Welcome to our Journey!

We believe our story of meeting truly had God’s hands all over it. Easter of 2022, Vicki Harrel (Clayton’s Mom) was asked to play piano for the Easter service for the church Savonna Wilke (Johanna’s Mom) attended. She obliged, however with the acceptance, also asked Clayton if he wanted to play guitar as well. He at first didn’t want to, but decided that he would go and play with his Mom. While during the weekly practice leading up to Easter Sunday, the Moms got to talking and getting to know each other more, to which they both found out that they had single adult children. Johanna’s Mom mentioned that she had found out about this guy and talked all about him, to which Johanna didn’t want anything to do with as her sights were focused on God and His plans for her life. Vicki mentioned to Clayton about Johanna, to which he didn’t want his Mom trying to set him up any longer. That Easter Sunday, Savonna showed Clayton pictures of Johanna in which he politely responded "oh, she is pretty!" but his feelings inside were more of a response of being "absolutely speechless." After about two weeks of Savonna dropping hints to Johanna here and there about Clayton and Johanna relentlessly refusing to want anything to do with Clayton, Johanna finally called her Mom asking, "Okay, who is this guy? I need to stalk him on Facebook." Which to Johanna's surprise was full of NO INFORMATION on him. Finally, Johanna wanted to know more about Clayton so she finally added him on Facebook and waited patiently for an acceptance notice. Clayton finally, after an entire week, accepted Johanna's friend request, sending her a message, to which the rest is history. The caveat to this story is Johanna lived in Washington and Clayton lived in California. They met for the first time in person two months later (July) where Clayton asked Johanna to be his girlfriend, however Johanna had different plans and politely declined. The reason for the declination was because she wanted to focus more on God and ensure that this is what He had for her, therefore she wanted to pray about it before becoming his girlfriend. Instead they spent the first 3 months of knowing each other getting to dive deeper into what they each wanted out of life. In August, Johanna went to California to visit her family, where she went on vacation with the Harrel family to Disneyland where she ended up asking Clayton to be her boyfriend, to which to your imagination, he HAPPILY accepted. They continued their relationship being long distance as Johanna had work, school, and church commitments, as well as a signed lease until April 2023. Navigating long distance was challenging at times, with making monthly trips back and forth, lots of missing each other, and FaceTime dates to be had. It was such a trying yet rewarding experience. After long prayer and planning, Johanna was able to move back to California by early February, to which Clayton proposed to her on February 14, 2023, Valentine's Day, to which she obviously accepted or else you wouldn't be reading this! Thank you all for being apart of our journey and story, we can't wait to celebrate with all of our closest family and friends and see you all!!