Our Story :: Ryan's View [1 of 3]

Andrea and I met in September of 2000 at New Covenant Church. I had just gotten back from living in central Europe for almost two years, and I was feeling a little like Tom Hanks after he returned to civilization in Castaway. I started attending what was then the only small group at the church, and all my old friends were there along with a couple new people. Andrea was one of the new people.

My first thoughts of Andrea were, `Hey, Andrea's kinda cute.' As I continued going to the small group, though, I found out that Andrea was still in the process of working through her past relationship (and I was still working through mine). My thoughts at the time: `Neither of us are ready for relationship, and Andrea's not my type anyway. I like brunettes who read literature and do artsy things; Andrea is a blonde who wants to jump out of airplanes and do social work. She's just not my type.'

My type or otherwise, I still had tremendous fun getting to know Andrea within the context of that small group. I saw her at least once a week and counted her as a great and loyal friend. I was thrilled when she felt called to go to the Czech Republic with a team of fellow Tucsonans to teach English at a summer camp, something I'd been doing since 1997. There I discovered more of her competitive spirit, her ability to play a mean game of foosball, her courage, and her ability to freely share her heart even in the face of rejection or indifference.

My romantic interests were elsewhere, however, and my original conclusions about Andrea were still in place: `Not ready for relationship, not my type.' To that I had added, `She's a great friend, so I wouldn't date her because she's my friend.'

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