The Brunette RUNette: My first Blog Entry = Our Love Story

My name is Jennifer Brogdon, and on October 5th, 2013, I married my college sweetheart and track & field/cross country teammate--Mr. Shane Brogdon. So, yes, we are still thriving on being Newlyweds, discovering through trial and error how to keep the house clean and cook good (meaning BOTH of us like it) meals while loving each other more and more only through the grace given to us by God. He is a Birmingham, AL boy who came to run at Mississippi College as did this hometown girl. Shane came in as a freshman when I was a junior (oops) and was crazy good-looking and fast. One day, my senior year during track season--meaning I am about to graduate--he decides to sit by me on the bus to a far far away (as usual) track meet. In the past, I was so wrapped up with my studies-- pre-dental/med biological sciences major who did not use it to go to either of those careers-- that I rarely did much outside of practice, studying, and the group of girl friends I had already made before I decided to join the team my sophomore year. Needless to say, this was my first REAL conversation with the guy and turns out he was good-looking, fast, and LOVED JESUS! Can we say perfect match? And, hello, he told me he desired to be a missionary. I have only desired to be a missionary since I was five years old! Yea, so, I began falling in love after that night and thanked the Lord so much for bus trips and all of the good conversations we had.

4 months into our relationship, I took off and moved to Switzerland!! Ofcourse, it had nothing to do with him, ha, I had been planning this for a year before our first REAL conversation. So why Switzerland??? God led me as a missionary through YWAM to the base in Lausanne, Switzerland ( http://www.ywamlausanne.com/ ) Then, I moved to Burkina Faso and Mali in West Africa and traveled to Italy as well. So..... I was gone for a total of 6 months. There will be more details about this journey in further blog posts. Even though it has now been 2 years (wow), I cannot NOT share this time in my life. I kept running, too, and DUH. Here's a glimpse:

Our first Swiss event! Culture shock.. but a good, fun shock.

This was the home of us and ~80 more YWAMers. A 5 story building full of love and people from all over the world.

After YWAM, I decided to come back to Mississippi and use my last year of cross country and track eligibility-- since I did not join the team until my sophomore year. And... Shane was now a senior on the team, so I enrolled as a graduate student and got TESOL certified ( http://www.tesol.org/ ). Together, Shane and I both ended up having the best collegiate running seasons ever. I could not have done it without him. He definitely could have done it without me because he is just good like that, but I never EVER could have done it without him yelling my splits and pushing me to my limits. Shane went to NCAA Div. III track nationals that year. I went to nationals in cross country my junior year. However, my last cross country and track seasons were the best, hitting PR's in every distance, but the national level was in better shape as well (figures). Here are recaps of both: