It was the summer of 1996.  My dad was hired as the Director of Missions for the Grand Valley Baptist Association in Grand Junction, Colorado.  I had just moved back home to Cortez, Colorado when my parents let me know that they were moving to Grand Junction.  So I went with them.  Cortez isn’t where I needed to be anyway… too many old friends and bad influences.

Upon moving to Junction (as we affectionately call it), we started visiting some churches.  On our third Sunday we visited a church called “Bookcliff”.  It was the biggest church I had ever been to!  It was HUGE… ok, it only had 300 members, but to me, that was monstrous!  As I walked into the college and career sunday school class I looked at the end of the table and there sat my future wife.  Neon lights were flashing above her head with very large arrows saying, “THIS IS HER, STUPID!” I didn’t even know what this angel’s name was, nor did I care.  It could have been Bertha for all I knew, but that didn’t matter.  All I knew was she had the most beautiful green eyes I had ever seen in my life!

It just so happens that the only chair available was the one next to this gorgeous creation of God Himself.  So I sat.  Then we prayed.  And, like normal, I didn’t close my eyes and as I stared at the floor, I noticed that she had a tattoo on her ankle.  That confirmed it!  She was destined to be mine forever!  I had never felt this feeling before!  I could take on the world’s strongest man at that point and win!  I was ten-feet-tall and bullet-proof!  Still, I didn’t know her name.

After church that day, us three boys plead the case to my parents that this was the church for us.  (My brothers found hotties of their own in the youth group).  Later that evening, we went to the evening service there at this “Bookcliff” and watched the youth choir do a musical called “The Clown.” Guess who the clown was?  Yep.  My angel (I found out through the program that my angel’s name was Rennee Jeys).  But I could still see through the makeup, red nose, and big shoes and I was smitten.  Bound and determined that she was to be mine.