This page is dedicated to my beautiful, amazing, wonderful, fabulous, incredible, and absolutely perfect wife, and to the adventure of our life together.
I met Rebecca Bowden 3 and a half years ago when I was invited out from Utah to Virginia to consider a leadership position in a young adult discipleship program called Year of Your Life. I myself attended this program for 11 months in South Africa right after high school in 2005. Becca was at the time a student herself, and though our meeting was brief and the experience of the visit for me was a lot to process, it was the beginning of a beautiful thing.
I came back to Virginia to assist in the program's leadership staff in August of 2007, and while Becca was also invited to be on staff as well, she was delayed with family matters until December. We lead on staff together with a handful of others until the following May, all the while growing a strong new friendship together. Neither one of us had any romantic intentions, and it was a wonderful blessing and foundation to develop such a Godly friendship with one another. At the end of the programs term, something shifted... and it was as if God began removing some of the boundary that guarded us from any romance.
Over that summer, I went for a visit home to Utah before returning to Virginia for another year serving in the YOYL program. I was sure of my feelings about Rebecca, but uncertain of her own. I felt like a little kid about it... not sure I had the gumption to ask her outright about her feelings, or for that matter confess my own. But after about a month of my bumblings, I spilled the beans and she confessed reciprocation in her own way.
I asked her in advance for a date, and 2 months later we had a wonderful weekend together visiting at her parents in North Carolina. We agreed from the very start to just be open to God's Spirit and with one another as we shared time together. After 2 days I made things formal and official by asking her permission to pursue a relationship with her, and she accepted.
We then spent the next nearly 15 months in a long distance relationship; her in North Carolina, and I in Virginia. Becca was so very gracious to me in this time, not only having to be away from me for long periods at a time, but almost always commuting the 4 hour drive from NC and back again. God blessed our relationship so much in this time, regardless of the obstacles, and by the end of the YOYL program term, we were crazy in love with one another.
Over another summer, we spent some time with our families before moving to Virginia to live and work near each other. God had put it on both our hearts to do this, and He opened the right doors. For the next 6 months, our love grew stronger as we grew closer, and we began talking about engagement.
February 20th... My master plan devised, I popped the long-awaited question! While Becca was at work, I spent the day setting the stage. With some help from my Mom who was visiting from Utah, and a good friend who I was living with, I shoveled all the snow off the patio of the home where Becca was living, and covered the railing with little candles. Then I brought in a fire pit, a couple chairs, a bottle of wine, a dish of strawberries, set up some music on a stereo, and covered everything in rose petals. Inside the house, beginning from the front door, I wound a maze of string that lead to different charms that would create a bracelet for her, all representing who I had come to know and love her to be. Before she could get over the overwhelming nature of this surprise, I told her there was one more treasure I had for her, and I got down on my knee to reach under her chair where I had taped the engagement ring, and I asked her to be my wife. She, of course, said yes.
After 4 months of planning and preparing, we were ready to enter into our long-awaited covenant, joining in God's Holy institution called marriage, beginning the communion of relationship with one another for the rest of our lives. We had a beautiful wedding, and we were so blessed by all the friends and family that made time to come and celebrate with us. God's presence was so evidently there with us, and our hearts desire to honor and glorify Him was wonderfully fulfilled. I have never had such a beautiful spiritual experience in my life, and it was only the beginning of the most incredible adventure I have ever known; daily it becomes more wonderful and precious. Truly, there is nothing better in this world to me outside of Christ than my marriage to Becca.
We shared a wonderful honeymoon in Cancun, Mexico, and began our life together with great joy. The joy multiplied a few months later when we discovered Becca was pregnant with our first child! We soon discovered it was a girl and chose a name: Alizah Katherine. We are now awaiting her arrival with great excitement and joy. It's surreal to have had all this happen in the span of a year, but in my mind nothing could be better.
