Anne is one cool chick and we are so happy that she has found J-money (as the boys around camp started calling Justin when he began dating Anne).
We first met Anne in 2005 when she and Darin worked at Fircreek together. She had finished her degree in recreation and was getting away from home (Iowa, I think) to come work in our fair state. One of my favorite things about Anne that summer was her inability to understand the Washington concept of "layering". She was always so cold! We tried to teach her you wear warm clothes in the morning, strip them off mid-day, but save them for the evening when it gets chilly again.
Anne was the activities coordinator that summer and was full of life and creativity and fun. And I loved hanging out with her.
Anne moved home after summer and Darin went back to school. One of his fall courses required him to do some practicum visits so he made an appointment with Crista Camps to come tour Island Lake. During his tour he learned of an opening in their program department and called Anne that afternoon. Anne was soon hired and not-so-much-later given a promotion to Program Director at Island Lake.
Darin was oh-so-jealous, but being still in school was unavailable to apply for the job. He and Anne used to joke that he got her the job and she now owed him big time.
A while later, when Darin was all done with school and on the job hunt for months we signed up to attend the "super sectional" of the Christian Camps and Conference Association. We spent our own money to travel to Coeur d'Alene and register Darin for the conference, hoping it would lead to some great job opportunities.
During the conference Anne pulled Darin aside and asked for his resume. Turns out she had inside knowledge that her counterpart at Miracle Ranch would be leaving soon and she wanted to be sure that Darin's resume was the first one in the hiring committee's hands.
(A couple other serendipitous moments happened during that conference as well. One lunch Darin asked God to help him sit at a table with the "right" people and was frustrated when he ended up lunching with a bunch of maintenance guys. [Nothing against maintenance guys, Darin was just hoping to get a job in program at this conference.] Turns out one of the guys he sat with that day was on the interview team for the Miracle Ranch job. In addition, I left the conference early to go to Spokane and get my haircut and Darin ended up hitching a ride to Spokane with the Crista van. He was later told how much of a positive impression he had left on his soon-to-be-supervisor in that van ride.)
Long story short, Darin was hired and Anne made good on her debt. And Darin and Anne enjoyed working together for many months. I will never forget their program team characters of the Easter European Table Tennis Champions and how they practiced their routine for hours in their office!
Anne's friend set her up on a blind date with Justin and we were excited for her. But one night when she was hanging out with us after doing her camp-hosting gig, she revealed she was a little nervous about this guy. She had asked him their staff-meeting "question of the day" which involved which type of ice cream one would be and Justin had responded vanilla. Anne couldn't figure out what that said about him. Is he too boring? Or is he stable?
We teased her a long time about that.
Turns out vanilla was the right answer.
We are so happy for these two and can't wait to see how God continues to use them in our lives. (Or maybe we'll get a chance to be used in their story this time!)