"We met through our college ministry."

At least, that's the 5-second version that we may tell a passerby or distant acquaintance. But there's so much more to it that we're dying to share with our dear friends and family! Many of you may know these stories that shaped our relationship, as you've lived alongside us and have been a part of them.

Having known of each other since 2018, our paths began to cross more and more in the early spring semester of 2019. When Alyssa decided to pick up surfing as a hobby (thanks to Jenna Jay), Morgan, the hopeless Tennessean surfer, got to witness more the excitement Alyssa Reed found in the everyday. Over the course of a couple months and a few group surf sessions, the two bonded in their shared joy. Morgan knew it was time to turn that friendship into a date!

April 11th, 2019 is a date Alyssa and Morgan refer to often. The utterance of "April 11th" carries with it the tremendous weight of butterflies, bonding, and blossoming love. The two of us, despite numerous attempts, were never really able to fully catch up on each other’s' lives (we always had so much to talk about and so little time in group settings)! That's why Morgan set up a nice little cafe date; his stated goal was to hear ALL about Alyssa's recent trip to London (a city he'd always dreamed of visiting), but his real plan was to fall in love with her and marry her 20 months later. It's also important to note that Morgan called every cafe type institution in DeLand to find some London fogs for us to drink on that first date.

We promise not to fill this page with every memory or detail from that day, but we think this next one is pretty important. Morgan arrived at the corner of Rich Avenue and Woodland Boulevard at 9:55 filled with anticipation. 18 days later, on April 29th, he journaled this about his experience:

“I can distinctly picture the second I stood on the corner of Woodland and Rich

(I can imagine the sounds, the feeling, the warm air), a little nervous to see

Alyssa, but more excited than anything else. Never lose that feeling, Morgan…

The second I made the first step across Woodland, life began to change.”

Morgan saw Alyssa through the window and smiled as he approached. She looked beautiful. It was like God was giving us a heads up that we will never be the same (He has a tendency to change people’s lives like that); Morgan often looks back on April 11th with the exciting realization that we never turned back from that moment. As he wrote, “after spending the entire day with her in DeLand, I realized that there is now a clearly defined line between life without her and life with her.”

Over the course of the remaining few weeks before summer, we spent dozens of afternoons together and plenty of hours telling silly stories, discussing our backgrounds, and dreading the summer we’d spend apart. On Morgan’s birthday, we surfed just the two of us for the first time; the following Tuesday, we spent the entire day together and had an adventure in downtown Sanford; and before long, we would regularly travel between DeLand (Alyssa’s town) and Port Orange (Morgan’s old town) to catch a couple hours together. We were both clear that we wanted to pursue each other seriously entering summer, so we looked forward to the hours we’d spend calling and the 2 weeks we’d spend on Puerto Rico Project (PRP) with Campus Outreach.

Our first FaceTime of the summer lasted 8 hours, and from then on it was clear that we missed each other. We would regularly call on Morgan’s way to work, and we’d write letters when Alyssa was working at KAA, her favorite summer kamp. All the while, we were dying to share our lives with each other, from Morgan’s beautiful hometown to Alyssa’s graduation, from Morgan’s cherished days working valet to Alyssa’s birthday trip to Iguana Mia restaurant. That’s not to mention our little sister’s high school graduations!!

PRP made for one of the coolest experiences of our lives. On that trip, we spent night after night watching the moon rise over Castillo San Felipe del Morro, or just “the fort” as our American selves called it. There, we recognized each other’s enjoyment of striking conversations with strangers (particularly the locals) and of remembering every moment of an experience like PRP. Those things in mind, we bought 2 journals: 1 devoted to memories of Old San Juan (the people, the sights, and the memories with our church) and 1 devoted to our relationship as a whole. We have excitedly filled those with cherished moments!

At last, the long summer was over, and we were able to hit the ground running straight towards marriage. Of course, we didn’t vocalize that then, but we both knew it.

Over the past 20 months (that’s how long we will have been together on our wedding day!), we have seen each other through Alyssa’s graduation, Alyssa’s first year teaching elementary students, and Morgan’s transition into Civil Engineering as his new major. We’ve had so many adventures together throughout our beloved state of Florida, from Mount Dora (disappointingly not a mountain, joyfully a beautiful town) to Cape Coral; we’ve fled to Tennessee to escape hurricane Dorian, allowing Alyssa to meet my family for the first time; we’ve travelled to Michigan to meet Alyssa’s extended family; we’ve spent two months in Tennessee, again to flee Florida, while uncertainty remained throughout the first period of this pandemic; and now we’ve shared a productive summer here in Florida, a summer that ended with our engagement. Over the next couple years, Morgan will finish his degree at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University and Alyssa will teach her 2nd and 3rd years at Citrus Grove Elementary in Deland! We have big dreams of seeing the world together and of transitioning into different careers someday, but for now we will remain right here in DeLand, Florida, where we believe God has called us to grow as individuals and as a couple and to minister to the college students at Stetson University and Embry-Riddle.

Those who want to pray for us can pray that we keep our hearts wide open to God’s plans for our marriage, that we never taint the excitement of marriage or raising a family by losing sight of His intentions for our lives, that we would set aside our own desires for travel and adventure when God calls us to do so, and that when we one day have children we would whole-heartedly make them the center of our ministry. Above all, please pray that through our faith in God (our first priority), we would maintain a deep relationship as partners focused on the sanctification of the other.

Registry