How We Met > Chapter One

This past week, I was asked to guest post on two wonderful blogs, Wishes & Kisses and  Eight. Both Elizabeth and Kaytee asked me to share how Dustin and I met. It was soo much fun revisiting those heart fluttering moments of my relationship with Dustin, I decided to go ahead and share it on here as well! This is the super condensed version, there are a lot of little details in our story that have completely molded me into the woman I am today; a lot a lot a lot of learning how to be vulnerable and patient AND finding out that God is the biggest romantic I will ever know. Maybe in years to come, I'll share some of the little miraculous moments, cutesy ways we kept our long distance romance alive or hours where all I wanted to do was throw in the towel. But, for today, I'm just gonna share the fun little version of our story!

The unit of Dustin and Kate Wise all started back in the summer of 2006, I was living in Brisbane, Australia staffing a Music Arts & Dance School with the organization Youth With a Mission. Myself and my fellow staff mates had just began looking over the list of mere names of students we would receive that October. I remember going onto Myspace, snooping around to see if I could put any faces to the list of names. There was one kid in particular, just a boy-like kinda guy playing guitar, named Dustin. I didn't think much of him other than, 'Hey, he plays guitar, that's kinda cool". Well, October came around and Dustin arrived and I remember only really thinking, "He's tall, that's neat". A few months into the school, I found out that Dustin would be a part of the team I would lead on missions to Japan. So, we started hanging around each other more in preparation for the outreach. Dustin and I got along super well, we even called each other our twin because it was crazy how much we thought on the same level. But he was just an 18 year old "boy", so I never was too attracted to him (I'm 2.5 years older, so at the time, it seemed like a big gap). I even remember saying to one of my girl friends "We are soo close but it's crazy that I don't have a crush on him!" She just looked at me skeptically! haha. She must have known something I didn't.

Well, we went to Japan, had an awesome time, and as soon as we got back, one of my friends told me she had a dream that Dustin and I got married. That got my mind thinking and by now, Dustin's looks had rapidly changed from boy to man. It's crazy how fast he grew. I started looking at him differently, the only problem was that as staff on this school, I wasn't allowed to date a student. The final weeks started wrapping up and it came time for grad night. I was soo nervous because I knew that this was one of our only chances to establish our relationship, as he was about to fly back home to the US.

The night passed without a mention of his thoughts towards me. I was freaking out inside. The next day he told me his plans to go to New Zealand the following Monday for three weeks before going home. I knew a retired couple who lived in Mount Maunganui, NZ and so I emailed them and asked if they would want to host Dustin. They were thrilled to, so once it was all planned, I told Dustin how I wished I could go too. He replied "Oh, you will...I think God will provide a way for you to go too". I was like "yeah right" in my head and played along. I didn't actually think it was plausible since I didn't have money to get a ticket seeing that I was a missionary full time. So, the following day I said a very very sad goodbye, wishing he would have said he liked me, but didn't. I found myself really really down for the next few days so to gain control of my emotions and surrender my heart to God, I stopped using email for a day. I had been looking far too often hoping for an email from Dustin professing his love for me. Again, didn't happen.

However, when I got back online...

I'll be continuing this story through out the day!  (Chapters Two, Three & Four) ♥, mK