From our first brief meeting in Australia, to becoming friends while on a YWAM school together in Costa Rica, to our first few months dating in East Africa, Kyle and I have had an exciting and multi-locational relationship as we have followed God, sought our life passions, and in the end found each other.
This is my take on our story, so you’ll have to ask Kyle for his version another time. The very first time we met, was in July of 2015 in Perth, Australia. I had just flown in that day for my Discipleship Training School (DTS), and I happened to sit with Kyle and some other people in the dining hall for dinner. However I didn’t realize this until much later when Kyle told me. I had been so tired and jetlagged at the time, I barely remember that dinner at all. Our next meeting, was when Kyle represented the South Sudan mission team during a ministry information night. As he was sharing the vision for the team and what they wanted to do, I was extremely interested. I have a huge passion for orphans, widows, refugees, and war torn countries, and here was someone who was actually working with them. I arranged to talk with Kyle more about the details of the team and their goals over lunch. When we sat down and began to talk, I was actually mildly annoyed. Kyle was very professional and impersonal. The team at that point didn’t have much of a plan, and so Kyle didn’t have very much he could tell me. The only information he could share, was that the team was currently 4 members, Sarah and Jason - the team leaders, Katie - a nurse in her mid twenties, and himself. Jason, Sarah, and Kyle were going to a Secondary YWAM school called the Environmental And Resource Stewardship (EARS) school starting that coming January, 2016 in Costa Rica. The school would be staring a week and a half after my DTS ended. At the end of our meeting, I didn’t feel like I had learned as much as I had hoped to. What I didn’t know was that during that meeting Kyle was being so professional because he didn’t want to “charm” me into joining or sway my decision. Right then and there he felt he met a young woman risking a lot, willing to follow God wherever, and he saw future wife potential in me. I had no idea.
Flash forward, while I was on my DTS outreach, I prayed and felt that I was to commit to the South Sudan team and also sign up for the EARS school. (Kyle had nothing to do with that decision.) Outreach ended and I headed back to Perth for report back week before flying home to Kyrgyzstan, and then Costa Rica. Kyle in the meantime had left Australia, on his own solo outreach to West Paupa in the Indonesian Islands. That one week back in Perth was critical for me. I was preparing for my next steps in this new school and I had a lot on my mind. I was so content with God, and I really didn’t want a relationship. I had experienced a lot of healing through DTS and broken a lot of bad patterns. However going into this school I was afraid of an old pattern recurring. In the past I would look at the pool of guys around me, and choose the most available one with common interests. Then I would pursue him, losing focus of my priorities, and losing track of God. Kyle was the only single guy on the EARS school, and I was afraid to like him and “relapse” to my old ways. Additionally I was the new girl on the team, and if we got into a relationship and something didn’t work out that would make team dynamic really awkward. So I swore not to like him. The last thing that happened in Perth, was that a day before I flew out, I was walking back from the river and I heard God speak. Not through scripture, or a voice in my mind, but an audible, out loud voice from heaven. God said, “What about you and Kyle.” That was it. As I flew out, I couldn’t get that thought out of my head. What about us?
Jump to Costa Rica. School had started, and I was getting to know my new teammates and classmates. They were all nice and funny, I enjoyed all of them - especially Kyle. A prank war got started, myself against Jason and Kyle. Kyle thought he was cute when he put a dead baby snake on my bed. A few weeks in I realized I really did like Kyle, and had a mini meltdown because I had sworn I wouldn’t like him. Sarah gave me some wise advice, and told me I couldn’t rely on what I thought was best for me, I had to follow God’s best. I decided to spend the next few months of school being good friends with Kyle but not losing focus on studying. I wouldn’t make any moves, letting him be the one to pursue, and wait for him to make it clear if he liked me back. Kyle kept switching chores with people to be on my shift, even though he hated working in the goat barn. Finally three weeks before we left for outreach, in a horribly romantic way, Kyle told me he liked me. It had started to pour rain, so we were excused from class early to put the goats away. By the time we made it to the barn, my boots were filled with water. When the goats were finally safe in their stalls we were soaked to the skin. As we walked back, passing the tire swing, Kyle got a twinkle in his eye. “Wanna go on the swing?” he asked.of course I said yes. He pushed me for a while and then when the swing stopped Kyle said, “Abby, I like you.” My heart jumped and I panicked a bit. I decided I had to be sure he was really saying what I thought he was saying. “I like you too Kyle, you’re a good friend.” He paused for a minute then said, “No, I like you like a girl.” Here is where my memory and Kyle’s is different. I thought I replied with something cute like, “I like you too.” But apparently what I actually said was, “Oh no.” I guess I was so set on holding out that I didn’t know what to do once it finally happened.
A week after Kyle told me he liked me, he asked me to be his girlfriend, and a week after that we were on a plane to Uganda. Our first three months dating were spent doing ministry in Uganda, South Sudan, and Kenya. Dating in Africa had its own challenges, like not going out just the two of us and absolutely no touching. It was definitely a good and growing experience for us. From there our we took our relationship long distance for 15 months with an ocean between us. I was at midwife school in Hawaii and Kyle was at wooden boat building school in Washington state. April 2017 I moved back to San Diego to live with my Grandma Eula. Later in September Kyle moved to Rosarito, Mexico for Bible school and to be closer to me. It’s funny that he left the country to be near me. Currently we are enjoying a mid-distance engagement being only an hour drive apart, with a border between us. Lastly, as our story began by following God and being in missions, we plan to start our marriage in the same way. After our wedding we will be moving to Rosarito and joining the staff at the YWAM base in full time ministry. We are excited to be stepping back into missions and especially looking forward to building the foundation of our marriage surrounded by a Godly community.