Couple’s promise helps them grow, face adversity

Stephanie and Christopher Fenton of St. Jude Parish in Indianapolis hold a framed picture containing their wedding invitation, flowers and her A Promise to Keep pin, which she carried in her bridal bouquet on their wedding day. The Fentons found that the communication and relationship skills they learned as chastity peer mentors during their senior year in high school in 2000 helped them stay close as a couple during his deployment to Iraq in 2008. (Photo by Mary Ann Wyand)

By Mary Ann Wyand

Love and marriage begin with a promise—a promise to respect and cherish each other, a promise to be faithful to each other, a promise to keep forever.

Christopher and Stephanie (Dittman) Fenton’s love story began as students at Roncalli High School in Indianapolis with yet another special promise—A Promise to Keep: God’s Gift of Human Sexuality.

As high school peer mentors for the archdiocesan Office of Catholic Education’s abstinence education program, they taught middle school students about the importance of living a chaste life and abstaining from sexual relations until marriage.

“We did a lot of group dates with friends [during high school],” Stephanie said, “and just got to know each other.”

They kept that promise of abstinence during their high school and college years until their wedding day on April 16, 2005, when she carried her A Promise to Keep pin tucked in her bridal bouquet.

And they discovered that the discipline of loving each other without the emotional pressures of premarital sexual activity strengthened their relationship and communication skills, especially when they were separated for his Army National Guard training during their engagement and his deployment to Iraq last year.

Now that Chris is home from the war, they thank God for their marriage every day.

They met as sophomores during choir class at Roncalli High School. Before his overseas military service last year, they participated in the choir at St. Jude Parish, where they attend Mass.

“We knew that we were going to wait from the very beginning,” Stephanie explained about their decision to postpone sexual relations until their honeymoon.

“We wanted to sanctify our marriage,” she said. “We made a promise to God and to each other, and we kept it.”

Their decision to remain chaste until marriage was based on their Christian faith, values and morals, they said, which were affirmed by their volunteer service as A Promise to Keep peer mentors during their senior year in high school as members of the Class of 2000.

“We knew we didn’t have to have that [premarital sexual relations] to have a relationship,” Stephanie said. “We wanted to treat our sexuality respectfully.”

They said their seven years of dating while attending Roncalli High School and Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis were focused on “getting to know each other and respecting each other.”

A Promise to Keep training gave them the skills to grow closer in friendship, Chris said. “It helped a lot. It helped strengthen us [as a couple]. We didn’t give in to peer pressure.”

Stephanie told Chris that she wanted to carry her A Promise to Keep pin in her bouquet during their wedding ceremony at Southport Christian Church as a symbol of their love and respect for each other.

“I was all for it,” he said. “I thought that was a great thing because that’s a big part of our lives as far as saving ourselves [for marriage] and waiting for that time.”

Father Gerald Burkert, former pastor of Holy Name Parish in Beech Grove, the Fenton family’s parish, and Rev. Jerry Butt, former pastor of Southport Christian Church, witnessed their marriage vows.

After the ceremony, they greeted their guests inside the church, and Stephanie joyfully showed Brian and Margaret Hendricks her gold A Promise to Keep pin fastened in her bouquet of roses.

As program coordinator of the archdiocese’s A Promise to Keep program, Margaret Hendricks knows other young couples who volunteered as abstinence education peer mentors during high school and waited until marriage for sexual intimacy.

“I got a little bit weepy,” Hendricks said, when she saw the chastity pin. “Chris was just beaming, and he couldn’t take his eyes off Stephanie. They smiled and she said, ‘We knew you would understand. We know you know what this means to us. We wanted you to know we did it. We waited until this day.’ Then the three of us hugged.”

The challenges and sacrifices of military service test a couple’s relationship in complex ways, Chris and Stephanie said, but they faced them together despite the distances that separated them for months at a time.

During his basic training and combat preparation at several Army camps in the U.S., they wrote to each other every day and now have several hundred letters as keepsakes. They talked by phone on weekends.

While serving with the Army National Guard’s 76th Infantry Brigade in Iraq from March to November of last year, he sustained injuries to his legs which required surgery and extended recuperation there.

In his absence, Stephanie kept busy with her job as a first-grade teacher and prayed for her husband’s safety every day.

They also were able to visit by webcam and the Internet on most days during his tour of duty in Iraq. He would wake up at 3 a.m. for their cyberspace visits half a world apart.

“We both got service prayer books,” Stephanie said, which helped comfort them during his deployment. “We read them every night before we went to sleep. We would talk about how we were dealing with it, and remind each other to say a prayer and that God won’t give you anything you can’t handle.”

Now a sergeant in the Army National Guard, Chris works as a federal maintenance technician at Camp Atterbury in Edinburgh.

They said faith, love, respect and commitment are the foundations in their marriage relationship, but it was still very challenging to live far apart.

As a military couple, Stephanie said, “you learn patience and how precious communication is. … You become more understanding and think about the world in a different way.”

They have grown stronger as a couple in countless ways since he played football for the Roncalli Rebels and she was a cheerleader.

Their commitment to the A Promise to Keep message has also grown stronger, and they hope other young people will be inspired by their love story.

“Faith is everything,” Chris said during a phone interview in February 2008 from Fort Stewart, Ga., before his deployment to Iraq.

“Without my faith, it’s really hard to get through the day,” he said at the time. “With all the challenges and adversities that are ahead of me, sometimes my faith is all that I have other than the love I have for Stephanie, and that has a lot to do with it, too. Without God, I wouldn’t have the wife that I have and the opportunities that I have.”

Teenage couples should enjoy spending time together as friends, Chris said during an interview at their home on Feb. 7, 2009, and need to focus on getting to know each other without the intensity of physical involvement while dating.

“I think all kids should learn about abstinence and really think about it because it helps … build a meaningful relationship,” Chris said. “It helps strengthen marriage. … It’s about making the right choices in life. Every wrong choice you make has a consequence.

“God presents choices and challenges to test us,” he said, “to test our will and our faith and our strength. Every day presents a new choice, a new challenge, … proving to God that you’re strong enough, that you respect him for what he has given you.”

Displayed on a wall in their home are roses from Stephanie’s bridal bouquet preserved in a picture frame with their wedding program and her A Promise to Keep pin.

It’s a beautiful reminder of their love and respect for each other, they said, and their promise of love and commitment that they intend to keep forever.

(To learn more about A Promise to Keep: God’s Gift of Human Sexuality, log on to www.archindy.org/promisetokeep.) †