Shaddye and I met at our church, Churchome UD Campus, in 2014. I had recently graduated from UW and he was a junior at SU (yes, I went for the younger guy!) The first thing I noticed about Shaddye was his perfect smile and how easy he was to talk to. Both being athletes, we connected over our athletic careers and our passion for the church. We became really, really great friends as he won me over with his steadfast character and larger than life personality. He liked me for a while, I turned him down... (my bad). We remained friends and a couple years later I liked him, and he was like "no, thanks." We continued to stay friends, he would come with my family to Chelan and we still spent time together. In the spring of 2019, Shaddye started hanging out around me more than usual and eventually had to spell it out for me that he wanted to try this thing "for real" and give "us" a shot. I said yes(!!!!) and we started going on dates. Shaddye persistently pursued my heart and led our relationship wisely and with such care. Nobody makes me laugh like he does and I have such deep trust in his ability to lead me and our future family. He asked me to be his wife on January 25th and gave me the most beautiful ring I've ever seen! Shaddye is everything I've been praying for in a future husband- a man of conviction, led by the Holy Spirit, a leader of leaders, so handsome, is a champion of others, challenges me and will push me to be the woman God has made me to be. I had been single for a really long time but he was one million percent worth the wait. He is my reward and I can't wait to be Mrs. Melu!

I had heard of Kristi Kingma when I was in High School. She was the attractive blonde haired girl who played basketball at University of Washington. When I had gotten to college, I began attending The City Church (at the time) now Churchome and would always see a video of Kristi sharing her story of being an athlete of faith. I always thought in my head, "wow I really want to meet her... She's cute, she's loves Jesus and she's a better basketball player than me." This was in 2012-2013 but I didn't actually meet her til summer of 2014! She was 24 and I was 19. I immediately felt like something was different about her and everything was right. Like she was exactly what I had been looking for even at a young age. I knew because she was older it would take a little bit of effort to convince her of the same. We became really good friends and about 6 months into being friends I told her that I liked her. I totally thought the feeling was mutual but I guess it wasn't. She acted like she did but whatever. Fast forward two years and she called me and told me she liked me and was sorry for rejecting me the first time, but in a selfish effort to get back at her I told her I wasn't interested. I still liked her even though I denied it. In January of last year I began to ask myself, if I was to marry someone tomorrow who would it be... my answer was always Kristi. In Late April she moved over to the Kirkland campus and when she walked in, it clicked in my head that if she found a guy right in front of me I would not be okay with it. So that day I texted her and went to hang out and told her I was sorry for letting my pride get in the way of us being together and I asked for another chance. She gave it to me, THANK GOD and from that day on May 5th, I knew that if she decided to let me have another chance, she would end up being the girl I would marry <3 I love you so much Kristi, I feel like we've been together forever and I can't wait to spend forever with you!