Kate and I first met in 2021 while serving at Vacation Bible School at our church in Springfield. I immediately thought, “Wow, who is this stunning woman pouring into the next generation?" She was immediately smitten... Okay, that isn’t true. We barely talked for the next year. We were never in the same circle of friends, but I observed her character from afar, and everyone spoke highly of her. We had a couple of conversations in the Spring and Summer of 2022 that I left thinking, “Interesting. I wonder.” Then the stars seemed to align when Kate needed a truck to transport a decoration for her sorority's recruitment. So, I immediately volunteered to help. We needed more supplies to keep the decoration standing so I offered to help fix it. We ended up going to Lowe’s together, where I came to find out later that she always wanted a man to take her on a date to Lowe's lol. THEN we started dating. No... I left to live in Africa for a year. But Kate was receiving my newsletters. Get this. She responded to one of them a month in. Pretty innocent honestly, but again I thought, “Interesting. I wonder.” Nothing happened until 3 months later when Kate went on a mission trip to Nicaragua. At that point, I knew we were on the same page about some important things. So finally, I reached out to her to ask if she wanted to make phone calls to get to know each other better. Keep in mind y’all that I was in Africa so that was our only option. But at that point, it was really sweet to build a foundation of communication in our relationship for the first four months of dating. We had some fun dates over Facetime, like playing Bananagrams, having a Q&A panel with the roommates, and sharing some pictures of our favorite childhood memories. I arrived back in the states at the end of June, and the rest is history!!

To sum it all up though, we are two broken people that came together by God’s grace, in His

perfect timing and I would not want it to happen any other way.

-Caleb