Mark & Kimberly

Our Love Story

Born 4,700 miles apart on 2 separate continents, our paths didn’t cross until October 2020, when Mark and his late wife Julie first attended the Northern Lights Missions Conference at Kimberly’s home church in Hayward, Wisconsin. Kimberly followed Mark & Julie on Facebook and signed up for their missions newsletter in June 2022. A great friendship developed between Kimberly and Julie over the next few years, with Kimberly praying for their ministry and supporting them financially on occasion.

The connection grew even stronger when Julie was diagnosed with cancer in 2024 and Kimberly was supporting her in prayer until she passed away in January 2025. Kimberly continued to pray for Mark as he came to terms with the loss of his wife of 26 years and she would often make encouraging comments on Facebook posts and respond to email newsletters.

Mark attended the first night of the 2025 Northern Lights Missions conference in Hayward, Wisconsin in October and when Kimberly arrived, she gave Mark a hug, with tears in her eyes, seeing him without her friend Julie for the very first time. The exchange was brief as a line of people wanted to hug Mark and express their sympathy too. Mark left the evening early and started his 12 hour journey to his next event in Ohio. The next day he text Kimberly and sent her the picture he had taken with her and apologized that he hadn’t had an opportunity to say goodbye before leaving. This started a series of encouraging texts back and forth between them, with each of them praying for the other. Mark was asked to make an unexpected return trip to Wisconsin the following week to work
with the Leadership of a church in Shell Lake. He texted Kimberly to see if she had time for a coffee when he was close by, but with their schedules being full each day with many ministry activities planned, it seemed unlikely they would connect. They eventually found a 45 minute window to meet up and enjoyed talking to each other, but there was no thoughts of a relationship in either of their minds at the time.

Over the next week they text each other several times with encouragement as Mark continued his ministry travel.
The connection started to grow and they made a plan to speak on the phone one evening. The phone calls continued daily and they spent more and more time on the phone talking about ministry, hopes and dreams and taking time to pray for each other. An opportunity arose in November for Mark to travel again to Wisconsin, where he was able to spend time with Kimberly over the Thanksgiving Holiday. There was such unexpected chemistry in the relationship and both felt that God was bringing them together for a purpose. Mark met some of Kimberly’s family and spent several days speaking with her parents about their intentions for the further. It was becoming quite obvious to Mark & Kimberly that this was a divine connection and they spoke for many hours about what the future for them could look like. Discussions turned to thoughts of marriage and setting off on a God adventure together!

They made plans for Kimberly to spend some time in Florida in December to meet some of Mark’s friends and check out his home base in Jacksonville. On a impromptu day trip on Christmas Eve to Driftwood Beach on Jekyll Island, Georgia, Mark proposed to Kimberly and asked her to be his wife. Of course, she said yes and plans started taking shape for a wedding in early 2026. The initial plan was to get married in Minnesota to make it easier for Mark’s friends to fly in from some of the southern states, but events happened that caused them to pause their plan as they took advice and counsel from ministry leaders and the Board Members of Mark’s nonprofit ministry.
Mark & Kimberly spent many hours praying together and speaking with family and friends and made the decision to change the venue of the wedding to the town where Kimberly was born in Cable, Wisconsin.

Kimberly gave her heart to Jesus as a child at Living Hope Church, Cable, where her parents attended for 50 years. The Pastor of the church was happy to allow Mark & Kimberly to use the church for the wedding ceremony and host the reception following, so plans are moving forward to get the church ready for this happy day!

Mark & Kimberly understand that traveling to Cable, Wisconsin during the winter is difficult for many from other states who would love to be part of the celebration. They would of course love to have as many family members and friends who as are able to attend in person and are also working on a plan to try to live stream the event on Facebook and Youtube.
The Marriage Ceremony will take place at 2 p.m. on Saturday, February 7th, 2026
at Living Hope Community Church, 43170 US HWY 63, Cable, Wisconsin 54821