The Beautiful Bride
Bethany is the most beautiful girl I’ve ever met–inside and out.
Bethany was born in Philadelphia, but moved when she was five years old with her parents Barbara and Jerry Haegele, and her baby sister Lauren, down to Raleigh, North Carolina, where the family still resides. Bethany and Lauren grew up under the creative care of their mother and father doing crafts, scavenger hunts, and making ANY holiday into a family festival. Down the road, Emma was also born, completing the trinity of the Haegele sisters.
Bethany went to high school at Wake Christian Academy, where she was the sporty star of the soccer team and also just-gorgeous Raleigh’s Junior Miss 2002. She then went to school at Asbury College (outside of Lexington Kentucky) where she studied journalism and art, specializing in photography and stained glass. She also played on Asbury’s soccer team. In the middle of her college years she traveled with Greater Europe Mission for six months throughout Europe–which provided invaluable travel and ministry experience for her future. After graduating college in May 2007, Bethany quickly secured a job at IMPACT 360, where we met.
While Bethany of course enjoys soccer, photography, stained glass, and looking beautiful, she also plays a mean hand of speed scrabble, is learning the harp, cooks delicious meals, and plays DDR. She loves the Lord more than she loves me (which is a really great thing) and wants to minister with her life. She has a great talent at connecting Scripture with people’s lives, encouraging people in a exhortative manner, and bringing out the positives in people.
Right now Bethany is in graduate school at Richmont Graduate University to get her masters in counseling and a License in Marriage and Family Therapy. It’s a lot of work, but she loves it.
The Handsome Groom
Brian Andrew Davis was born on Feb. 19, 1984 (along with his twin, Brett!) into the Davis family to parents Kathy and Scotty. He also has an older brother, Bradley, and younger sister, Brittany. (All his siblings’ names begin in “Br!”) His family loves the Lord and is always looking for ways to serve Him.
In highshool Brian was heavily involved in church activities (leading Bible studies, going on mission trips, and serving as the church’s janitor). He was also a Latin nerd and was in Latin VI his senior year. Which means, he’s a pretty smart guy! He graduated in 2006 from Shorter College in Rome, GA with a degree in biology. He started Shorter Extreme (an outdoors club) and was the president of his fraternity.
Brian loves the outdoors; hiking, running, camping, etc… This is one of the things that attracted me to him! Other interests include DDR (yes, he competes on expert level), Homestar runner, LOST, and geocaching. Last October, after feeling a call to writing since middle school, Brian finished his first book and sent it off to publishers. As he continues to write and offer up this gift to the Lord, we pray that this interest can grow into something more full-time and influence a greater audience for Christ. He seems to be talented in every way, and the Lord has given Him many spiritual gifts, especially teaching the Word. One of my Christmas presents was a daily verse and original devotional. The insight he shares from the Scripture is uplifting and a way to remind me the premise of our relationship. What a wonderful gift!
He is more than I ever dreamed or imagined. How could I keep myself from falling?!
Brian has worked for Chick-fil-A in many different facets over the past five years (WinShape Camps, Dwarf House, IMPACT 360) and is now working for a Chick-fil-A store in Midtown, Atlanta at Colony Square. We are trying to discern whether we want Chick-fil-A to be a part of our professional lives for the long term future. They’re a great company, the Cathy family is full of great people, and they want to glorify God. What could be better?
How we met
We met on July 31, 2007, in the parking lot of IMPACT 360 and started working together the next day. IMPACT 360 is a nine month leadership program for 18-20 year old students. The program teaches biblical worldview, philosophy, and critical thinking, but also gives experiential service and ministry opportunities, Bible study lessons, and a one month trip overseas. Part of the nature of our job involves living on campus 24/7 with our students in an intentional discipleship and mentoring role. This put Bethany and I into close contact with each other for a long period of time. I guess IMPACT realized this could be an issue, so that’s why they have a non-fraternization policy in place: you can’t date your co-workers.
We spent the month of August together preparing for our first round of students who came at the beginning of September. Looking back on that time, we both felt that we were very different from each other. Over the course of the semester, we discovered that we not only had very common interests but that we were actually becoming really good friends. Unbeknownst to me, Bethany’s feelings for me were starting to go deeper than friendship. All the while I was keeping my mind closed to the idea because of the non-fraternization policy. The year and half we were solely friends, we were able to build a strong foundation and had the opportunity to find healthy ways to work out conflict. Through this, it was apart that we were wonderful counterparts that complimented and worked well in ministry together. God uses each of our strengths together to become something that’s a lot better than when we are apart.
Once the first year at IMPACT 360 was over, we spent some of the summer together working on the next year’s plans (including a wonderful trip to California for recruitment). At the beginning of our second year, Bethany felt led to share with me her feelings — which was a scary thing to do when she didn’t know how I felt about her. A lot was at stake — our friendship and working relationship. It took me four days of gut-wrenching soul searching and prayer, but I realized at the end that I too felt the same way, Bethany is indeed as brilliant and beautiful as I was thinking she was (even when I tried not to think about it), and I was willing to pursue a relationship even if it meant the end of my job.
Although it took some talking to our supervisors and making sure we were going through the right channels, we managed to ‘get permission’ to begin pursuing a relationship together. We wanted to be in the open and not hiding anything, so we quickly told the rest of the staff and our students about our feelings and relationship. We spent two months intentionally building a wonderful relationship of trust and God-centeredness as we dreamed about what the future could look like. I must say, it was the neatest journey as I worked to be intentional and self-sacrificing as Christ Jesus was (and only through His strength could I be). It was very different from other relationships I have been in (again, it was very intentional for both of us) because we were upfront about pursuing marriage and focusing on God. After a month, I knew I was going to propose soon — so I began to plan a wonderful proposal , which happened (with much help from six awesome guys: Alex, Josh, Zak, Cameron, Nathan, and Mark) on December 2, 2008.
Brian and Bethany's Blog 
Brian, I have not had the privilege of meeting you yet, but I’m a friend of Bethany’s. I just read that you wrote a book!? That’s awesome! What is the title and what it is about? What kind of topics most interest you?
Bless you both! You look great together!
By: songinthenight on July 28, 2009
at 11:33 pm
Hi Bethany! We were at Focus on the Family together during Summer 2005. Melissa Thorson told me about your blog because it seems our lives are overlapping quite a bit these days! I graduated from Richmont a few years ago and my husband Fax is working for CFA in Downtown Decatur in hopes of becoming an Operator. We really should get together some time–I think we’d all have plenty to talk about! Fax would also like to email Brian about being part of an Operator Hopefuls focus group here in ATL… a group for guys in their same boats to get together and talk about CFA stuff. Could you email me his email address? Hope to hear from you!
By: Jenny (Peck) Reynolds on May 4, 2010
at 9:13 am
my email is bethanyhaegele@yahoo.com – we’d love to get together! shoot me an email and we’ll go from there!
By: Bethany Davis on May 15, 2010
at 5:56 pm
Hello! My name is Meredith. I just wanted to say that I came across your blog when I Googled “Interim Manager for CFA”. I am so glad I did! My husband and I live in Wake Forest, NC and he recently went to the home office for his interview to be a part of the IM program. He has been the GM of the Wake Forest store for almost five years and is hoping to start the process towards operating his own. It was encouraging to read about your perspective of IM and the adventures that you are experiencing. I hope that you are able to receive your own store soon and perhaps some day we will too, Lord willing!
Meredith
By: Meredith Starnes on June 10, 2012
at 4:28 pm
Hi Meredith! how exciting! It is a fabulous program and CFA definitely takes care of you. I know I had a lot of questions at the beginning (what to pack, what to expect, etc…), so you have any questions I’d love to help! you can send me an email at bethanyhaegele@yahoo.com. hope all goes well with the interview results!
By: Bethany Davis on June 14, 2012
at 8:12 pm