Nate and Caitlin first met at Martin Luther College (New Ulm, MN) in the fall of 2022, where he served as a dorm supervisor and instructor—also called “tutor"—while she completed her teaching degree and served as a resident assistant and later a captain. Their shared responsibilities on the dorm staff helped them form an easy, natural friendship, which included everything from lighthearted banter to lengthy conversations that lasted hours. After spending much time together during those two years, and since tutors typically only serve two years, Nate was likely to be assigned elsewhere. However, what they thought was a last “Goodbye” in the spring of 2024 ended up being a “See you later” as Nate was reassigned for a third year, which was also Caitlin’s 5th and final year. (Secretly, Caitlin was very happy!)

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In the fall of 2024, while Caitlin was student teaching in New Ulm, the two still had many opportunities to chat—since Caitlin’s friends were all student teaching out-of-state and she needed someone to listen to her fun preschool teaching stories. Nate and Caitlin began dating in January 2025, shortly before she left for ten weeks to student teach at Emmanuel Lutheran School (Tempe, AZ), which happens to be just one hour from where she would one day call her home. Despite the distance, there were many FaceTime calls either from her desk in the classroom or on top of a mountain hiking while Nate was still in frigid Minnesota.

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In April 2025, Nate accepted a call to serve as pastor at a new mission in San Tan Valley, Arizona. Upon graduating from Martin Luther College a month later, Caitlin was assigned to an early childhood center in Sahuarita—thankfully just two hours away from Nate’s mission site. (And after joking many times about getting called to the same area, it really happened!)

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Nate proposed on October 18, 2025, with Caitlin joyfully saying yes. Looking back, they see God’s hand in every step of their journey. In the end, it was about finding a friend first, a person to just be themselves with, a confidant to share all the joys and all the burdens, a partner with whom to tackle life no matter its obstacles, a fellow believer with a heart for the gospel and for sharing it with others, a friend to build something from nothing, and to have it become everything they’d ever hoped for.

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To that end, Nate and Caitlin's prayer is simply this:

"God grant it. Amen."