Kim: Matt will be sharing our story & I (KC) will be interjecting commentary where I see fit ;) I would like to start by saying my senior year of college before I ever met Matt I vividly remember telling God that if I ever got married I wanted a crazy wild love story that we could tell our babies & our grandbabies. I wanted a story that made God look super awesome & worthy. I had no idea how dangerous that prayer was & all the precise ways God would answer it. I hope you enjoy reading about our story, it's long..but it’s my favorite. I think you'll enjoy it too. Buckle up as I (Matt) try to fit the last three & a half years into the next three & a half minutes! I initially began hearing all about this TCU girl “Kim Chow” after my junior year of college at OU. We had some mutual friends who told us about each other. It was one of those “Hey, he has this friend Matt..” &“Oh yeah, she has this friend Kim” type of thing! So after much anticipation we end up meeting in Fall 2016 at a tailgate with some friends in Norman at OU. Kim was up visiting her sister Lindsey who was a freshman at the time. It goes...alright, the whole time I’m trying not to come on too strong because I’m realizing that I have all these feelings for this girl that I don’t really know yet. [KC: “Goes alright”? LOL, Matt hardly looked at me for the 45 minutes we were together when we first met. Then right before we left he came & said hi & introduced himself….my internal dialogue was **Is he shy? Does he hate me???? Surely he doesn’t hate me…I had heard he was excited to meet me though....** Ugh but it didn't matter, I thought he was the cutest guy I had literally EVER laid my eyes on & I was actually kinda digging the mysterious vibe].

Fast forward to Jan 2016 & we’re both at SMC, StuMo’s winter conference. I had heard that there was an open spot on our post-SMC ski trip...so with lots of help from Mason Orr I do what anyone with a massive crush does... we recruit Kim to come! On the ski trip it becomes clear that it’s game over for me. Kim Chow was no longer a mythical name surrounded by desirable attributes, she was real & even better than I had heard! She was intentional to the people around her, tons of fun & she skied hard. Kimberly had a special way of making me feel like the only person in the room when we were talking. [KC: Haha, it’s because I was crushing hard & was borderline obsessed with you.] So the night our huge caravan group was about to drive home from CO I snagged her stuff from the car she was going to ride home in & put it up front in my car so that I could get more time with her. [KC: He literally took some other girl's stuff out of his car & put it in someone else’s car, HAHA. So savage but I was def not complaining.] My game plan was that since we were leaving in the middle of the night we would be the only two awake on the long drive home. Mission accomplished, we got to talk just us two for hours. It was amazing. [KC: After our long driving shift was over we let friends take over, we sat in the back & crashed. I may or may not have *accidentally* fallen asleep on his shoulder...oops!] Like I said, after the trip I was totally ruined. We ended up seeing one another 4 of the next 5 weekends. A couple trainings, a big camping trip I organized & a concert with friends. [KC: At this point it was super obvious to everyone that Matt & I were crushing HARD on each other..all my friends were asking me about it & his friends were asking him. It was clear that he was going out of his way to be around me, but Matt had given me zero verbal confirmation of his feelings for me. I wondered if he was going to ask me out or what the deal was..I became a tinnny bit confused//frustrated.]

Well around spring break I realized that I was being a little unclear. [KC: ha ha] I was treating Kim as more than a friend but hadn’t communicated much, however it wasn't without a ton of processing. I knew I wanted to date Kim & so I talked to some close friends/mentors & ultimately realized it probably was not a wise time to begin a relationship. Neither Kim or I were certain where we would be living post-graduation in two months. We both independently had a strong desire to move overseas to do ministry, but there were a ton of moving parts that went into that that were up in the air at the time. So spring break 2016 Kim is in Belize and instead of prolonging the mystery anymore I decided to mail her a letter for when she returned. [KC: A lot of that week in Belize my mind drifted to him, I was so curious if anything was going to happen or if I was making it all up in my head, so coming home to a letter in the mail from him….I was shook.] In the letter I communicated that I really liked her & told her several reasons why, & I apologized for being unclear. I also listed a few reasons why I didn’t think that it was a good time for us to start a relationship. So I asked if we could just pursue a friendship, although internally I knew I had every hope to date her someday. [KC: For me this letter brought on so many emotions. I was over the moon giddy to hear this amazing guy that I had the most enormous crush on tell me how much he liked me! It was one of those “Okay, so this really wasn't all in my head” moments. But it also was really hard because I also had to accept those feelings were not going to be acted on for at least a little while & honestly may never be acted on. Spoiler alert: 2 ½ years passed before we dated! if I knew it was going to be that long until we got to even “try” to date I would have keeled over & died. Okay I’m being dramatic but literally I had NO idea the ride we were in for.]

So I end up moving to India post-grad & Kim decided to take a job in ministry at TCU. Summer 2016 I pack up my bags & move to South Asia. I made a really difficult call for us to pretty much cut communication since it was clear that it was not the right time for us to try to date. [KC: This was for sure hard for me, in no way did he promise/guarantee we would date in the future..because he literally couldn't! I had developed super strong feelings for him,but for the time being had to open my hands to God & just say "Ok, Lord. Your way, not mine..I trust you, you alone are enough." I am so glad Matthew made that difficult decision. I really respected that he was willing to do something super “hard” in order for us to have healthy boundaries. Matt did not want us “acting” as if we were in a relationship when we weren’t & realistically may never be. It was clear that he really trusted God & it made me deeply trust Matt! During his time in india we basically had no communication. It was..rough.] After living in India for a little under a year, I took an offer to help launch a new overseas team in Tokyo, Japan. I left india in Spring of 2017. I knew this decision would greatly prolong any potential for Kim & I to date but I knew this was where God was leading me. I ended up being home for 7 months before I moved, which was longer than I had anticipated. Kim & I rekindled some during this time. [KC: By rekindled he means he came & built sooo much of the furniture that is in my bedroom/home. Yes, the man I liked so much was also a carpenter. So dreamy.] I saw her at trainings, Kaleo--our summer project in Florida, friends birthday parties & tailgates. It was clear to me that I was still crazy about her & I knew once I got settled into Japan I absolutely still wanted to give this all a shot! I left for Japan October 2017 & once again I decided for us to have little to no communication. In my mind I was hopeful to ask her out a few months after I got settled in to Japan.

So fast forward to the Spring of 2018, I had been in Japan for about 4.5 months. I ask my friends/mentors about asking Kim out & your boy got all green lights!!!! The next day I called her. [KC: When I got that call we had barely spoken in several months. My heart pounded.] Kim had no idea what I was about to say & I had no idea how she would respond, so I just let it rip. “Hey Kim, I wanted to call & ask if I could fly you out to Tokyo & take you on a date?” She was shocked! She seemed excited but realized she probably needed to process what I was really asking her. 9 LONG days later I got a similar text asking if we could talk. Gosh! Nervous is a vast understatement but she FaceTimed me & said YES!! [KC: Matt did the cutest happy dance when I said yes, then his roommate/best man Hayden ran in from the side of the frame & tackled him so excited for him. I’ll remember that forever.] Kim came to Japan in the middle of May 2018 & stayed with my teammate Emma, who also happens to be Kim’s best friend & MOH! We went on three dates that week & after the last one I asked her to be my girlfriend..I got another "yes"! This felt great! We were no longer crazy kids with inexplicably large crushes but we were actually finally dating! [KC: Our first date was May 9, 2018, and that night at dinner Matt pulled a letter out of his suit jacket & said, “I wrote you something. I swear I haven’t touched it since I wrote it.” My heart begins racing, I open the letter & it's dated May 9, 2016. TWO YEARS earlier to the day!!! The letter essentially said “Kim, I am crazy about you...I wish I could be with you but I know right now is not the right time so I am trusting God...I am writing this letter to help me not talk to you so I don’t mess up what “could be”.... If you ever get the chance to read this letter it means that we’re dating.” I was blown away. WHAT? It was so sweet & romantic. The craziest part was that Matt didn't even plan our date for May 9, it was a total coincidence.]

[KC: So I come back to the U.S. after my "The Bachelor" worthy travels with a new BF & a couple weeks later I began to receive some letters in the mail from Matt that he had mailed me from Japan. It turns out the letter he gave me on our first date was not the only letter he had written but never sent. He ended up writing me THIRTEEN letters during those three years we silently wanted to be together. I was so blown away, it was the most romantic thing that I had ever heard! All that time of "silence" I had wondered if Matt had moved on from me, but the opposite was true. Matt also had wondered if I had moved on, but clearly the opposite was true too!] The letters began as a way to help me not talk to Kim before we were dating. Most of them are just a page or two with life updates & a little bit of processing out loud how I’m feeling. At times writing became hard. I promised myself I wouldn't tell her about the letters unless she was reading it on our first date & it happened to work out better than I could’ve imagined. In July 2018 Kim & I got to spend a week together in her hometown, San Diego. This was really the first time we were able to spend extended quality time around one another in our dating relationship & it was truly one of the best weeks of my life. I laughed so much that week. I remember crying (hard) at the airport as I was heading back to Tokyo & realizing that this girl had my heart! It was then that I knew I would do whatever I needed to in order to marry Kimberly Czechowski! Lucky for me on December 31st, 2018 that’s exactly what I asked Kim to do & yet again she said, “yes”!

It’s kind of surreal writing out our crazy story to go on our wedding website! I really could write a lot more about this season & all that God taught us along the way. Most of the time the last thing in the world I wanted to do was wait, but I knew that’s what God was asking me to do. Not just to grow in patience but to grow in really trusting God. Especially because I had a feeling tons of guys would ask Kim out while I was gone & we weren't talking...which they did. [KC: Looking back now, God’s hand in all of it was extremely clear. We are so glad we didn’t force our timing on the situation, but trusted God. We are sincerely convinced The Lord’s timing for us was perfect. We hope y’all enjoyed reading our story (If you actually made it to the bottom haha). I am so excited to marry Matthew James Eppler & to follow Jesus alongside him for the rest of our lives!]