Author: Gabe Editor: Regan

This was my first time attending a full blown FOCUS conference, and I was able to grow deeper in my faith and meet so many amazing people. One of them just so happened to be my future wife! Regan was attending the conference during her time as a missionary with FOCUS (Fellowship of Catholic University Students). At this conference, Regan’s teammate (now bridesmaid) Leigha Zeiszler introduced her to all of her Boise friends. However, Regan does not remember meeting me here! She has admitted that she does not always have the best memory, and understandably she met a lot of people that week, so I was just one of many faces. I, however, remember meeting Regan, and it was very easy for me to remember because her picture was on the fridge in my home! Before you get a little worried, my roommate knew Leigha and had a picture of her whole FOCUS team on the fridge. So meeting Regan was very firmly planted in my mind.

There I was, hanging out with some friends at a gathering, just playing some games, when after having mentioned meeting Regan at the FOCUS conference, Leigha started hyping up Regan big time. “Regan is so funny, and so cute, here look at these pictures, here look at this video…” She came on pretty hard to the idea of setting us up. She had gotten Regan’s permission to set her up with anyone she deemed worthy. I do remember that when I mentioned having met Regan, there was an inkling of thought that Leigha may try to set us up. But when Leigha got going, I got a little nervous. This felt… important. After the 30th great reason of why I should be interested in Regan was given, I told Leigha I would pray about it and check back in the morning. The next day, I gave Leigha the go ahead to talk to Regan.

There I was, two weeks after Leigha had reached out to Regan about me, and I hadn’t heard anything. So, taking it as a good sign from the Spirit, I decided to ask someone else out on a date… and then the next day Leigha told me Regan was ready to talk. Not knowing what to do, I talked with my good friends from my weekly men’s group, and made a decision. I texted Regan to schedule a phone call, and I explained the situation and said that I felt I should only talk to one woman at a time. Regan expressed that she was sad, but also felt very honored by my what I'd decided and how I'd communicated with her.

Well, it didn’t work out with that other girl. So, there I was, hoping against hope that the girl who had been on my fridge for a good six months now would give me a second chance. I texted her again to ask if she was still interested, apologized for “potential whiplash this causes” and waited to see. She was in fact (as you may have guessed) still interested. So we had a phone call, and we found we enjoyed talking to each other.

After our first few times talking, I’ll never forget what Regan did. She sent me her schedule. Not just when she was “free to talk”, but her entire schedule. This was a big deal to me. She wasn’t just sharing the one time in the week when she definitely didn’t have anything else she wanted to do. It was her schedule. It was the most open and honest anyone I had talked to had ever been. She also sent me videos and pictures of her spending time with family. She had very strongly stated within our first phone call that family was very important to her, and this touched me deeply that she would share this with me. We spent the next two months talking and getting to know each other. We decided we needed to meet in person. So we planned it out, I bought plane tickets to visit her in Wichita, Kansas, and I came for a visit.

So there we were, meeting for the first time in person (not really for me but kinda for her). It’s definitely a lot different to meet the person that’s been on your screen for two months in person. I remember asking on the second day of being in Wichita, if she had felt anything from the Holy Spirit about us? She probably said in some way or another “I don’t know” or “not sure” so I left it that for the time being. A few days later, we finished our 33 days of prayer to reconsecrate ourselves to Jesus through Mary, and we were getting ready to watch “Avatar: the Last Airbender” (don’t knock it till you watch it). But Regan hinted that she wanted to talk more about “us”. We talked, and found that we were both ready to make our dating relationship official. At this time, the words of Brother Juan (the man formerly known as Chuch), one of my best friends (and now groomsman), rang in my ear: “If you ask her to be your girlfriend, you have to squat. It’s like a less serious form of getting down on one knee.” “Brilliant stuff,” I thought to myself. So when I asked Regan to be my girlfriend, I did just that: I squatted. Regan has always said that it was probably good I did that because it gave her a clear-cut understanding of what she was getting herself into. So! We were official! We had one and a half more days together, before I had to leave to go back to Boise. That was a hard goodbye.

So there we were, a new couple, twelve-hundred miles away. I am very grateful for our time of long distance dating. It definitely was not always fun, but it showed Regan and I that we loved each other just from talking to each other. We were blessed to be able to see each other about every 6 weeks during this 11 month time. We were able to meet each other's families, and we grew in love and appreciation for each other. It was long and hard but well worth the wait for the next chapter in our journey.

Wow, just wow. In a relationship, scripture tells us the man is to die to himself. It was humbling for Regan to be the first one to close the distance. I will never forget that she moved away from everything she knew to be closer to me. It was a true sign of love to me. The plan in our talking of the hopeful future was always for us to end up in Nebraska (spoilers), but Regan made the first move. It was a great time in my life, to be able to show Regan my life in Boise and for her to get to know my family and friends. I am so blessed with a God-loving woman as my best friend.

So there I was, planning out how to propose without her finding out when I was going to do it. I told her at one point, “I don’t want to propose in Nebraska because we don’t have any shared memories there.” Regan tends to forget some things, but I knew she held on to that tidbit. Aha! A surprise attack! It was the truth at the time, but I realized that she would like to be with some family to celebrate and she would not expect a proposal in Nebraska. And very importantly, I needed her father’s blessing. So, there we were, John and I burying the family cat. This was the only opportunity I could find to talk to John alone! So I started with something like “maybe this isn’t the best timing, but...” He said yes, and told me my job was to get her to heaven - which was exactly what I wanted to say to him. So there we were, just Regan and I, the day before her birthday, down in the basement opening her birthday presents from me early, because I wanted to “have some time to ourselves”. The real reason was I wanted to propose with just the two of us. So instead of “the squat”, I pulled the ring out of her birthday present, and asked her to marry me. And much to my surprise (not really), she said yes! After a couple of hours of tears and laughter, we went and told her parents. Thus began our 15-month engagement.

So there I was. It was my turn to lay down my life, leave my hometown, and move to the cornhusking state. We did a lot of praying and planning, but ultimately God simply provided for us, as everything we needed to happen in order to move to Nebraska simply fell into place. We each found great places to live, and we were both able to stay with our same jobs. We've been keeping incredibly busy with wedding planning, marriage preparation, and trying to keep up with our families and friends. We can't wait to finally be married, have a home together, be a family, and see you all at our wedding! God bless you if you actually read this entire thing and please keep us in your prayers, you are in ours.