Introducing a New Character

My blog is a collection of stories that give you as readers a window into my life. My purpose in writing is to celebrate the work God does in and through my life, to process my own thoughts as my overseas adventures happen, and to share these thoughts and stories with people in the US who are praying for me. Hopefully, these stories reflect the complete story God has been writing in and through me. He is the great Author, and I must give Him credit for everything that appears on my blog, because He has written it into my life first. I don’t generally separate “work” and “ministry” from “personal” things, because God is at work in all areas of my life.

Last summer, God decided to introduce a new character into my life story.  You know those times you watch a movie and there’s a twist in the plot toward the end that makes you want to watch the whole thing from the beginning so you can see the clues that fit it all together? Or those times you’re reading a book and you don’t realize the significance of that minor character until he becomes a major character? Well, I’m about to take you back over the last 6-7months from a new angle. But first, I need to introduce you to someone I thought was just a minor character last summer: Lane Selin.

I blogged about my road trip adventures over the summer. I spent the 4^th of July  in Minnesota at the Selin family celebration. On that day, I was introduced to Lane Selin, Elizabeth’s cousin. I didn’t think much about the meeting; though he was an attractive guy with an infectious laugh who seemed to get along really well with all his cousins, I was heading back to Germany and wasn’t looking to meet any new people, especially so far from my home in Illinois. Plus, he’s a farmer, and what do I know about farming? Nothing, really. How could I really relate to him?

Well, I got back to Germany and started getting ready for the new school year.  The day after writing that post, I got a facebook message from Lane. This started a whirlwind of messages, back and forth almost every day. We talked about corn, BFA, music, missionary kids, faith, snowmobiles, road trips, and combines, among other things. August, September, October: In the midst of a road trip to Bremen, caring for a cat, starting up guitar lessons, orchestra, small group, running, castle camping, nursing home performances, and other stuff in my life, I was also writing to Lane. Sometimes his thoughts or reflections turned out to be just the thing I needed to say to a student in a particular situation later that day. We also started finding that God was teaching us the same things, often through the same Bible passages, though we were on 2 different continents. So many “coincidences” appeared; it seemed that God was writing our story as we wrote to each other.

Through our writing, I came to realize that Lane has an incredibly strong faith, shows spiritual leadership, desires to continue growing in knowledge and love of God, works hard with his hands and his mind, is responsible, loves kids, has a great sense of humor, appreciates music deeply, and is a passionate do-er rather than being passive. November-December we started talking on Skype in addition to writing. When Lane stated his intentions to continue getting to know me more (late October), he followed it up with a trip to visit my family in Illinois (and had a significant conversation with my Dad). During Finals week, Lane visited me in Germany, and officially asked me to be his girlfriend on top of the Sausenburg castle tower!

Just a note of clarification: we’re “dating,” but in the serious sense, using this time to see if God is leading us to get married. Some might call this “courting,” but we figure that term might cause more confusion than it’s worth, especially among teenagers.

This post is far too short to fully explain this epic story being written, but already much too long for the average attention span of a blog reader. If you would like to know more details, email me or call me up and we’ll have coffee (if you’re on this continent)! I can already imagine some of the questions . . . “Wait, so you had only seen him in person 1 day before he came to visit you? Were you nervous?”  “How could you know him well enough through writing to really trust his character?” “Can you really see yourself as a farmer’s wife?” etc.  But at least this post gives you the gist of the events that have been happening behind the scenes!