Our Story (pt. 3): Awkward and Sweet Beginnings

Continuing from  Our Story (pt. 2)...

When I [Tara] was in high school, my family and I camped at Cornerstone Music Festival in Bushnell, Illinois, like we had for years. I was already planning on attending Bethel College in St. Paul, MN, but also wanted to be a part of a traveling music ministry team, at some point. Well, at this music festival they had a tent set up with tables of all different kinds of ministry opportunities. Youth Encounter happened to have a table there, and I stopped by to get more information. I learned that Youth Encounter sent teams all over the country and world doing music ministry. They also preferred that anyone desiring to be on an international team, had lived away from home for at least a year before joining. Knowing I didn't want to take a year off in the middle of college, I asked them to send me information closer to the time I would graduate college in 2005. At the time I didn't even know where in the country Youth Encounter was located, and to be honest, I had forgotten all about it until my junior year at Bethel, when they sent me information, reminding me of my desire to be part of a music ministry team. It was at this time I learned that Youth Encounter was a mere mile away from my college campus! Amazing. I felt called to go, and after graduation from college in the spring of 2005, I joined the Rainbow of Promise team headed to India. At the same time, Dan had already been out of college for a year. The Lord prompted him to join Youth Encounter after his family had hosted a member of a team at their house when he was in high school. Dan joined the Watermark team headed to Denmark. We were both some of the first recruits for that year's teams, so when we were given email addresses of those already signed up, I emailed everyone to ask if anyone was on my team and to introduce myself. I had forgotten about that email I sent until a couple years later when Dan showed me he had saved it (how strange)!

Dan's Team (Watermark Denmark)

Tara's Team (Rainbow of Promise)

We don't exactly remember meeting each other, but that's understandable, since the first day of training in August included meeting close to 75 new people on about 12 different teams. All of the teams trained together for the first 3 weeks or so in the Twin Cities and Luther Dell Bible Camp in Remer, MN, and then the international teams trained together for another week at Camp Wapo in Amery, Wisconsin. This is where my first memories of Dan are located. I remember Dan as quiet, mysterious, creative, funny, and musically talented. At the time, I actually had a crush on someone else and was sure we were meant to be together (as I was each time I had a crush). But still, Dan made an impression on me. I remember sitting outside on the steps of one of the buildings with a small group of friends and Dan in the center playing his guitar, doing his famous John Mayer impression, and writing funny songs on the spot, with help of everyone around. Some song about a cow...? Anyway, I remember that. I also remember one of the last days of our training there was a beautiful sunset and everyone was running down a steep incline leading to the lake to take pictures. I was at the bottom and trying to coerce a certain someone I had a crush on to take a picture with me by saying, "I need someone else to be in my picture..." But he was clueless. With that, here comes Dan bounding down the incline, and within seconds had his arm around me saying, "I'll take a picture with you!" Not what I was expecting or hoping for at the time, but I thought he was nice. It was also slightly awkward. I mean, it was a pretty romantic sunset, and we weren't really even friends. I told him I'd send him a copy of the picture on the road when I got my film developed (tee hee). And I did. And he still has that letter and picture to this day. Funny thing is, this is how the picture turned out (without the "Tara & Dan" on it of course...that was added later for the slideshow in our wedding):
  

I love that only a silhouette was captured in our very first picture together. We had no idea what God was doing, and this was like a shadow of things to come.  The next morning our teams were finally going their separate ways, finished with our month of training. We had finished up by praying together in a big circle outside, and I specifically remember holding Dan's hand to pray (everyone was holding hands). I only remember because his hand was all sweaty and he held on way longer than the length of the prayer... He denies it to this day. Ha! Beginning that day, we would travel in different parts of the States before heading overseas in January. I only sent that one note and picture to Dan during that time and never really thought about him again until Midwinter Training in December. It was so much fun to see all of the teams together again after three months on the road. Interestingly enough, Dan's team was the first we met when we got to the church where the training would begin. He gave me a hug and we had some awkward small talk. Again, I focused on this other guy I had a crush on during most of the training. Silly Tara. After training was over and we went home for Christmas, the international teams went overseas for three months.

Those three months were some of the best and most difficult months of our lives. Between extreme sickness (we were both very sick during our travels abroad), loneliness, culture shock, and learning to live with 5-6 other people in very close proximity for 24 hours a day while in a foreign country, we grew a lot during those three months. It was also during my time in India that I pretty much gave up on the idea of finding a husband that year on Youth Encounter (good, right!?). At age 23, I was sure I was destined to be single forever.

When we came back from Denmark and India, Dan was once again one of the first people I saw as the teams were all reuniting. He gave me a hug and we had some of our classic awkward talk. Then the international teams had a VBS training for a couple of weeks up at Luther Dell Bible Camp, where we had training at the very beginning. During that time, it became clear that Dan was interested in me. It was actually quite comical. I wasn't used to be pursued. What a breath of fresh air! I loved not having to constantly put myself in places where some guy might notice me! He started sitting by me at every meal and complimenting me, a lot. It was kind of embarrassing, because we were sitting with our teammates and they were definitely catching on. At the same time, my silly Tara heart was still dwelling on that other guy from the beginning of the year. I remember feeling so torn, though the difference between the two young men soon became very clear. With one, I was constantly trying to get him to notice me and give any hint of his feelings toward me. With the other, I was very obviously being pursued without any knowledge of my feelings, and he didn't care who knew it. Soon, Dan was asking me to sing with him as he played guitar. I agreed, and we hung out in a cabin one night after our training sessions were done. Dan played and sang many of the songs he had written as I listened, and in between songs we would talk about anything and everything. I could tell he was interested in me, but I was still guarding my heart, so I really didn't know how I felt about him at the time. I enjoyed getting to know him and thought he was a great guy. I even thought he was attractive, but for the first time I didn't know exactly how I felt about someone... again, the Lord's protection, keeping things from moving too fast. I can say after that evening I did feel some butterflies and had a hard time sleeping. "What in the world was going on? How could he like me? I'm such a weirdo! Maybe he's a weirdo, too... "

This was the night Dan first told me he liked me- May 24, 2006

Although I had fun with Dan and liked him, I felt awkward seeing him after that. I didn't want anyone to know, since I didn't really know exactly what was happening or how I was feeling. I didn't want all the teasing. I also grew nervous because I didn't want to lead Dan on, but at the same time he hadn't really declared any intentions. I was confused. Even now we joke about the fact that I went to a good friend Amber who was on staff at the time and poured out my dilemma. I still liked this other guy, but was kind of interested in Dan, too! I remember asking her, "Who should I choose?" We laugh at this for many reasons, but for starters, that question makes it sound as if I actually had a choice. I thought this other guy might be interested in me, but he wasn't doing anything about it. Anyway, I was expecting her to say, "Well, I can't really decide for you...you'll have to figure it out." Instead, Amber's next words would forever be quote-worthy in our relationship. "I'd choose Dan!!!" Ha! I love you, Amber.

The last few days of our training had come, before we all headed out on the road again until the end of the year. Dan asked me again to hang out the evening before we left, and I agreed. In the same cabin we had played music a few days before, we sat and talked for hours. Finally it came out awkwardly (of course)... "Tara, I really like you." And surprisingly, I responded back even more awkwardly, "I like you, too," while I looked down quickly. You'd think we were in 5th grade or something. And then I made things even weirder by blurting out that I'd never dated anyone and I didn't really want to date anyone until the Lord led me to believe we had a real future together.  "That should scare him away," I thought. He didn't even flinch. He thought it was awesome that I hadn't dated anyone and was so committed to my future husband. We decided to just keep getting to know each other with no expectations while we were on the road for the next three months. Over that time we wrote letters, emails, and talked on our team cell phones (because I didn't even have my own yet!) and became good friends. Looking back, Dan says I laughed way too much on the phone, probably because I was a little nervous, but he liked it.

On one of our many phone calls while separated on the road, (probably the last one before the end of the year) I remember Dan asking me if I would consider going on a date with him after team was over. I said something like, "Maybe...we'll see." As our debriefing at the end of our team commitment came nearer in August, I became nervous again and somewhat confused. What was the Lord showing me? Was Dan someone I should open my heart up to? I started having doubts, for no specific reason, when we saw each other again. I just didn't have a peace about moving forward with our relationship and didn't want to lead him on or hurt him. I did still want to be friends and was open to more in the future, but just wasn't sure at that point. I remember a sleepless night in a sleeping bag on the floor of yet another church where we would stay during our trainings in the Cities. I felt that the Lord was not giving me a peace about it and I would have to tell Dan. The next day I asked Dan if we could go for a walk. He looked really excited, which made me feel even worse.  We skipped one of our debriefing sessions and went for a walk near the church where we were at. Not knowing our way around the area, we walked for a long ways before we found somewhere to sit and talk. I remember feeling just awful and wanting nothing more than to find somewhere to sit, because I couldn't tell him while we were walking. I'm sure I was shaking. Finally I said, "Let's just sit here" as I went off the path a few feet and sat at probably the ugliest place we could have possibly chosen. Later we learned it was a sewage treatment building we sat behind on the grass. How fitting. I told Dan I didn't think I could date him at that point, but still wanted to get to know him. Of course, that's the worst thing a girl could say. "Let's be friends." Dan was crushed, but I remember him saying to me, "I just want you to be happy." We awkwardly (prize for guessing how many variations of "awkward" are in this story... no, not really) tried to finish our walk, but we got lost. Oh dear. And then it started raining. Perfect. We walked for what seemed like forever before we found our way back to the church, both of us feeling terrible.

One slight complication was that we had both signed on to stay for the next month to train the following year's teams. Dan had already offered me a place to stay at his parents' house for the week between our week of debriefing and the next year's training. Somehow we decided this was still a good idea. Funny thing was, after we had our talk, I felt so much better. I enjoyed Dan's company even more and felt more free to just be myself and get to know him with no strings attached. I guess my biggest fear had been leading him on and hurting him when I wasn't positively sure I'd end up with him. On the last day of debriefing we had a big concert for our parents and friends. At the end, all of the teams were out on stage singing a final song together. After the song was over, everyone was hugging and saying goodbye on stage. I remember looking around for Dan and seeing him across the way. Suddenly I was really sad we wouldn't be seeing each other anymore after training. I would go back to Chicago and he would stay in Minnesota. I met his parents that day and went out to eat with them, along with his teammates. At the end of the day, I went home with them and got to see what Dan was like in "real life" outside of team. I'm so glad I did...

Stay Tuned for pt. 4 (don't worry, it's the last one)...