A summer romance series, chronicling my love story
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.
