When Amanda Met Les

Today’s post is a real treat as Amanda White shares the story of how she met her husband and embarked on their journey of serving God together. They are just too cute!

My husband says I picked him up.

I say I’m just friendly.

We both went to a local community college. We had to park in the commuter lot and walk through the woods to get to the first building on campus. We had both been sitting in our respective cars waiting till the next class. I heard the music in his car and was pretty sure it was Jars of Clay. As a Christian music fan of the early 90’s, I could spot Jars a mile away.

Finally, we both got out of our cars and he was walking a few paces ahead of me. That was when I noticed his shirt. It was a concert shirt by the band, Dakoda Motor Company. Now, if you’ve ever heard of this band, it’s because you were in the throes of Christian Music culture like my family and I were. We went to all the festivals, stayed after concerts and collected every CD that the Christian music industry put out there.

Dakoda Motor Company was one of our indie faves!

I ran up to this Christian-music-fan and said, “Hey! Is that a Dakoda Motor Company shirt?” (He says THAT was the pick-up line!) and we started talking. I asked him what his major was. He said, “Religion.” Well, as any good Christian knows, religion is the word Christians use when talking to non-Christians about their major when they are really studying to be pastors or missionaries. Religion is a nice and basic word that won’t require a lot of eye-raising if you’re not a Christian and you run across a guy who wants to be a missionary as a college student.

I knew his game. So, I said, “Oh, yeah? What do you want to do?”

He said, “Be a children’s evangelist.”

Well. That one stopped me cold.

Because that was actually what I wanted to do, too.

My mom had been involved in full-time children’s ministry at our church almost my whole childhood. I was on puppet and drama teams, worked in children’s church every Sunday and really and truly couldn’t think of anything else I could do with my life. The evangelist part of it was just because I thought it would be fun to travel and be on the stage every night.

So, my next sentence probably really was my pick up line: “Me, too.”

I think we basically dated from that second on.

A few days later he called (I think there’s some guy rule about waiting two days before you call a girl.) and we began to meet for lunch at school, did homework together and essentially began planning our lives together. Because how often do you meet a guy who wants to do the same really weird job as you?

It was three years later that we were married. We moved into some government apartments in north Georgia and worked out the outlet malls while we went to a (different) Christian college. We spent our internship in Oklahoma working at one of the country’s premier children’s ministries. We started traveling around with our little truck and trailer to churches doing “kids crusades” with puppets and music and magic tricks and object lessons.

We spent the next seven years being Les-and-Amanda. We traveled all over the country–from Colorado to New York, to Georgia to New Mexico. We lived in five different states, worked at two churches, visited 35 states and half that time didn’t have a home to call our own. We were nomads doing exactly what we said we’d do the first three minutes we met.

When we had our first baby, a little girl named Lydia, our mission was still the same–tell kids about Jesus. But the kids turned to KID and our world revolved around leading this one little girl to Jesus. We ended up moving back home to Atlanta, lived near our parents and volunteered at a local church. Today, we have two kids and my husband doesn’t do puppets or travel as his daily job, but he empowers me to be at home with our kids leading them to Jesus. He owns three businesses, climbs roofs and makes sales so I can write and help parents lead their kids to Jesus. He sings in the elementary department at our church each Sunday–leading kids in worship to Jesus.

It’s weird how our lives move and change. We have the same passion for kids and God. It’s just moved into a different stream. We don’t just hop in our truck and drive to a new state and meet new people anymore. But we still get to work hard together every day–on daily marriage stuff, on raising our kids and preparing for our future as a family and couple.

Sometimes I forget our story. I don’t always like to look back to when I was a teenager and early twenty-something because let’s face it, that’s not the wisest years of your life. But when I do look back, I am amazed at how God’s finger has been writing our story–how God brought us together at that certain time and place, to meet and to connect and to one day form a family for Him.

And clearly, I’m thankful to Dakoda Motor Company for making music and concert tees!

Amanda White is a stay-at-home mom of two who blogs at ohAmanda.com and is the author of Truth in the Tinsel: An Advent Experience for Little Hands and A Sense of the Resurrection an Easter Experience for Families. In her former life, Amanda was a Children’s Pastor — overseeing, organizing and developing ministry for kids in nursery through middle school, but now that she is a mom, her “skills” are used up on her kids!