Thursday, January 28, 2010
When the Wesley KU minivan picked him up, Brian Giebink was in no mood to talk, let alone flirt with anyone. He just wanted to sleep.
Contributed photo
On a mission: Brian Giebink, Rolla, Mo., senior, met his girlfriend of three years, Erin Anderson, Overland Park senior, during a church-organized trip to New Orleans to help rebuild houses following Hurricane Katrina.
Giebink, Rolla, Mo., senior, had just returned the afternoon before following a 25-hour car ride home from watching Kansas’ victory in the Orange Bowl in Florida. He’d seriously considered canceling his plans to travel on the ministry’s mission trip to New Orleans to rebuild houses, dreading 12 additional hours on the road. Ultimately, he decided to make the trip along with six other members of the United Methodist ministry. When the group stopped for lunch, Giebink sat across from Erin Anderson, Overland Park senior, and his exhaustion was soon replaced with a stomach full of butterflies.
“The rest of the ride was a struggle as far as I was concerned,” Giebink says. He struggled to stay in the seat nearest Anderson as the occupants of the bus did a kind of musical chairs, apparently unaware of Giebink’s attraction to her.
When the group finally reached New Orleans, Giebink was plotting how to charm Anderson, who was beginning to feel guilty. She’d been dating another guy for a few weeks and by the second day of the trip she really liked Giebink.
“I wasn’t really excited about that relationship and had already considered ending it with him,” Anderson says. “And then I met Brian.”
The students spent the next week painting the houses of Hurricane Katrina victims and were together constantly. Giebink and Anderson quickly formed a bond.
Soon after returning home, Anderson broke up with the guy she’d been dating and Giebink, who never knew she had a boyfriend, asked her to dinner the very next day. She was thrilled to learn Giebink liked her too, but Anderson told him she needed a few weeks to herself before she entered a relationship she felt could be significant. A few weeks later, Giebink asked Anderson out again and this time she said yes.
Their relationship’s biggest challenge so far has been distance. Anderson studied in Paris the summer after she met Giebink. He then spent last semester in Paris and the couple communicated through e-mail and Skype.
As graduation approaches in May, Anderson has been applying to PhD programs and Giebink is looking for a job. They hope to avoid being long-distance again but they’re optimistic about their future together, regardless of the circumstances.
“If we can maintain a relationship for more than four months from opposite sides of the world, then nothing will pull us apart,” Giebink says.
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