When Drs. Allen and Laurie Diles met in 1991, neither had marriage on their mind. Laurie had already earned her doctorate degree and had begun her career teaching at Abilene Christian University (ACU); Allen was already well on his way to forming a long-term mission team. Before they even met, Laurie heard mention of Allen from a mutual friend.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201c[My friend would] say, \u2018You sound just like my friend Allen Diles,\u2019\u201d Laurie said. \u201cAnd I was like, whatever. But then, you know, by the third time I\u2019m thinking, \u2018Well, who\u2019s Allen Diles?\u2019\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n At the time, however, Allen was overseas doing mission work in Prague, so Laurie said she didn\u2019t think much of him. When he returned to the U.S. to begin missions training at ACU, the two had their first interaction in fall 1991, which \u00ad\u2014 as Allen described it \u00ad\u2014\u00ad\u00ad was not love at first sight.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n After a particularly upsetting evening teaching night class, Laurie said she went to her friend\u2019s apartment to talk things out. Little did she know, a group was attempting to watch a movie there.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cShe comes in very upset and we\u2019re all looking at this person … ranting, and we\u2019re all looking at her and she\u2019s just going off,\u201d Allen said. \u201cWe don\u2019t know her. She\u2019s oblivious to the fact that we\u2019re trying to watch a movie and we\u2019re just like, \u2018Who is this woman?\u2019 And that\u2019s how we met.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n From there, the two began to occasionally see one another in group settings, particularly with a group who ate dinner together on Wednesday nights. Everything changed, however, midway through spring 1992. Allen recalled seeing Laurie in graduate-school chapel for the first time after returning from spring break.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIn comes Laurie, and I just kind of looked at her,\u201d Allen said. \u201cShe was wearing this really pretty, kind of blue flower-print dress. And I just thought to myself, \u2018She looks pretty good.\u2019 So that\u2019s when she first kind of caught my eye as more than just, you know, we see each other on Wednesdays for this meal that we eat together with our friends.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n From there, the two began to spend much more time together, although they said the first official date is still in debate between them. The couple, now married 27 years, said they quickly grew serious, leading to an engagement in November and a marriage in December 1992. A little over a year later, the two moved to Prague as missionaries.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Before any engagement, however, the two made their intentions with one another quite clear with a simple conversation.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI knew that Laurie\u2019s dream was to always go back to Brazil, and I was already committed with this group to form a team to go back to Czechoslovakia,\u201d Allen said. \u201cI said something along the lines of, \u2018I\u2019m afraid we\u2019re going to get serious or something, and then you\u2019re not going to want to go to Czechoslovakia with me.\u2019 She said \u2014\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cOh, Allen, I\u2019d go anywhere with you,\u201d Laurie continued.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWhen she said that, I said to myself in the back of my head, \u2018This is the one.\u2019\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Jason and Mary Darden noticed each other in Rich Little\u2019s freshmen Bible class.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI always had my eye on Jason,\u201d Mary said. \u201cHe just turned around, and I was like, \u2018Ooo, who\u2019s that?\u2019\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Before the Dardens started dating their junior year, Mary was engaged to her high school boyfriend, and Jason was deployed to Egypt with the Army.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Junior year, Jason and Mary spent many nights studying together in the library.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Jason said the positive opinion of his family meant a lot to him when introducing them to Mary.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cMy mom and Mary came to [a] football game to watch me play,\u201d Jason said. \u201cMy mom whispered to me, \u2018I really like her.\u2019 It was a done deal.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n One of the most important things to Mary was Jason\u2019s spirituality and assistance in her walk with God. She said Jason re-baptized her while they were dating, because she had not taken the decision seriously when she was baptized as a young teenager. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI think the falling in love part for me was his love for God,\u201d Mary said. \u201cHe put God first. Not everybody is like that, and I was really serious about my faith and wanting to learn more.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The Dardens dated for five months before getting engaged in January 2003. They married during spring break on March 15, 2003, and had their first daughter almost exactly one year later, shortly before graduating college.<\/strong> Andrew and Amy Baker met for the first time at Spring Sing practice their freshman year. Amy wore a shirt from Russellville, Arkansas. Andrew had recently moved there, and approached her about it. The next year, Andrew and some friends went to Russellville every Friday to watch his brother play football. Andrew\u2019s father informed him Amy had also been going home every weekend to watch her own brother play football and encouraged him to extend the invitation.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cHe told me he went home with a lot of friends \u2014 never did any friends go with us to Russellville,\u201d Amy said. \u201cI think that was a false statement. He was trying to trick me.\u201d <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Andrew denied the falsehood of the statement, saying his roommate and suitemate were both supposed to come but canceled on Friday morning. He said he stopped inviting his friends to come along after the first time.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cDriving back I remember thinking she was cute, but she had fed me a line about how she wasn\u2019t going to date anyone,\u201d Andrew said.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Their first official date was during sophomore year at the hayride function for women\u2019s social club Delta Gamma Rho (DGR), for which Andrew was a beau. Two years later, Andrew had the vice president of DGR call a ring ceremony.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe candle was going around, and we were singing,\u201d Amy said. \u201cThen it got to Stacy [the vice president] and I was excited but then Andrew had pulled it back to him and blew it out. I remember thinking \u2018What are you doing? That is so rude.\u2019\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Amy said she didn\u2019t realize it was her own ring ceremony until Andrew was in front of her on one knee, and even then she was still looking around the room in shock.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The Bakers married in 1998.<\/strong> The Diles When Drs. Allen and Laurie Diles met in 1991, neither had marriage on their mind. Laurie had already earned her doctorate degree and had begun her career teaching…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15086,"featured_media":14290,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14288","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-features"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14288","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15086"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14288"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14288\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14368,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14288\/revisions\/14368"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14290"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14288"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14288"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14288"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}The Dardens<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n\n\n\nThe Bakers<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"