Chapter Ten: Spurring

Over the next few weeks, Omar continued to win my heart. While we were still not "officially" dating, hadn't kissed, and definitely hadn't interlocked fingers, we were falling in love. We wrote emails everyday, and spent as much time together as we could considering that we were both involved in Younglife twice a week on opposite sides of town, he worked nine to five monday through friday, and I went to school full time.

omar and i stopped eating fast food, july 2006


In the time between the tunnels and July 29th, 2006, Omar went to Younglife camp for a week and I went to Minnesota for work. In the meantime, Omar consistently went out of his way to win my affections, and he was very successful. He picked me up from the airport with a welcome home sign and flowers, and showered me with gifts. He maintained our little Nano Pet. He respected my desire not to kiss him, and he made me dinner. We played scrabble and spent time with our friends and he told me every second of every day how much he liked me. He called me beautiful at least 50 times a day, but probably more. I wrote him emails and told him how sweet he was. And he, most definitely, was.
enamored, july 2006

One of my sweetest memories of Omar was a couple weeks after the tunnels and a week before I left for a mission trip to Mexico. I had been griping to him about the school system in Tijuana and how much it breaks my heart that most students can't afford to go to school because they can't afford school supplies, which are a requirement. His response?

To go to Wal-mart in our heelys and buy ten backpacks filled with school supplies for me to distribute to the kids when I got there.

weird blonde hair, july 2006

Our hearts started to beat to the same rhythm and our souls rejoiced in eachothers presence. We loved God and we loved eachother (even though we didnt say it for many months), and felt so blessed to know eachother. We were spurring eachother on towards love and good deeds, as Omar had predicted in the bible verse he gave me on the Fourth of July.

wishing he could beat me at scrabble, july 2006

The 20 day period of Vladimirs life was nearing, which meant that the day we were supposed to interlock fingers would fall on the same day that I was scheduled to leave for Mexico.
Luckily, Omar had a plan.

to be continued...