Flight by Flight

I had flown from New York the night of January 20th and was sitting the next morning in the Amsterdam airport, waiting to board KLM flight 565 to Kenya, where I would work for the next ten weeks. Unannounced to me, Jena had flown from Nashville with a team of Blood:Water folks the day before and was changing planes in Amsterdam to also board KLM flight 565 to Kenya. We had met twice in passing, because of mutual friends in New York, so when I saw her in line I said hi immediately. What a serendipitous treat to run into someone you know from the states when you are boarding a plane in Europe bound for Africa. She seemed excited to see me too, but had a little trouble placing me, given the altogether odd context we were in. What has ensued from that run in until now does much to prove that the coincidence was fate.

When I got on the plane there were a couple of empty rows near my assigned seat, so I welcomed myself to one, hoping to get some sleep, but maybe subconsciously hoping to make room for company if Jena wanted to stop in and sit. She did come by a couple hours into the trip. And though the flight was 8 hours long, the last five or six, those we spent chatting together, flew by so fast we each wished the Boeing 777 was slower. The conversation was filled with mutuality. We discovered shared dreams, values, enjoyments and interests in issues of social justice, faith, politics, and Africa. Clearly we were speaking each other's minds and the compatibility of ideas and feelings was inspiring. I was, however, going to be in rural Kenya until April, so my focus was far more friendly than romantic. And Jena, well, she would need a little more prodding by a few more people in the months to come to even realize relationship was something she was missing. As we exited the plane though, Jena handed me a book by Barack Obama, someone we both had read from, and we each handed each other small notes. An unspoken spark was there.

For the next three months our only contact was through my blog entries, which I wrote in Kenya and Jena read stateside. Apparently she liked them, and began to harbor a crush. At the same time, she was becoming more and more aware that she wanted to make room for a relationship in her life in general, after the three amazing years that she has devoted to little else but the mission of starting Blood:Water.

Then in April, a week or so after I returned, we met up in New York. Jena had emailed to let me know she would be in town and her assistant Amy Marie followed up with me to set up a breakfast meeting and to offer me tickets to see a concert: Jars of Clay, the band that founded Blood:Water Mission. Because of the indirect way Jena reached out to me, I assumed we were just getting together to share notes on Africa and non governmental organizations or something. But that weekend New York was pummeled by a record setting nor'easter. And since Jars was playing just a few blocks from my apartment and Jena had meetings nearby, I invited her to come by my place and step out of the rain. She accepted. We went to church together and had sushi before meeting up with friends for the concert. The next morning we still had our breakfast "meeting". The mutuality from the plane resurfaced during those hours we spent together, and again we wished our time would not end. In fact we stretched breakfast into lunch with friends and then hung out until I had to go to work. As I ran off to teach at 4pm I gave Jena a book I had just bought, returning the gesture she had made at the end of our Kenyan flight. And though those two days were still outwardly unromantic, again an unspoken spark was there.

A week would go by until Jena and I would speak again. But when I called my new friend, she met me so fully in conversation that I began to believe something very good was brewing between us. I know now, Jena was secretly hoping for the same, had even said so much to her family and friends. And within days those unspoken sparks began to ignite real feelings. We talked and wrote and talked and wrote. Jena spent two whole weeks back in Kenya and we were in contact everyday, anxiously excited to partake in our budding romance. There were some sweet confessions over phone and email and a decision to see each other as soon as she returned. So two days after Jena arrived back in the U.S., I flew to Nashville highly hoping that what we were saying and writing would really match up when we saw each other face to face again. It did and and much more. We spent those four days wallowing in our new found affections for each other like silly kids at a playground. And on that trip to Nashville, I sat down with Vanderbilt. They told me they would love to have me come to grad school in the fall, if only I would rush my application. So I did. Eight days later Jena and I spent nearly a week together at a conference in D.C. and during those days conversations between us had already begun to be focused on future potentialities. Then Jena came to New York to experience my community, which she took on whole heartedly. A week later, Vanderbilt accepted me as they said they would. Then on the week of July 4th, Jena and I jumped out to Colorado for an amazing time with her parents in Estes Park. We hiked, biked, and enjoyed honest conversations with her folks over good, good meals. And then we hopped to San Diego to do the same with my whole family. And in the fun California sun we played Frisbee, danced in a park, and swam in the sea. Both of our families affirmed what we were already seeing to be true, that this relationship was what they had dreamed for us.

And though Jena and I knew, and know still, that we were and are altogether wrapped up in the honey moon feelings of it that I have described here, we could also sense that there was little superficial about it. The ease and obviousness of the relationship are not just the result of infatuation induced blindness but the real and true kind of kindredness that we each desire in the world and are for the first time seeing here together. It is hard to measure the endless phone and email conversations that were ensuing inbetween the trips I have mentioned. And because we felt so eager to know each other deeply and to imagine ourselves doing life together, marriage was on our tongues at early turns. I guess, we have moved fast, but we have felt God's hand in the timing.

So in the two weeks between California and a trip we had planned to visit my folks in North Carolina for my 30th birthday, I took the bold steps of buying an engagement ring and accepting the Vanderbilt offer in order to join Jena in Nashville. I sent a video tape to the Lees explaining my feelings for Jena and my wish to have their blessing as I proposed. They waited to watch it until I called them and gave such a supportive and hearty response to my request that I felt sure God was with me in the asking. I packed the ring in my bag and headed off for a great weekend with Jena and four other friends who flew down to North Carolina to celebrate my 30th in great style.

Then on the afternoon of my birthday, after Jena had had a surprise massage, with bikes on the car and bathing suits in hand we headed for the beach. Once there, we cycled to a ferry, talked about dreams as the boat took us to the little village of South Port, ate ice cream along the water, and caught the ferry back before the sun was too low in the sky. Arriving back on the undeveloped beach of Fort Fisher, we walked and talked, laid out a blanket a mile from anyone, and hopped in the water. It was warm, Jena looked beautiful in the late afternoon light, and my stomach was whirling with anticipation as we dove through the waves. We returned to our blanket, and though we sat, butterflies were bouncing in my belly. Jena had written me a letter for my birthday, which we had saved for the beach, so she asked if she could read it to me. As we lay there facing the falling sun, she read aloud the most encouraging, God loving, words I think I have had pointed in my direction. And I knew then it was time to reveal my heart; it felt like there was no other right response to her affection but to ask her to marry me. I was out of other words to use to describe my love for her. I tried, as best I could in words, to articulate things that I know and feel, something about finding mutual dreams, passions, hopes and faith more fully here than I could have ever imagined and that her heart was the greatest birthday gift I could ask for. But as I spoke, whatever it was I said, I was altogether aware of the ring in my bag beside me, and so when I told her these longings of my heart, I reached into my bag and said, "That is why I got you this". And with the little ring box in front of her, Jena spontaneously combusted into tears of joy. Her face, her reaction, her honesty in that moment were like a kiss on the lips. I scooted to my knees and pulled gently on her arm to join me. There on the blanket, with the sun setting to our left and the sea to our right, I asked, "Jena, will you marry me?" to which she sobbed again and said, "yes".

We held each other for a few moments and then Jena started laughing, hard actually, like a giggling child who has been surprised in the biggest way imaginable. Being engaged has been the chance to wholly promise what each of us has dreamed, since love first entered our hearts. In those six months since meeting up "accidentally" in Amsterdam, God has flown us far, given us great hearts for service together and love for one another. The joy of it has been ineffable.