Since our story is sort of like from a movie (you don't think people actually get together and stay together that way) I thought I'd write about me and Ehren. I am a Slovak immigrant and lived there my first 20 years of life, until I got married and moved far, far away from my people. :) Yes, I was very young when I got married and looking back I don't know how my mom let me get married that young, I would have a very hard time with that if it was my daughter. Yet, at the same time I know during those years apart it felt like forever long and I couldn't wait to finally be able to be with Ehren every day. This will probably be a very abbreviated story, but just to get a glimpse of our past.
My first trip to the states was when I was just 16 years old and I really wanted to experience a year away from home as an exchange student and to improve my English. I found a host family through a missionary friend that I met in Slovakia and that was the beginning of my adventure. Little did I know my host family will one day become my real family. I met Ehren just a few weeks after I came to the states at his younger brother's wedding. It was nothing like love at first sight and we were just goofy together that time but somehow over the next few months the friendship turned into more and then more. It was all fun and excitement then, being in love for the first time (for me), but when it was time for me to leave back home it was awful. Neither of us knew what would happen to our relationship but we knew we loved each other. So it was to e-mails once or twice a day, VERY expensive phone calls a couple times a month until Ehren got way too frustrated with not seeing the end of the tunnel and suggested to split up. That broke my heart but somehow it didn't last too long because we got back together that summer when I came to visit him over my summer break. That is when Ehren decided to come visit me and see the country and family I came from. He was thinking at first he would come for 2 weeks but my dad pretty much told him he has to come for at least 2 months or not at all and so he quit his job and came for 4 months. That was the longest time we've ever been together, seeing each other every day. Our relationship got serious fast and we got engaged before he left since we knew we would get married the year later when I was done with my Bachelors degree. It was actually a very crazy engagement because since getting the visa takes months we decided to legally get married while Ehren was still there and that way we didn't have to wait for the green card once we got married a year later. So after those 4 months Ehren went home a married man and I stayed behind finishing my school. That year was probably the longest wait ever until we were together again, just days before our wedding in Slovakia.
Our wedding was somehow very bitter-sweet for me which I didn't expect, I thought I would just feel happiness and excitement. But having all my family and friends at our wedding kind of hit me that this is the last time I'm with them as one of them, that I'll be leaving everything behind in a couple of weeks. I know, it was all my choice and I was sure of my choice, knowing God brought Ehren and I together but it still didn't take all the pain away from leaving my home, my family, friends and my country.
And that is how the 2 of us, coming from 2 very different worlds, although both of us coming from strong Christian families and very similar churches (which was a huge blessing to us), got together. The beginning of our married life didn't stay without struggles, as Ehren had to teach me how to drive (still have an image in my head of driving through the Minneapolis free ways, screaming and Ehren trying to coach me the best he could without losing it), help me find a job, and new friends. But God has been faithful and with us every step of the way. Now, it is 11 years later and we have 3 beautiful children. We still don't have it together and probably never will, but we are living our very ordinary life and feel blessed.
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