Delineating our story in a few paragraphs comes with challenges. Some may say our story began at birth. Some may say it started when Brett asked Jana to be his guest to “Bring a Friend to Preschool” day. Others might say it all began with shared birthdays as kids…or when we started dating in middle school but broke up quickly later when we didn’t speak to each other…or when we played Mary and Joseph for church events…you get the picture. After a lifetime of friendship, both of us had different moments where we wondered if there was anything more. In the Spring of 2022, we had our first real conversation (as middle school obviously does not count!) about pursuing a dating relationship. These conversations fizzled out only to be revisited at the turn of 2023 when we decided to test out a new type of friendship, beginning to date in January of 2023. With Jana living in Texas and Brett living in Minnesota, the first few months of dating included many FaceTime calls and even a few old-school letters. It only took a few dates for both of us to recognize the blessings of this new friendship and our hopes to build a life together. Brett proposed to Jana in July of 2023 and long-distance wedding planning has begun! What a blessing it is to not know where our story actually begins. With a lifelong story, you all have held various roles within our lives and we are so grateful for you to join us on this exciting, covenant-making day. We are honored to have you present with us at Zion which holds such a special place in our hearts–our place of baptism, our childhood school and church, Brett’s place of work, the funerals of our closest loved ones, our first conversations about dating, and place of proposal. Here’s to adding many more memories to our story!