She said, "You're kidding, right?"

Not because she didn't say yes (which she eventually did), but because she wasn't expecting it at all. Charity loves being surprised, but pulling off a surprise proposal took a bit of work and a little bit of misdirection.

When Charity moved out to Philly, the understanding was that as long as things proceeded as we were expecting, a proposal would come before Christmas. Being a student, there's a limitation on when we can get married. Summer and Winter breaks are really the only time. To get married this summer, we needed to do a little bit of planning when we returned to Wisconsin for Christmas. So already Charity had some notion of when it was coming. After all, we hadn't broken up, and that meant an engagement was coming.

I ordered the ring in the beginning of November and got it a few days later. I was pretty sure Charity didn't know. But just to be sure, I enlisted the help of Joy, her sister. We got engaged on Nov. 15, so the Thursday before, I texted Joy. "Wanna help me surprise Charity?" She called me back right away. I told her my plans, and asked her to tell Charity that I had ordered the ring that day (and was getting the next week). Meanwhile, all week long, whenever Charity asked what my plans for Thursday were, I was especially evasive.

"I need to run errands."
"Yeah? What errands?"
"I dunno, go to the bank, other stuff, not sure, bunch of stuff."

So Charity thought I had done something suspicious that Thursday. The truth is, I sat home and studied mostly. When Saturday came, she knew I'd be proposing soon, but not for a few days still.

So Saturday morning I picked Charity up. We had planned to take a nice, relaxing day off. We went to the mall. Then we went to a movie. Then we went out to eat at the Cheesecake Factory. This was the part that made me nervous. Cheesecake Factory had kinda become our place. When we first met up, it was our first real 'date'. After 6 months, we happened to be together again, and went to Cheesecake Factory. Somehow, though, she thought nothing of the fact that I wanted to go to Cheesecake Factory. (Probably because I made her pay!)

We were stuffed, and got our cheesecake to go. Brought it back to my house where we started a fire and put a blanket down in front of it. There we sat, drinking coffee and eating cheesecake in front of the fire in our future home. When we were done with the cheesecake, we cuddled and talked. I worked the conversation over to how much I was looking forward to the rest of our life together...

...which led to me asking her to marry me. I nervously fumbled with the ring box, and she was convinced I was just trying to freak her out and fool her. So when I asked, "Charity, will you marry me?", her first response was "You're kidding, right?"

I finally got the ring box open, and asked again. This time she said yes :)

Who is Charity Anderson?

Take a look at those eyes, guys. This was the picture that won my heart. Back in Fall '07, when Charity started talking online, I wasn't sure I should even call. I wasn't sure I could keep up with a girl who said "I enjoy going out to sporting events, political rallies, and camping." I mean, sure I enjoyed the Joe Lieberman party, but "I'm very active in politics, so in the fall, I spend most of my time campaigning"??? On top of that, I'm not exactly Mr. Camper (the furthest out I've ever gotten, they still had a restroom!). But those eyes...those eyes...and interesting gems like "For a long time, I believed God was calling me to work with inner city kids." and the intriguing "I've got plenty of personality ;-)" It made me curious.

I'm glad it did, because, my friends, I've found a wonderful thing. Charity's heart for ministry is compassionate and huge. She cares about people, and if you know me, you know how important that is. She's always sweet to be around, even if she isn't always the most graceful (even though her middle name is Grace). She's a perfect ministry partner. And she's good for me. She keeps me laughing, she's fun to be around, and she makes me get out and do stuff. But I'm getting ahead of myself...

We talked on the phone for months about every sort of subject. I found out she wasn't as political as she made herself out to be (close, sometimes) and that her heart for ministry was bigger and better than I thought. We talked about our childhoods and our adulthoods, and how we had become who we are. We talked about theology, where Charity wasn't as "Fundamentalist" I had feared, in fact, we've hardly disagreed (at least about the important stuff). We talked about where we wanted to go in life, what we hoped to do, and realized we shared a lot of the same dreams (big family, ministry, serving God together). After that, and a million other topics, we were beginning to run out of things to talk about. It was time to meet.

I had to fly out to Chicago for my 10 year Moody reunion. The old gang was getting together for Founder's week, and we thought this would be a perfect opportunity. I flew in a few days early and met her family, briefly. I loved them all. They were a fun bunch. Then Charity came down to Chicago with me and met my college friends (and a few current Moody students) and spent the weekend visiting old haunts with us. Said Lisa Kelly after that visit, "Jason, if you don't marry her, I'm divorcing Drew, becoming a lesbian, and taking her for myself." A resounding endorsement.

Over the next few months, we visited each other frequently. She spent Easter Sunday at my church. She came out for my birthday party in Connecticut. I went to her family reunion in Chicago. All the while, everybody loved each other. My family loved Charity, her family loved me. Charity loved my family, and I loved hers. All the while, we were growing closer and closer, so we decided to give it a try and have Charity move out.

In August, she came to Philadelphia. Glenside actually, near school. During the week, she's a working girl and I'm in the library, but the weekends have been amazing. We've been doing a lot of ministry, teaching Sunday School together and running the youth group together. Our church is great. Even though it's not where either of us guessed we'd end up serving, the people here are wonderful. They love God with all their heart. They want to impact a difficult neighborhood. But more than ministry, they've been a family. They've adopted us into their church and have become brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers, and even grandparents. They've become our friends. It's a great church family to join. On top of that, we've gotten to do fun things like visit Ikea, discover Philly neighborhoods, go to a wedding, watch the city win a World Series as well as more common things like blockbuster nights and going out with friends. It was a good fall.

So I popped the question a few weeks before Thanksgiving, fireside. That'll be it's own post, I'm sure. Ever since we've been thinking wedding. Well...Christmas, and now wedding. We're excited to be getting married, and we hope you'll share in our excitement!

My Future Husband

I have finally found the man God has chosen for me! His name is Jason Brannan. Let me tell you a little bit about him.

Jason is 32 years old and originally from Connecticut. Yes, a east coast elitist but we will not hold that against him! He went off to Bible College at Moody and soon after became the Youth Pastor at his home church in Connecticut. He is now studying at Westminster while working at a church in Philadelphia.

So how did the daughter of a Fundamental Baptist Minister fall in love with a man studying at a Presbyterian seminary? There are so many things that drew me to Jason, most importantly his love for the Scripture and ministry.

I've always been a big advocate of searching the Scriptures for yourself, making your own convictions and beliefs from what you believe the Bible says. Jason has an amazing knowledge of the Scriptures and a love and desire to continue searching and learning God's Word. He is constantly asking me to defend my beliefs from God's Word. Its been a great learning process for me to step back and re-examine the Scriptures. Have I changed my beliefs? Absolutely not! Do I agree with Jason 100% on everything? Nope. But we agree on the important things, and in regards to the other things....we are both learning together.

Besides his love for the Scriptures, he truly has a heart for ministry. We have so much fun sitting together brainstorming ideas for our church here in Philadelphia. Its even better however, taking those ideas and implementing them. The church here in Philly is growing, and there is such potential! I can't wait to see what the Lord has planned!

Those are just a couple of things we have in common, ok, maybe the only things...I love sports, romantic comedies, cooking, and shopping. Jason loves theology, foreign movies, and big words! But we are learning to enjoy all of these things together! He went to several baseball games with me this summer and I have started reading theology to him (even though I don't know half of the words).

This is the man God has chosen for me and the man I love. I can not wait for everyone to get to know him better!