Tawny & Luke, a young couple of early twenty-somethings who were "crazy enough to get married in college," are now navigating recent grad life – living fun-sized in a mini-home. Tawny earned her degree in Teaching English as a Second Language and Luke in Intercultural Studies, so you could say they have a *slight* passion for travel and experiencing other cultures.

Their main goal in our relationship, they say, is not take life too seriously, enjoy the little moments, and maintain that “honeymoon phase” love for their entire lives. They don’t want to waste their lives while still young, instead pursuing to live more, travel more, spend more time together, give more to others, and most importantly – serve Jesus. Hence, they started their blog – Pursuit of Palms.

To them, palm trees mean warmth (and usually the beach), so they're forsaking their northern hometowns and embracing the ocean air in their small home.

We Present: Tawny & Luke!

✿ Love story?

Our love story begins when we ended up attending the same Christian college in New York in August 2013. The first time the two of us met was in one of our 8 A.M. freshman classes. Our first conversation happened to take place when Luke was in need of a computer chord for his dorm room and Tawny offered to give him an extra one she had. After that, the two of us began hanging out at freshman orientation events and mixers. The rest, one could say, is history since as the weeks and months moved on we continued to spend a lot of time together. We knew after just a couple weeks that we were meant to be together. It was a feeling that’s hard to explain, but it was definitely a cliché “never felt this way about anyone before” type of feeling. It was definitely God. However, we were committed to building a strong foundation for our relationship so we continued to learn more about each other, do homework together, and read God’s Word together. We broke the “I love you” barrier early on in October 2013. A couple weeks after that milestone, we decided to make our relationship official and became boyfriend and girlfriend.

✿ Initial attraction?

Luke: Well, first things first, Tawny is incredibly beautiful. Her long hair and tan skin definitely helped with the attraction level on my part. When I met Tawny, she was a strong, mature believer who wanted to grow closer to God along with me and that was a major requirement for me in my search for a life-long companion. Aside from these two important things, there were other things beneath the surface that I liked about Tawny. She was an organized person who was properly motivated to achieve specific things with her life. She had the character qualities of a strong leader which I also found attractive.  

Tawny: I of course thought Luke was really cute, and even though he was quiet around groups of people, when he did say something it was always worth listening to. He didn’t use rude or immature talk, he seemed very mature and grounded in his faith. In fact, he was so respectful, kind, and honorable in his speech to me that I thought he was too good to be true, like he talked that way to all girls he was trying to get with! I had never met a guy that was so genuine, so it actually made me have slight doubts at first that he was for real! I am so glad that I trusted the Lord to continue pursuing him! He still is just as respectful and amazing even after being together for 5 years!

✿ Married in college?!

We decided to get married in college because we knew that God wanted us to be together, and we wanted to start our lives together. When you find the partner that you want to do life and ministry with, you want your life to get started already! Although we knew from the beginning that we were going to get married, we decided not to rush into it and be wise. We got engaged on our 1 year anniversary and were married 2 months before our 2 year anniversary. While that might seem fast according to the world’s standards, it seemed “longer” to us as compared to many of our peers in college who were getting engaged and married within months of meeting one another (we know God has a different plan for everyone’s lives, so we are not judging couples who “moved fast”). One of our college professors mentioned that a couple should “go through every season together” meaning both literally (Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter) and meaning that they have experienced highs and lows in their relationship and lives, not just the good parts. Something that made us decide it was time to get married was the fact that we saw ourselves as a couple and were trying to set a strong foundation for our relationship as a married couple, but knew that people couldn’t treat or respect us in that way unless we were, obviously, married! It was also going to be cheaper for us to move out of the college dorms and get an apartment off-campus. We are so happy that we decided to do things the way we did. We actually skipped the first week of classes our junior year, because we got married at the end of the summer and we were on our honeymoon!

✿ Marriage advice?

Marriage advice is to tell each other everything! The good and the bad, no matter if you think your partner wants to hear about it or not. It is truly important to keep an completely open line of communication with each other. We tell each other the good things that God has been teaching us, our hopes and dreams, about our day, etc. BUT we also tell each other when we are struggling with a sin, things that the other is doing that might be annoying us, if we feel like the path we are taking on certain decisions might not be the best, we seek each other for counsel in certain areas. We truly feel that by talking to each other about everything, both good and bad, eliminates the chance for things to elevate into the fighting and arguing category. We talk through everything and try to resolve it before then, and we can honestly say that we have never argued (it is possible, even if everyone tells you that fighting and arguing are normal in a relationship… we would have to respectfully disagree!) We set this as a priority in our dating relationship, and have made sure that it carry over into our marriage. We truly feel that unless a situation is life or death (and we live in first-world USA so most situations are NOT), there is no reason to dwell and worry about it… life is so much better if you can move on from things and not be petty!

✿ Current location?

We are living in central Florida at a children’s camp called Camp Gilead. We are currently full-time missionaries there, but are always open and willing and praying about what the Lord has for us next! God has taught us so much while we have been here, and it has been a great insight into what it’s like to be full-time missionaries. We help out with summer camps, after-school Bible clubs, and our guest retreat ministry. We also take every opportunity we can to travel, even on short trips to the beach and such! Our new favorite city is Miami, which we visited for the first time when Tawny was flying to Haiti with Trades of Hope (the side business she does that empowers women all around the world out of poverty, slums, and sex trade).

✿ Faith?

Faith is very, very important to our marriage. As missionaries with very free spirits, all of the decisions we make are dependent on having strong faith in God! We are open to His calling and are willing to go wherever He calls us, whenever He calls us. We knew that God was placing the desire on our hearts to move south, and the way it was manifested was to fix up a camper and drive down! We didn’t have a place in mind or that much money to do it, but God was faithful and provided us with the funds all along the way and led us to the camp we’re living at with only 1 month to spare for when we wanted to leave! God is always faithful and we have heard too many stories of how He was provided for those who are following His will to lack faith and worry as a couple. We fully trust him and know that He will supply for our needs and will equip us for what He calls us to whether we feel ready or not! It’s against our human nature so it’s not always easy but it definitely is worth it! One of our Instagram followers called it “Free Fall Faith” and we absolutely love that!

✿ Traveling forever?

As we said before, we just want to follow God wherever He leads us! We feel that He has placed the desire on our hearts to travel and adventure. We don’t ever want to be so “tied down” by something that we aren’t able to freely say “Yes” to God, but we also want to be good servants wherever he places us (even if it’s something we don’t like…so hard!). We are daily working on living with less and being truly happy with less so that we can give more. Even while we are young and broke we want to be able to give of whatever God has given us, which is more our time and health right now! We would love to influence and inspire others through our social media and blog to take more risks, follow God fearlessly, and love each other fiercely! We are learning how to do it too so it will be a fun adventure to go on together!

✿ Advice for couples craving adventure?

Our main advice is to ignore society’s expectations, be willing to be uncomfortable, and just go for it! One of our biggest fears is getting older and looking back to see that all we did was live a comfortable life, people-pleased, acquired a lot of stuff, and were never truly happy. You should make your fear of missing out (FOMO) bigger than your fear of the unknown! God knows the unknown and He wants you to trust Him and His amazing plan for your life!