Our Love Story

So, my husband is out of town this weekend, and I really miss him already! :( I have read a couple of other blogs where people have written out their love story, so I decided to do that this weekend :) So, here goes...

Aaron and I met my junior year in college (we go by my college years, because he was in college for like 6 years :). We both went to Moody Bible Institute in Chicago. We had several mutual friends, and we all used to go to our friend, Kat's house, to watch 24, our absolute favorite show! We like to say that Jack Bauer brought us together :) I actually remember the first time I met Aaron. My best friend, Tegan, and I were at Starbucks studying. He came, and pulled up a chair at our table and wanted to know if we wanted to go skydiving with him!? Umm, who are you and you are crazy! We started hanging out more just through mutual friends, and I just remember connecting with him through so many conversations and thinking what a great guy he was, but never thinking about dating him all along. When we came back from Christmas break the summer after my junior year, I remember sitting at the lunch table with Aaron and just casually asking how his Christmas break was. It is a pretty standard question when you come back for the 2nd semester after Christmas, and most people respond with time spent with family, what awesome gifts they got for Christmas, etc. However, when I asked Aaron, he proceeded to tell me how he started a 501c3 non-profit organization to train and disciple young people all around the world. What?! Who does that over Christmas break? Yet, still I am thinking, he is definitely the "type" of guy I want to marry, but totally missing the fact that he could BE the guy I want to marry. I loved his passion and drive in life. He didn't just talk about big dreams, he pursued them and made them reality. I love that! :) I always knew I wanted a guy who would take me on an adventure. We continued to hang out that semester, just as friends though (I was actually interested in and hanging out with another guy at that point, still just thinking about how Aaron was quickly growing to be one of my best friends).

So, the summer after my junior year, I ended up going on a mission trip to Jordan & Israel with a team that Aaron was leading with his organization, Project 784. It was a small team, only 4 of us. I would say it was probably on that trip that I first started falling in love with Aaron Nebrija. I watched him live out his passions and that was incredibly attractive to me :) I remember a couple of nights that Aaron and I would just happen to be the only 2 people still awake and we would talk and talk into the night. I felt comfortable with him, like I could trust him, and I respected his wisdom, passion, and leadership. I remember that being a hard trip for me in several ways, and he helped me through a lot of it. But, I must admit, I did not know what to do with this growing attraction. I had just had my heart broken like never before a few months earlier, and I was so scared and my heart was so guarded. Yet, at the same time, I was beginning to have those butterflies-in-my-stomach, I-think-I'm-falling-for-this-guy feelings. I remember one night, in particular, we were sitting up on the rough top of our hostel, overlooking the city of Jerusalem, and it was magical. But I was still scared out of my mind to fall in love with this guy. I was scared he wouldn't love me back, and that was so hard to even think about...

Here are some pictures from that trip:

Our team getting ready to head out to Jordan/Israel

Our first picture together in Jordan :)

Hezekiah's Tunnel in Israel 

Jordan River 

TO BE CONTINUED.... :)

Our Weekend

So, the last few days have been a little crazy for us! We spent last night in the ER most of the night because Aaron had a fever over 103 and had classic symptoms for meningitis. So, we spent most of the night waiting on the test results from blood work, flu tests, x-rays, and CT scans. They were able to rule a bunch of things out, but couldn't tell us exactly what it was! :( They said it was some sort of wicked virus, possibly viral meningitis, but the only way to know for sure about meningitis was to do a spinal tap, which is a pretty intense procedure. They said even if it was viral meningitis, you would treat it like any other virus: rest and lots of fluids. All of the other tests came back either negative or perfectly normal, so it is kind of a mystery. If you know my husband, and know all of the crazy things he has attempted in his life, you would probably be surprised to know that was his first time to the ER and his first IV. He was a champ for feeling as miserable as he did :) But thankfully, today, he is feeling a little better and actually sitting up and carrying on conversations. I hate when my hubby is sick. It makes my heart sad. So, thankful he is doing a little better, though! 

Back to our weekend, which I was originally going to write this blog about before the last few days...haha! It is always something. We spent our weekend in Chattanooga with my grandparents, Nonnie and Pa. Thankfully, Aaron was able to enjoy most of the weekend and didn't get really sick until Sunday morning when we were leaving. It was a very spontaneous trip! We were sitting at home on Friday afternoon and Aaron asked me if I wanted to go to Chattanooga and get out of town for the weekend. I said, "Sure! Let's do it!" About an hour and a half later, we were packed up and on the road. I love that my hubby always keeps life an adventure :) So, we got to Chattanooga later on Friday night and just hung out with the grandparents. Saturday we got to sleep in, which was wonderful, and then went to brunch with my grandparents at this adorable little restaurant on the river in downtown Chatt. We spent the afternoon sitting out on my grandparents back porch reading and relaxing and enjoying the beautiful sunshine. Saturday night we did a little shopping, and Nonnie treated us to a wonderful dinner at Carrabba's (my favorite!). It was a very short, but wondefully relaxing and refreshing little weekend getaway. So sad Aaron had to get sick towards the end, but all in all, it was a good weekend! 

The last few days have been spent laying low and hoping that Aaron will recover. Tomorrow we will get back to the real world...

Enjoying Brunch

Nonnie and Pa. Love, love, love them!

Roxy enjoying the sunshine

Our beautiful view from the back porch where we spent Saturday afternoon relaxing...

Setting Sail

Two weekends ago, we had the opportunity to get away for the weekend at a beautiful cabin in the mountains. We spent the weekend with some of our youth leaders dreaming and visioneering for what's ahead in youth ministry. It was an incredibly refreshing weekend! Aaron and I actually got to go up Thursday night after work, so we had almost 24 hours of just "us" time! :) It was glorious. When life is so crazy, you are always thankful for time away and time together. It was so relaxing and fun to just be able to hang out and read and sleep in and feel like you are a million miles away from everything.

The purpose of the weekend was to get away with some of our youth leaders to dream for the future. It is amazing how God speaks to us when we are still and quiet long enough to listen :) We prayed and talked about what we want Journey Student Ministries to look like and what we hope our students will say when they look back on their youth group experience 10, 20 years down the road. So much of what we kept coming back to was the heart and soul of Journey church already, we simply want our students ministry to be modeled after what we believe in so strongly at Journey Church: "We will dwell in soul environments to know, live, and tell the love story of Jesus." We want our students to understand what it means and looks like to love and serve well. We all got super excited about including many more opportunities to serve and do missions in the upcoming year, and not just something that you do here or there, but developing a heart and lifestyle of serving and loving well in these young people, a heart for the broken. We talked about our deep desire for them to know the word of God, to live in authentic community, to know grace and redemption, and to walk in freedom! One of the themes that came out of our time there reflects one of my favorite quotes ever: "A ship in a harbor is safe, but this is not what a ship is built for." It would be easy to play it safe, to never risk or never dream of what could be. You could avoid the tension between what is now and what could be in the future. You could live life day by day with no real direction or passion, but that is not what we were designed for! Of course, it will be dangerous when a ship leaves the safety of the harbor and heads out to the unknown of the wide open sea, but what adventure lies ahead! You can either fear the unknown or find incredible excitement and anticipation in the blank canvas of the unknown. So, we are excited about "setting sail" in our ministry. We are ready to risk some big things, willing to fail and make mistakes along the way. We are excited for what is to come and to see God radically work in the hearts and lives of these young people. God is writing an incredible story in each one of their young lives. We are excited to watch the Author and Perfecter of our faith reveal these stories before our very eyes...