A Redeeming Love - Chapter 5

A summer romance series, chronicling my love story

Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4

After the holidays Roger and I spent more and more time together.  On Tuesday nights, after the college group, we’d stay in his office talking for hours – I knew I had to be at work early the next morning, but I didn’t care!  I didn’t want our conversations to end.  He was kind, funny, loved Jesus, and irresistibly handsome.

 As I continued to volunteer in the college ministry, it wasn’t just Roger that I was falling in love with.  I was also falling in love with college students and college ministry.  I quickly felt that I was created to minister to college students.  With an opportunity to co-lead a mission trip to Thailand and my growing love for college ministry, in Spring of 1998, I decided to leave my job at E! and pursue ministry opportunities.  Shortly after I quit my job I was on an airplane with Roger and 9 college students, bound for an adventure of a lifetime!

 Aside from being overwhelmed by the experience of traveling to Thailand and Burma, I was also thrilled to be sharing this experience with Roger.  Up until this point, we had never discussed our feelings for one another – for all I knew, he just considered me a good friend.  Roger was always a man of strong integrity and he would have never asked me to co-lead this trip with him if we were dating.  It wouldn’t be appropriate.  If he had any real feelings for me, he did a really good job of keeping them hidden.

 After a phenomenal trip, I returned to Southern California where I had packed up all my belongings, quit my job, and accepted a summer position as the head of female staff at a Christian camp just outside of Yosemite.  I had been a water ski instructor at this camp when I first graduated from college and was excited to return and minister to all the college women who would be on staff.  This would give me a real hands on experience ministering to college students more than just once a week.  It would also mean leaving Southern California and Roger, not knowing when or if I’d return.  I wondered if this big move would kill any slight chance of potential with this handsome man that took my breath away the first time I saw him, but now without a job and no concrete ties in Los Angeles, there was no reason for me to stay.