Since Ray Schafer and Sarah Reichner started dating back on Nov. 11, 2006, the relationship has been anything but typical.
“We aren’t the kind who go out to movies,” Reichner said. “Most of the things we do are unordinary.”
“We go unplug storm drains in the rain, just random things,” Schafer added.
So May 15 certainly wasn’t unusual for the couple, either.
That afternoon, Schafer, a seven-foot center on the men’s basketball team, invited Reichner to Hendricks Park for a picnic. But instead, he quickly sent her out on a scavenger hunt where she was to find yellow tissues that contained cards and were tucked in various bushes.
“The card said some stuff about a character trait that he admired about me and sent me off to another,” Reichner said.
The cards, which Schafer received help on from Kaela Chapdelaine of the women’s basketball team, also contained scripture, symbolizing the religious bond the two share.
There were seven in all. The final one described love and read, “I’m full. I ate all the picnic. Come back to me. Your treasure is in my arms.”
“The last one was obvious he was going to propose,” Reichner said. “I went back there and he didn’t. But his heart was beating so fast.”
Twenty minutes passed before Schafer mustered up the courage to do what he had spent months planning.
“I planned to propose right when she got back,” Schafer said. “She was in tears over the last letter of love so it just kind of threw me off track. We just sat there for a while on the blanket and just held each other. Finally, to get her up, I insensitively said, ‘Is there any more food in the cooler?’ That’s when she walked over to get it and I was down.”
“Just the image of him being down on his knees proposing to spend the rest of our lives together, that’s just a different sensation,” Reichner said.
Schafer then drove his new fiancée around blindfolded before eventually taking her to her house – where 40-50 of their closest friends, including most of Schafer’s teammates, were huddled in the backyard for a BBQ.
“That was one of the coolest parts,” Reichner said. “I didn’t know where I was.”
Reichner is a Sheldon-area director for Youth for Christ’s Campus Life – an organization that provides programs to serve young people. The 2003 Willamette University (Salem, Ore.) graduate in Spanish and sociology and former track athlete, serves primarily high school students and takes them backpacking, climbing and mountaineering.
“We love serving people. We love serving others,” Reichner said. “That’s what fuels us.”
Schafer and Reichner met last September at a worship service in the basement of the Onyx House, a campus living and hang out center for those “who have a relationship with Jesus.” Reichner sent out a group invitation for people to visit her at a friend’s home that she was house sitting. It was her last night at the house and she wanted people to come enjoy the hot tub.
But no one showed up – except Schafer.
“I said ‘I don’t mind leaving if this is awkward,’” Schafer said.
But, from there, a friendship blossomed.
“Our relationship was a little different,” Reichner said. “We became friends before there was any question of romance.”
The two started dating after a divine moment, Reichner said, in which “both of us exhibited the same sense of awe.”
The couple plans to marry on Sept. 1 in Reichner’s hometown of Sequim, Wash. on her father’s lavender farm.
That’ll be shortly after Schafer returns from his tour with Athletes in Action, a ministry of Campus Crusade for Christ. Schafer will tour with the group from Aug. 4 to Aug. 23 in Australia where he’ll play such teams as former Duck Ian Crosswhite’s Sydney Kings. At the end of each game, a player on the Athletes in Action team will share a testimony for those in attendance.
“It’s amazing,” said Schafer, who plans to test his professional prospects when his Oregon career is over. “It’s great to not only have my faith but have an opportunity to put my faith to work. It’s just a blessing to be needed and wanted on a team like that.”
And Schafer will return with one week to prepare for the wedding and will have about 10 days for a honeymoon before he returns to Eugene for individual workouts and to start his life as a married man.
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