When I was asked to move to Boston, MA in July 2020 to support the church family there, I had a hard time leaving my friendships, and immediate family behind. Not to mention, I loved New York City, and had never lived anywhere else. But I was willing to answer the call. In my heart I knew that there was something I was meant to find, and learn in this new city. The possibility of dating certainly crossed my mind, but let’s just say it landed on the other side, and stayed there. The first thing I learned was that I was moving during the absolute worst time to move in Boston. I pulled into the city at around 3 pm in a pickup truck, which was the only available truck I could find. Everything was new. I was ready to be inspired. A couple of days after being in Boston, I found out that a young man from Chicago had joined the Boston church. I thought nothing of it, since everyone was new, and the church was growing quickly. I doubted that we would really cross paths.

Woohoo! God is so good! My best friend Stevonna of the Chicago church asked me to come to a singles event one Saturday evening in July. Little did I know she would have plans to have me meet and study the Bible with Tony Natoli going into August. Time got more difficult to find while trying to continue studying as I was moving back to Boston for school on Aug 15th. I continued to persevere and finally got baptized Sept 4, 2020 at 8:45pm in Mike Patterson's apartment. After joining the church, some brothers would tell me about what dating was like and how they saw me dating soon. If you asked me at that time, I would've told you "Absolutely not!" My mind was far from that as recently I just got out of a 6-year on/off long distance relationship with a girl I thought was it for me. Very much was I focused on continuing to be faithful to God and be a good student at Northeastern. One Sunday in September, I placed membership with the Boston church, after leaving membership from the Chicago church. There I was able to finally start my journey as a disciple and meet everyone!

That weekend, my household hosted a movie night for the Mulan premier where some of the students and single professionals came out—among which was the young man that had also just moved to Boston, from the Chicago area. As he introduced himself, I had no idea that within just 5 days after moving into the city, I had already met my future husband, Ryan.

I don't remember it that way, LOL! I was asked within the first week of being a member to join the AMS (Arts, Media and Sports) ministry, using my singing ability to song lead for the church. Rehearsals were on Saturday evenings at one of the households in Brighton, MA. After one of the Saturday rehearsals when she came, we had a great conversation.

I always sang in the New York church, so it was only natural for me to sing in the Boston church. When I showed up to the first singing rehearsal, I was surprised to see that Ryan was there, too! Our conversations were natural, and after a few weeks of singing and talking together, I quickly noticed his intelligence, confidence, integrity, and most importantly, his pure love for God. Around mid October, I blushed as I told my mentor that I was interested in dating him, even though he had only been part of the church for less than 2 months.

Music has always been enjoyable for me, either playing the trombone or singing in the church choir. This made it easier for me to make friends with all the folks who attended the rehearsal. I definitely still categorized everyone however, into the group of people I could continue being my goofy self around, and the group I could not. The people who I could not act this way around were the leadership of the church and many tenured disciples. And yes Jodianne was one of those I could not be my most comfortable and goofy self. I did think she was cute but I wanted nothing more than to just be cool acquaintances.

The next few months were… slow to say the least. I knew that I liked him, but I really wanted him to initiate more of the friendship. Around mid November, he announced at the rehearsal that he would be going back to his hometown for school break, and would return to Boston in the beginning of January. I was crushed. I decided to put the interest on a shelf. COVID 19 still made things very unpredictable at the time, and I was hurt by the possibility of him not coming back to Boston, or not coming back as secure as he was when I met him.

The semester was slowly coming to an end and my family was thinking about what we wanted to do for the holidays together. This year they suggested we rent an RV and go on a road trip to travel to see the Noah's Ark replica. I thought it was such a cool idea and I was excited to go! I told my mentor one Saturday that I'd be leaving and won't be able to lead songs in person anymore for church until January when I come back to town. I knew I'd miss the friends I had made in Boston but I knew I'd see them all again real soon. I finish up the school year and go home for the holidays, not returning until January 2021.

Throughout the winter break, we hardly talked. Actually, we didn’t talk at all. But I kept hearing about how much he was growing. When he came back in January, he was even more mature, and confident, and he showed that he truly did have the integrity that I saw when we first met. I quickly was interested again, but he still wasn’t initiating. This was important to me, because I needed to be sure that this was what God wanted for me. I decided that being still, and waiting was my most faithful course of action. I didn’t bring it up to my mentor, and she hardly brought it up to me. But I was praying more than ever. Throughout January, and February, we were still friends. After seeing him go on group dates with other women in the church, I was starting to feel like maybe it was best to move on. I prayed for God’s help in making it clear, and asked God to either allow him to initiate, or to help me work through the feelings. The next day, he asked me on a date.

During winter break, I had a change in spiritual mentorship. I was excited and intrigued what this new guy was going to be able to teach me and help me grow in. Within a few weeks of the change, he asks me over and over again if I have gone on a date with Jodianne yet. I respond to him, "No I haven't but I have been going on dates with other sisters." He quickly corrects me and says, "Make sure you plan that date bro." I proceed to not plan the date for about 3-4 weeks in a row. Each time we meet to have a talk together, he reminds me over and over again, "Ryan, make sure you take her a on a date!" I didn't think anything of it so I just proceeded to ask her on the date. Side note: Towards the beginning/middle of February, I had begun liking her as I started texting and getting to know her more. I never told my mentor this, I just continued to keep things cool with everyone and with her. Sunday February 21, I finally asked Jodianne on a date for February 27, 2021. This conversation was sooooo funny! (please ask me about it) Long story short, we plan to go on a date set for March 6, 2021 @ 10am. I wanted to impress her so I chose to go painting together with some AMS folks.

I was more nervous than I would like to admit, because I couldn’t believe that God would answer my prayer so quickly, and clearly. I kind of knew that I blew my cover. He put a lot of effort into encouraging me on that date, and I tried my best to not make it obvious that I was super impressed. That didn’t work out too well for me. After the date, our friendship kept growing, and he would go more out of his way to support whatever I was doing. At the time, I was learning Tae Kwon Do, as a way to exercise and meet more people. He begged me to let him come to my belt promotion.

This date went so well. I'm so grateful that she was able to share her life while also sharing her artistic abilities with me. Her creativity in making this tree come to life on this bowl was so inspiring. I'm also grateful she remains encouraged even though we got McDonald's afterwards for lunch because of the rush to get to AMS rehearsal on time :D Days would go by and our friendship grew tremendously. We became the best of friends with each other. I learned to respect her more and more as I learned all the why's to many of her decisions every day. I continued to learn numerous amount of things from her about life, and it drove me to want to develop an even closer relationship with her. Along with the fact that I liked her too, drew up statements in my head saying, "Okay Ryan, let's make this thang happen!"

Within a few weeks, I was sure that I wanted to date him, but I surrendered to the timing. About 2 and half months after our first date, we went on another double date. This time we doubled with my mentor, and her husband. I was nervous, but eventually I let my guard down. The setting was so perfect, I wondered if he would ask me to be his girlfriend right then, and there. When it didn’t happen on that date, I thought that maybe it would be another few months. Plus, I knew he was patient. I was so thrown off, that I didn’t suspect anything when my roommates suddenly wanted to change our family time that week to Saturday, instead of Sunday, where we would have to dress up for a roomie photoshoot. That photoshoot turned into the perfect time where Ryan gathered our friends, professed his feelings in front of everyone, and asked me to officially be his girlfriend on May 29th 2021.

A few weeks went by and I still had not been making any moves on her. It became very clear once we were spending time on Factime and messaging each other often that the two of us wanted to date one another, but neither one of us could speak on it. Joseph and Tyler were getting married in May and my stand-in mentor Calder challenged all the guys he mentored to let him know who we liked in the church, and to begin dating before the newly-weds got back from their honeymoon. I take a moment to think and I finally open up about my interest in Jodianne. The planning began! The next day I got the "green light" from many other mentors of mine so I proceeded to see what I could do to make this happen. I bust out my poetry skills and get advice from mentors and her friends Alex St. Louis and Taiwo Oladele to plan an excellent dating proposal. It went awesome and she said YES!

Throughout our dating relationship, we grew more comfortable with each other. I thanked God everyday, for how He worked everything out. We became best friends. Along with the things that first stood out to me, I grew to love everything about Ryan–even his super basic, and childlike food choices. I loved his singing. I loved his humor. He was always more positive than me. He loved God, more than me, and he did everything to keep the relationship pure. In fact, we never kissed. My heart was full when he first told me he loved me in October. I knew he was the one that I would do just about anything for.

God led this whole thing FOR SURE! She became everything that I could've ever wanted my wife to be. She learned the things that encouraged me the most. She made sure my stomach was full by going out of her way to make me food. She wrote me cards with plenty of encouraging words. She corrected me when I was just out of or wayyy out of line with anything. She loved me even when I did the very thing that made it hard to love back. She was very much involved in wanting to continue building a foundation with me long term. God and I talked very briefly about if she was going to be the one for me. The question was, God when were we going to be able to make this happen?

Throughout the relationship, we had many awesome memories. We also had tough times, where I became anxious and discouraged, but he always encouraged me, and he was constantly confirming that he was the one I wanted to marry. I couldn’t wait to see what he had planned for our one year anniversary. That same day happened to be our last service in Boston, because we were going to help plant the church in Portland, Maine. I didn’t think too much of his parents being in town, since he would be moving to Maine soon after. I had also invited my mom to be in town that day. While we were on our way to our anniversary dinner, I kept wondering why I chose to wear the most uncomfortable shoes, and why he chose a restaurant that would require us to walk through the entire Boston Commons park. Little did I know, he had to stall to give people time to get in their places. As we were walking through the park, it didn’t take me long to see a large group gathered. When getting a little closer I saw that the large group was actually all of our friends and family waiting for us. They were clearly in on the surprise. My heart melted as he had my closest friends, and my mom read parts of a poem, which professed his love for me. Just when I thought I was overwhelmed enough, he sang “Knocks Me Off My Feet” by Donnell Jones, and he closed out the poem with the proposal. I have truly been knocked off my feet by God, and Ryan. I can’t wait to see what the future has in store for us becoming one on this new adventure!

Planning the engagement was a toughy! I talked to our dear friend Taiwo Oladele, as she had plenty of insight on how Jodianne was feeling about marriage with me. She did mention Jodianne wanted to wait at least a year of dating before she would want to be engaged to someone, That kept ringing in my ear but I wanted to do it sooner. Around the end of April, we both got asked to go to Portland, Maine on the mission team to help plant the church. At this point, I did have plenty of thoughts of cancelling this whole operation trying to marry her this year but then I remembered, God is leading this whole operation and not me. I kept praying over how we could make this happen in such a short window. God kept telling me May 29th just do it for your 1 year anniversary. I always thought to myself "How cliché and basic" because yes we hear that a lot with other couples but why would that be me? It soon became more and more clear to get both families involved and to make it seem "normal" was to have them come during the mission team send-off service from Boston. Date secured! Planning how to ask her was easier than expected. My vision was to make this a small synopsis of her life leading up to the best part happening now, getting engaged! Her own mother was down to be a part of the poem reading. I love that it all came together, even though packages didn't arrive on time in the mail. Thank you to those who were involved in making this great! You know who you are and I want to you to feel appreciated. Especially those that came in "clutch" on the day of the event, THANK YOU! The journey continues with a lifetime of memories to make with the love of my life, Jodianne Green!