Answering God’s call in the Jubilee Year of Hope
By William and Melina Van de Planque | On Mission
Hello, readers. We are William and Melina, the Van de Planques. We are a newly married couple, a new family, new residents of northeast Wisconsin and relatively new employees of the Diocese of Green Bay — William in the Office of Communications and Marketing and Melina in the Office of Marriage and Family Life. We are here to share a bit of our story with you about our experience of engagement and marriage during this Jubilee Year of Hope and moving seven states away to answer God’s call for our family.
William: Listening to God’s call and allowing him to prepare our hearts for whatever step he wanted us to take next has been a part of our relationship ever since we met. That day we both knew something was different about the other. We met during our sophomore year of college while on a retreat with the Catholic campus ministry of Georgia College, the school I attended, and we were both struck by the adventurous spirit and love of Jesus in the other. We started dating the following January, and our dating relationship was unlike any I had ever experienced.
I found that my past romantic relationships were marked by disordered desires, lack of responsibility and escape from reality. Being with Melina was the opposite: it was an immersion into the reality that is God’s love.
Melina and I prayed together often, especially over the phone while dating long-distance. During our engagement, while I studied abroad in Italy, we called each day to pray the Rosary together, and continued that incredibly impactful practice when I returned to Georgia by going on what we called “Rosary walks.”
Melina: Throughout our relationship, I was constantly trying to choose truth over the lies of the enemy. The truth: Our relationship was the adventure God had been calling me to and the vocation of marriage was the next step. The lies: We were too young to get married, and we both needed established careers before we got engaged.
I told William we needed to plan to get engaged after we dated for a couple more years. Soon after, I found myself asking, “What if the next time you saw him, he proposed?” Every time I thought or prayed about it, I felt peace. God told me, “I will give you the grace for the next step, do not be afraid.” Still, I continued to say we should wait.
One day, at Heritage, a retreat center in Georgia where we both worked, someone boldly asked us in conversation why we were waiting to get married. I knew this conversation was of the Lord, and when I told William how I felt, he affirmed everything. We knew this was right.
William: We got engaged on Springer Mountain at the start (or end) of the Appalachian Trail in north Georgia on April 28, 2024. At the time, we were both finishing up our bachelor’s degrees at different universities in Georgia, and we weren’t quite sure what was next. We did, however, know without a doubt that we wanted to spend the rest of our lives with each other.
Hope was much needed throughout our relationship and during every moment of discernment, but especially during engagement. At the start of this Jubilee Year of Hope, Melina and I were six months out from our wedding day, still unsure of where God was calling us to start our family.
My search for a full-time job was stressful and all-consuming, and I was constantly tempted to believe the lie that money was the most important thing. I realized, after completing training for a home improvement sales representative position, that I was not called to work in a Godless environment. That realization — and inviting God to form and prepare my heart long before that — led me to the Diocese of Green Bay and to build up his Kingdom in unexpected and beautiful ways.
The decision to accept a role in a place further north than either of us had ever been was extremely difficult. However, we knew that this was where God was calling us, and he gave us the courage to say yes to that call.
Melina: Our friend, Fr. Brian, who was the main celebrant of our wedding Mass, said in his homily that day that when he thinks of William and Melina, he thinks of two people who prioritize “alignment and adventure.” He said we align our lives with God, and we embark on the adventure that is following Christ.
When we went on our honeymoon, William had planned an incredible adventure that aligned our hearts with God’s heart. We traveled to southern France, where I had always wanted to go because Mary Magdalene’s cave is there. The woman who had adventured with Jesus on earth had lived in this cave after his Resurrection for 30 years, praying. We hiked straight up the side of a cliff that led to the cave. It was a difficult hike that reminded me of the life we live in our devoted Catholic marriage: We seek the places where he can be found, the places he is calling us to go — like how he called Mary Magdalene to her cliffside cave, and together we embrace the adventure that it will take to get us there.
William and Melina: We decided when we came back that we aren’t going to stop being on our honeymoon. We mean that in the sense that we are not going to stop pursuing God and adventure, especially in our marriage and in growing our own holy family. We are not going to stop hoping for God and listening for his call and answering it, wherever he takes us.
To think that Jesus, when we chose to follow him with our whole vocational lives, took us a thousand miles away from home at the start of our marriage; who knows how much farther he will take us, both physically and spiritually?