spend some time praying and giving it all to Jesus, again. We then got back
in the truck and headed to a nearby restaurant where twenty of our closest
California friends awaited to surprise us, the newly engaged couple. We
celebrated with delicious food, dancing, and enjoying a warm California evening
on the veranda. We are so blessed with such a beautiful family in this season.
We are thrilled to
announce our engagement. We cannot express how good and faithful God is, our
story is greater than either of us ever imagined. We will be getting married on
the evening of June 28th, 2015 in the St. Louis, MO area.
Neil
I remember going to the beach one day to meet up with fellow
classmates before school started, and as I made my way around the circle of
people asking the typical questions of; hey, where are you from? And, how did
you end up here? I eventually ended up talking to Sarah. Most of the other
conversations were relatively short with well rehearsed answers, but not this
one. Never before had I met a girl who so loved Jesus and yet, so sassy and
fun. We ended up going for a walk and a talking about all manner of things, and
she totally called me out on different mindsets I had about ministering to the
poor and rich. I remember leaving the conversation not with any immediate
thoughts of trying to date, but knowing in my spirit that this girl was the
one, and being very intrigued.
The next few weeks proved very interesting, I had not
intended to put any effort into pursuing relationship as there was a no dating
rule for the first semester in school, but it seemed like God kept setting us
up together anyway. From me having to
sleep on the floor in her house because her roommate invited a homeless man in
to stay the night and they wanted another man present for safety, to planning
to grab lunch with Sarah and a fellow classmate and then getting dropped off at
a restaurant the fellow classmate handing us twenty dollars and saying she had
other things she needed to get done and to “have a great lunch I’ll pick you up
in an hour”. Unplanned, it was just Sarah and I. We ended up making a great
connection. But what really switched things in my mind from friendship to
seeking relationship was after one particular walk which we went on to avoid
the “sponateous worship” that was happening at her place that night, it was
very loud and so we went outside for some peace and ended up having a great
time together and the topic of seeing northern lights was something that we
talked about for a little while. The
next night I was by myself at a little vineyard church called the Well and
during ministry time the pastor called out “I don’t know if this means anything
to anyone, but the Lord just told me to say “northern lights”. At that point I really felt like the Lord was
confirming for me that Sarah was indeed “the one”. After that I started seriously trying to get
to know her.
After knowing her for about two and a half months I got to
go to meet her family in Illinois during American thanksgiving. I had a great time and had the privilege of
answering plenty of small talk questions like “when are you getting married?”
and “where are you going to live after?”.
Then at Christmas, Sarah got to come to Canada and meet my family where
she got to answer questions like “why do you want to get married so soon?” and “have
you guys had enough hard moments to know whether you know each other well
enough?” It was a fantastic time.
We have had the privilege of doing many different fun
activities in our relationship to bond over. We have gone hiking, kayaking,
snowboarding, snowmobiling, paintballing, played football, mini golf and a
variety of other things. It has been a very amazing year getting to know each other.
Then came time to try to plan the proposal, Sarah happens to
be the most infuriatingly curious person I have ever met, and with her love of
trying to plan events it was super hard to try and make things a surprise. I had a limited window of time to make things
happen, between the ring taking five weeks to come in, and the fact that we
already had a wedding date set for June twenty eight due to immigration reasons
meant that it was necessary to propose as soon as possible. So living on faith that the ring would come
in on time I planned to propose on the weekend of March 14. At first I had planned for the Friday, but
little miss curious got too expectant so I moved the time to the Monday of the
16th. I really wanted to
propose at a romantic location that we had had a previous date, so I finally
settled on a rocky section of beach that had good cover for some stealth
photography by her roommate Jaimie. Then
I, through one of her other amazing roommates Danielle who worked at a very
fancy restaurant, was able to reserve the outdoor veranda that overlooks the
ocean for an after party. The day of I
tried to throw Sarah off by telling her I was going to the gym after school and
trying to make the night seem really casual. Then I picked her up at five and took
her out for sushi dinner, but I planned to propose around seven at sunset so I
needed to fill some time. we went and
bought wine, and then some coffee, and I took her for a drive up onto a hill
overlooking the valley, and then when Jaimie messaged me that she was in place
I headed to the beach. I really wanted
to propose by opening the box with the ring in it, but I could not figure out a
way to hide the ring box, so I had it in my backpack and I casually tried to
put the wine and bottle opener in as well so I would have a legit reason to
take it down to the beach. Unfortunatley that made Sarah super suspicious but
what can you do. I had intentions of
saying a few profound words and asking her to marry me, but once I had the ring
in my hands nerves got the better of me and I ended just getting down on one
knee and blurting out “Sarah, will you marry me?” to which she screamed and kissed me- and then
said yes! Thankfully Jamie was there to
capture the whole thing, and then take another two hundred pictures on top of
that. We then prayed and asked God to
bless our relationship and headed off to Lido restaurant. About half the class showed up and blessed us
tremendously, we had drinks and appetizers, there was live music by which we
got to have our first official dance.
Random facts about us.
-Neil’s first time in the States was the fall of 2014
-Sarah bought her wedding dress before they were allowed to “officially
date”
-We found our wedding rings in a small jewelry store after
meeting with an immigration lawyer, working on paperwork to make our marriage
legal.
-We first held hands on a hot night in a small vineyard
church, in the front row, while a revival speaker visted.
-The first song we danced to as an engaged couple was “At
Last” by Etta James
-Neil was Sarah’s first kiss
-Sarah dreamt of marrying a guy with green eyes who could
snowboard: check!
-Invitations are reaching 13 States, 4 provinces, and 9
countries total- we are so blessed to have loved ones all over the globe!
