Randa's got a boyfriend!

Yes, its true, I do have a boyfriend. His name is Derrick Logwood and he's from Missouri. Since I know you all probly want to hear the story, I will tell you how it happened. Well, it all started our freshman year, three years ago. We kind of knew each other, but not really. We started hanging out at the end of our first year, but that's mainly because I was getting to know his friend Nathan better and started dating him after a while. Derrick was still immature back then. Actually, so was Nathan and so was I. But I never saw myself dating Derrick. He was fun...but too immature for me.
Second year we were both in Greek 1 together. We got to know each other better as friends because we were in that class a lot and thus we saw each other a lot. But I always only saw him as a friend because he was still pretty immature. He was a fun friend though. I enjoyed hanging out with him, but still could not imagine dating him.
Third year we continued to be in Greek class together, and he continued to slowly mature. We became better friends and started hanging out more. I had the occasional thought of "hmmm, i wonder if i could ever date him", and then usually dismissed the thought. We were just friends. But he was growing up.
Then, over the summer I went to Rwanda and he went to South Africa on a mission trip. I didnt think much of it until school started up again and we started talking again. We didnt really keep in touch at all over the summer. Anyway, this semester we started hanging out a little more, going to the same devo and talking more. He's not in my Greek class anymore, but I could tell from our time together that he had grown up so much more this past summer than I had imagined possible. For most of September I was still holding on to that funny immature immage of Derrick that I had of him from previous years, but every time we talked I learned more about how mature he has become.
Now, we didnt really ever hang out alone. We never went out on an actual date alone. Last week was probably the first time we had ever spent real time alone. We went to starbucks to study....then on a whim decided studies were done and it was movie time. We had a pretty good idea we liked each other then, but we didnt want to jump into a relationship to quickly, so the movie was 'just as friends' and we didnt even bring it up that it was anything different. All week we hung out more than we ever have and then thursday night it happened....we actually verbally expressed what we pretty much knew was going through each other's minds. Then, we decided that since we both feel this way about each other, we would continue our relationship as a 'dating relationship'.
Wow, I dont think Iver ever written this much about just one person on my blog. I hope you all understand how important this relationship is to me and I ask you to pray for me and Derrick as we embark on a completely new, exciting and challenging part of our lives and that God remains at the center.

Let our Lord be praised for He is GREAT!

OH, and thanks for those last comments. I'm really glad to hear you all are interested to know my plans. I will dedicate my next post to telling you about my thoughts for the future (and perhaps a picture of Derrick).