About Us

We first met each other at Ball State University at the Christian Campus House in August 2013.

DERRICK

Born: February 1

Hometown: Carlisle, IN

Education: Ivy Tech Community College (2011-2013); Ball State University (2013-2015); Indiana Wesleyan University (2016); Johnson University (2018).

Roles: Husband, administrator of integration and international groups, & volunteer.

Hobbies: Woodworking, photography, poetry, kayaking, camping, hiking, & truck enthusiast

In building partnerships and relationships with supporters as we pursue God’s calling, we thought it would be best to share our story of how we met. We value being transparent as missionaries, but more importantly, pointing to God and giving Him praise for all He does!

The Story Of Us - How We Met

Our meeting one another wasn't one of those fairy tale moments or sparks flew when we first saw one another... it was a seed that God had planted that slowly grew over time as our friendship did. I first met Mikaela when I came to Ball State University in August 2013 after being at Ivy Tech for two years working towards my associates degree. I received a letter in the mail telling me about an “Open House” at Christian Campus House (CCH), so I thought I would go and check it out once I came to Ball State. Walking into CCH I met some wonderful people as I walked around to the different tables about worship ministry, men's ministry and then I came to a table for international ministry. There Mikaela sat with her curly hair with some blonde highlights and wearing a neon CCH t-shirt. She politely began to tell me about international ministry and honestly at the time I did not have interest with much of anything regarding international ministry (God has certainly changed that today, haha), but we chatted for a few minutes and I walked away. Little did I know I had just met my future girlfriend, fiancé, and wife. I loved the ministry at CCH and soon began to involve myself and jumped right in and began being a part of the worship and mens ministry. Mikaela and I never talked a whole lot to one another and that changed with an annual Barn Bash that Campus Crusade for Christ holds every fall semester.

It was a Friday and me being a country boy with my pickup truck, I was ready to show some city folk what a country boy looked like in his stag dodge pickup truck. So I went to the car wash and spent a half hour manually washing my truck and headed back to my dorm to get cleaned up and then go pick up two friends. As I hopped in my truck and backed out of my parking spot, I felt the brakes of my truck began to give. So I stopped and looked underneath my truck and the brake line had busted as it leaked brake fluid onto the pavement. I realized I would not be achieving my country boy dream showing up to the Barn Bash in my pickup. As a result my friends picked me up instead and I enjoyed the night talking with friends, the bonfire, food, and more. Soon I was wanting to head back to campus as I had found out there was going to be a small get together around a fire with friends at CCH. There Mikaela was, she offered me a ride to go back to CCH with her and so I said yes. That car ride is still pretty vivid in my mind as we had our first “real” conversation with one another finding out we had some similarities both being homeschooled and such as it took 15 minutes to get back. From then we would talk from time to time, but the seed God had planted was still slowly growing. I found myself thinking back recently if my brake line had not busted, I would have missed the chance to get too know a wonderful Christian girl and I thank God for the busted brake line now, haha.

As the 2013 fall semester had passed away and the 2014 spring semester came to be, this is when things would begin to change. This semester I was starting to get too know Mikaela a lot better and at the end of January on CCH’s ski trip, I began to notice Mikaela was catching my attention more than she had ever before. In my mind I had always pictured when that special someone would come across in my life one day it would be this instant spark and we would just connect from the start, but this was different. It was the opposite of what I had envisioned and I was cautious in my mind and was patient as my feelings slowly grew for Mikaela. She was a great friend and I valued our friendship and most importantly her relationship with God and I wanted to make sure I was strong in my feelings and not 50/50 because I did not want to hurt her if I did not feel fully committed. The #1 thing that drew me to Mikaela that I found so attractive was her faith and relationship with God. She was living her life for God and was being Mikaela McMillen, herself and I found that so beautiful. So I waited and talked to some of my friends and found my feelings growing for her. I soon became nervous and awkward at times around her as she noticed and not sure what was going on and thought it might be her (which I now assure her she was perfectly fine, haha). For Ball States spring break, CCH was going to have a mission trip to New Orleans and by this time I was feeling more strongly about Mikaela than I had over the past month and once the mission trip begun, I knew that I felt fully committed in my feelings toward her and wanted to ask her out, but decided to wait until after the mission trip and focus on serving God on the trip. However, she had figured out by this point that it was quite possible that I liked her as I thought I was stealthy sitting beside her during the mission trip was more obvious than I had predicted, haha.

So once we were back to Ball State, I texted her asking if we could meet and talk and to which, she agreed. After my Monday night choir rehearsal we were to meet and as I walked over to her dorm to meet in the Noyer dining hall I did something I had never done before asking a girl out... I prayed. I told God if it was a yes then great, if it was a no then that was okay. I liked our friendship and this time I wanted to put this in God's hands instead of my own. Now when I do point out Godly things throughout this story I by no means want to make myself sound like a great wise then 21 year old Christian college student who knew all the right answers, because I didn’t. Things were just starting to click for me more as a young Christian because... I was drawing closer and closer to God. My relationship with God had grown a lot since I had come to Ball State and became involved with Christian Campus House and I wanted and needed to put more trust in God and so this was a step for me. We sat down and chatted and then I asked, “Would you want to go out on a date?” She told me she was having a semester focused on her relationship with God and going on a date would be nice, but she did not want to lead me on so it was a “no.” I remember seeing her post on Facebook earlier that spring semester that she was having a “boy free semester” and jokingly in my mind I thought I would be good to go cause “I was a man, not a boy” hahaha. Nevertheless I respected her decision and was happy she was focusing on her relationship with God. I won't lie in saying I was 100% fine, I was a little down, but overall I was happy for her that she was living her life out for God as a young Christian woman. I knew after this point I did not want to even think about dating someone else, Mikaela had many qualities I had come to realize I was looking for and she was the one. I then focused more on my relationship with God because seeing Mikaela’s relationship with Him pushed me more to want to grow in my relationship with God as well.

After this our friendship grew a lot. We talked to each other more than we ever did before, shared a little bit more about each of our lives and had funny text conversations. As the end of the semester drew to a close, I realized I couldn't end the semester not knowing if she would be interested in dating me or if her feelings might have possibly grown more through our friendship. After talking with my friends they thought it would be best talk to her, she was the “dream girl” I had always been looking for, but didn’t realize it until then. I texted her asking if she would like to go to the river for a walk and take some pictures since it was spring and beautiful out and she replied.... “I would love too.” Which was a great feeling, so we drove to the river on a Sunday and talked for almost 3 hours! I was learning all about her childhood, family, mission trips, Norway, and I enjoyed just sitting there listening to her. I finally asked if she would like to go out on a date at the end of the semester and she said “yes.” It was a relieving feeling and I was happy and excited for the end of the semester to come as we headed back to campus. Then we became girlfriend/boyfriend on May 4th, 2014. I didn’t realize the May 4th date until later for “May the 4th be with you” which I now think is awesome!

Fast forward to present I cannot believe how far we have come, it has been an amazing learning and growing experience having God as the foundation of our relationship and falling more in love with one another. We find out more and more how we are the same in different aspects of our lives and it has been quite enjoyable as she calls me “dork” and I just smile and respond “beautiful.” Our marriage has been a wonderful blessing as we build each other up in Christ. God was definitely playing a hand in being the match maker in bringing us together and knowing that each of us has found that special someone else. Even though it didn’t start out as a fairy tale moment and instant sparks when we first saw each other. Since the beginning of our relationship it indeed has been a fairy tale and instant sparks as we continue to fall more in love with each other in pursing God’s calling in Norway hand in hand...

Derrick Shipley