Today, March 16, Chris and I are celebrating our 35th year of wedded bliss! For the past year we anticipated a month-long vacation in Scotland where Chris lived until he was five and where we had a second wedding reception on our honeymoon three and a half decades ago.

We’ve had a delightful week here in the Old Country. However, travel restrictions to curb the spread of Covid-19 have persuaded us to return to California.

I’m so grateful to celebrate our anniversary today, and I want to share our love story with you.

Let the morning bring me word of your unfailing love, for I have put my trust in you. Show me the way I should go, for to you I lift up my soul. Psalm 143:8

The moon shone bright in the African sky the final night of my junior year at Hillcrest High School in Jos, Nigeria, where I lived in a hostel with forty other MKs (missionary kids).

“I have always wanted to marry a man I’ve known my whole life, someone I grew up with,” I confided in my roommate Eileen, as we lay in our beds chatting after lights-out.

“But how are you going to do that? Tomorrow you will leave your home, this town, and this continent!” Her whisper rose a faint octave as she puzzled over my improbable notion.

Shaking my head, I exhaled a deep, soft sigh. “I have no idea!” Soon we both drifted off to sleep.

The following day, my family and I left the country where I had lived most my life. My parents, missionaries with SIM (Serving in Mission), raised five kids in West Africa. Beginning in first grade, I attended boarding school five hundred miles north of our home for eight months of the year. I only lived with my parents on their rural station for summer and Christmas vacations. Those lengthy separations were lonely for me. Consequently, having the foundation of a long-standing relationship with the man I would marry was paramount for me.

Because we were scheduled for furlough, I needed to leave Nigeria and move to an unfamiliar land for my senior year, to the place my parents called home. In the San Francisco Bay Area, I slowly settled into high school and the youth group at our church in Oakland. Numerous members who supported my parents’ ministry looked out for us when, every few years, we returned to California on home assignment. One family was especially supportive the year I was in fifth grade, hosting us often for dinner and putting the seven of us up for a few nights when we needed transitional lodging.

New Friends in America

They had a daughter my age, Carole, as well as two sons a little older. Carole and the younger of the two boys, Chris, invited me to bowl in a league with them, and no one minded that I threw a gutter ball nearly every frame. With his long straight hair and aviator glasses, Chris reminded me of one of the Beetles.

He invited me on a few excursions that year, including a day with the family at Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk. While I enjoyed his attention, I didn’t feel attracted to him, and I still dreamed of marrying one of the many boys I had a crush on in boarding school, now a continent away. After graduation in June, I left Oakland for college in Fresno, and heard that Chris started dating a girl from church.

At Fresno State, I went out with a few guys, but I always was a little uneasy because they felt like strangers even though I had known them at school or church for several months or even years. I didn’t know their families and that was important to me since my own family situation while growing up was disjointed. What was more, I wanted my date to know something about the land where I grew up.

The summer after my first college year, I flew back to Nigeria to visit my parents and siblings. I kept my eyes open for all single, eligible friends, but no re-connection surfaced, and I decided I needed to let go of that unrealistic dream. 

About that time, I began driving back up to the Bay Area monthly in response to an invitation by Carole from my old church. She announced her engagement and asked if I would be a bridesmaid. I was delighted to renew our friendship. Each time I visited, her brother Chris was at home, and now with his shorter haircut and stylish glasses, he looked a lot cuter than he had several years ago.

A Romantic Interest

The big weekend arrived. After the rehearsal dinner, Chris was my partner to practice ballroom dancing. He was a great dancer, however when he waltzed me across the floor, I stepped on his shoes. He pretended not to notice.

At the reception, Chris played a flute solo for the bride and groom. After the piece was done, he slipped into his seat beside me at the head table.

“You play like a professional,” I smiled sideways at him.

He clasped my hand under the table and I felt his arm trembling. My heart skipped a few beats. In front of the crowd he appeared so poised and self-assured, but I realized his confidence was only external.

After the celebration ended, he gave me a ride to my aunt and uncle’s house. Chris closed my car door, then rounded the back of his timeworn, yellow station wagon. As I watched in my side-view mirror, he leaped up in the air and kicked his heels together. At this I was hooked … The guy was a gentleman and he acted delighted to be with me!

That evening, Chris entertained me with stories about his family history, in which I now had a keen interest. Born in Scotland, he immigrated to California. with his family after he turned five. His family and his relatives in Scotland traveled back and forth often to see each other.

He confided in me how much he still loved Scotland and wished his parents had stayed there. “I always hoped to one day marry a bonnie Scottish lass,” he said with a cheeky grin.

Then I revealed to him, “I used to dream of marrying one of the boys I knew when I was a kid on the mission field, so I would be familiar with his family and background.”  I went on to share stories of my life and friends in Africa.

After chatting a while, we realized that because Nigeria had been a British colony, I was familiar with a lot of Scottish words and concepts. I knew that potato chips were called crisps, a cookie was a biscuit, and a truck was a lorry. As we discovered that we shared many similar experiences with international living, a warm and fuzzy glow enveloped me like a comfortable blanket.

The Next Best Thing

Two weeks later, Chris drove down to Fresno to visit, and we started long-distance dating. In May, he and I graduated from college one week apart, and a few days later he left with his buddy Jim for a six-week European backpacking trip. I mailed two newsy letters to Scotland so he wouldn’t forget me.

On his return, we discovered the separation had drawn us closer. Chris joked, “I guess you are the next best thing to a Scottish lass for me.”

“Well, you’re the next best thing to someone I’ve known all my life,” I retorted, remembering I first met him at our church in Oakland at age ten.

On Christmas Day, I looked for an engagement ring under the tree. When a glittering diamond didn’t materialize, I swallowed my disappointment. Unbeknownst to me, Chris wrote to my parents asking for their blessing. However, international mail traveled by freighter at that time, so he waited two months for a reply.

In the spring, I drove up to help the family decorate for his sister’s first wedding anniversary. Prior to the party, Chris hired a limo and took me out to celebrate our one-year anniversary of dating. On the drive, he pulled a jewelry box out of his pocket with a ring he had picked out on his own.

In the center of the band a perfect diamond twinkled, with three successively smaller diamonds going straight out in a row to either side. Even though I had often imagined a swirled setting, I loved this ring because Chris spent time and effort choosing it. He smiled and asked, “Will you marry me?” Sniffing back happy tears, I clasped my arms around his neck. He gave me a long kiss.

After brunch, the limo delivered us to the Warren’s home, where I found I decorated for my own engagement party. Fifty people shouted “Surprise!” as we entered. My face turned into a waterfall when I realized my three brothers drove hours to celebrate with us.

On our wedding day, I marveled at God’s provision of a life-long friend for me. In the past thirty-two years, we have grown to feel we are a perfect fit together. I am still amazed at the way God fulfilled both of our desires to marry someone with a connection to our childhood homelands.

And every so often, Chris and I joke about how we each settled for the next best thing.

To subscribe to these stories and get a copy of my essay compilation, “You Might Be an MK If… (25 Clues That Give You Away, Submitted by MKs from Around the World)” click here.

“The Next Best Thing” was first Published in Inspire Love Anthology, November 2017, and reprinted by permission. You can find it on Amazon here.

To read more about my childhood in a boarding school in Nigeria, see my page here.