Lori Hensley Photography »

Since I posted the blog for this contest our inbox has been filling with 1000 word essays about love at its finest! Being a hopeless romantic myself I couldn’t wait to read every word! We saved the stories to read together on Valentines Day and we did just that! Hot chocolate in hand we went threw each and every story hunting for the”best” of them all. Little did I know, finding the “best” was a tough task. Everyone’s love story is personal with special details that make each one just as extr as the next! It took hours to read through them all and we had narrowed them down to our favorite 3, keeping those stories in a special folder “LOVE LOVE LOVE” in a our mailbox. Then, came the very last story submitted. A story that immediately rose above the rest. This story could be made into a Lifetime movie and be one of the most memorable for Lifetime lovers like myself. I got permission from the winner to share both the picture and the story itself. I hope you enjoy it as much as we did!!

“My love story begins in 2002, the year I graduated from high school. God had been working in my life for the past few years and had really been dealing with me about mission work in some aspect so I was very excited to be ask to be part of a mission team going to Romania in May of 2002, but I quickly declined the opportunity because they were leaving from Johnson City at 7:00am on May 25th, my graduation day, to catch a plane in Knoxville going to Romania. I just could not do that to my mother and I knew God would place other opportunities in my life for mission work, but God had other plans for me and in April I accepted the calling on my life. I was very excited about this and could not wait to get to Romania and love on everyone there.
Once landing in Romania I was so homesick everything was so different and I wasn’t sure how I would adjust to everything, but quickly fell in love with the people and the country. While I was in Romania I spent most of my time at a church ran orphanage and met the most amazing girls. On of the girls was just a a year younger then me and we had an instead connection and she spoke English so she really helped me communicate. The orphanage was under some construction while I was their and had met some of the guys working their at church and had seen them around the whole week, but really hadn’t paid much attention to them until Wednesday night we were all getting ready to walk to church and I was sitting in the kitchen and looked up and saw the most handsome man I had ever seen before WOW!!! I definitely noticed him the rest of the week and would intentionally “stalk” him. I made it known to my friend Ana and she told me all about him, but he didn’t speak English and HELLO!!! he is from Romania what was I even thinking, but God had a different plan for us. Once I got back in the US he began writing me letters and Ana would translate them for me and he was amazing, so Godly, intelligent, strong and passionate. He made everything in life ok and I knew we would be life long friends.
While sending that time in Romania I knew God had a big plan for me and I knew Romania would be in my life for a very long time. I was presented with the opportunity to return back to Romania for mission trips three other times including once for a 3 month stretch. Mimi and I kept in touch throughout this time on a daily bases and he quickly learned English. Emails turned into wed chats and web chats turned into phone calls (WOW WEE!! talk about a huge phone bill, but it was so worth it) and phone calls turned into LOVE. I LOVED HIM and I knew he would be my husband one day, How, When, Where, I had no idea. My family thought I was crazy, most of my friends that I was crazy and some of my church family thought I was crazy, but I stayed true to myself and I was going to fight for him. We decided in October 2003 we would began paperwork for a visa for him to come to the US and begin our lives together and we talk about a stressful process, but God was faithful through out and he was awarded the visa in May 2004 and we got married June 2004. Our love is beautiful, very detailed but I knew if I typed every little thing my hand would fall off so if we are awarded the give-a-way we would love to share it in person. We love to talk about it and it is much better to hear both side of the story because while God was working in me He was also working in Mimi. Mimi says that the first time he saw me in the kitchen putting our team’s food away in the cabinets he knew at that moment he would married me. He even told his best friend that he would marry me one day and his friend told him to wake up I was from America and was only in Romania for 10 days and Mimi said yeah what was I thinking. The first time I was in Romania I slept upstairs in the orphanage and thought I was the only one upstairs so I slept with the door open (I hate sleeping with the door closed), but the guys working on the orphanage slept upstairs as well and Mimi says he would get up in the middle of the night and stand at my door and watch me sleep, he says it was the most beautiful moments in his life, LOL sweet right, but on my goodness I hope I wasn’t snoring or something crazy. We have been married since June 2004 and was blessed with a beautiful daughter April 2008. God has been with us from the moment he placed a calling on my life to go to Romania and He had wonderful plans for us. We both have a big heart for Romania and know we will be their one day doing His work. Love is the greatest gift, apart from salvation, that God can give and I am so blessed to have received this gift from Mimi, my beloved husband.”