Our Story, Part 1

October has been declared Love Story Month by Mary. Even though I've never read her blog I learned of it from Jenni. And since I am a sucker for a good love story or even a bad one I've decided to join in the fun.

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I met Caleb a few days before the wedding... their wedding, not mine, but our story started six months before that.

My friend from college, Ellen, had fallen in love. The object of her affections, Jeremy, came to Pennsylvania to meet the folks. He also met me and got the idea in his head to play matchmaker between me and his older, handsome, single, missionary brother.

Enter Caleb. Living and working with his missionary parents here in Wales. Jeremy told Caleb to write me. He even appealed to the parents to try to persuade Caleb to write. He told them I was interested in missions and Wales...total lie. Missions, yes. Wales, no. I knew nothing of Wales...didn't even know it existed. Geography was not my thing.

All this persuading took several weeks. During this time Jeremy had informed me of what he was doing. I wasn't sure how I felt about it, so I left it in God's hands. I prayed that if Caleb was not the One he would simply not write.

(As a young teenager my request of God was that no one would ask me out save the One. I knew I would be too loyal in a relationship and would overlook things that ought not to be. God knew what I needed better then I did. I was afraid of getting myself stuck in a right royal mess. So there I was a 20 years old college sophomore having never been on a date...which kind of stunk, but it is what I asked for.)

Then one ordinary college day in early November I reached into my cubbyhole mailbox and pulled out a postcard...from Wales. I was shocked, but very excited. I really did not expect to hear from him. I turned it over to read the first communication from my potential sweetheart and...it was all in Welsh! Let me tell you I was shocked all over again.

Why? you ask. That is exactly what I was wondering at that moment. Months later I found out the reason. He was nervous about writing so he wrote in Welsh because then it didn't matter what he wrote. Logical, no?

Well, that was the start. We continued with email during the months leading up to Jeremy and Ellen's wedding. It was six months, but to get the correct picture it went something like this. I would receive an email and respond within two days. Then I would wait two weeks for his next email and so on. Even though we wrote for six months it wasn't much more then 12 emails. And they were all strictly pen pal-ish ...nothing romatical happening yet. In fact, I shared them with my family.

God really had his hand in us corresponding before actually meeting. I was terribly shy with the male species at this point in my life and through writing, Caleb was able to get to know me in a way that no man in person would have been able.

As nervous as I would be the face to face meeting did have to come and it happened in April of 2001...a few days before Caleb and I walked down the aisle for the first time.

...to be continued.