A love match

Working in the mission fields of Hurricane Michael in Florida proved to be more than mission work for an Owatonna couple. It also produced love that led to marriage and the blending of the couple’s existing families of 14 children.
Caleb and Jennifer Robertson celebrated their first anniversary on Jan. 24. “It’s miraculous how God put things together,” Caleb said.
Their love story is an improbable twist of fate that brought their hearts together at least partially at the hands of Jennifer’s father, Ted Weinberg, also of Owatonna.
Jennifer admits she wasn’t initially crazy about her father meddling in her life and trying to play matchmaker. “My mom was trying to tell him to stay out of it, but he didn’t listen,” Jennifer said. In fact, she recalls at one point telling him to not set her up with anyone because it wasn’t his business.
But Weinberg didn’t give up in his pursuit of finding love for his daughter. “He was out shopping for a son-in-law he wanted,” Jennifer said.
Weinberg, who has been involved in mission work for many years, including 23 years in Africa, met Caleb on a mission trip in 2018. The current missions are part of the Nehemiah Ministry at Grace Baptist Church in Owatonna. The two came together repairing battered Puerto Rico from Hurricane Maria. Caleb joined a team from North Carolina on the mission trip for nine days.
“Ted was overseeing the whole project and that’s how I met him,” said Caleb, who was a single dad raising six children ranging in ages of 4 to 13 at the time. “We hit it off from the get-go and became friends within nine days.”
Caleb and Weinberg came together again in January 2019 on another mission project in Myrtle Beach, Fla. Weinberg shared stories about his family, including the situation with his daughter and her eight children.
Back home in Owatonna, Jennifer remembers how her father told her things about Caleb. “He was doing his best to influence me,” Jennifer said.
In the meantime, Jennifer wasn’t totally trusting her dad and solicited the help of a friend’s son who went on one of the mission trips. She requested him to take photos of Caleb without him knowing. “He reported back that he didn’t find anything wrong with Caleb,” she said.
And as for the photographs, they met Jennifer’s approval. “I thought he was pretty handsome,” she said, adding, “at least my dad was a good picker on that.”
Caleb recalls how Weinberg dropped “this bomb on me” one night while they were performing mission work. “He said, ‘basically if I was looking for a son-in-law for Jen, he would look like you.’” At the time, Caleb “just laughed it off.”
In October 2019, Jennifer went on one of the mission trips to Florida. It was the first time she got to meet Caleb.
Things happened pretty fast from there. In December 2019, she and her children went to see a Christmas play with Caleb in North Carolina. They all came back to Minnesota. “The kids hit it off over the holiday break,” Jennifer said. “It’s unheard of what the Lord did there,” she added.
After Caleb had been in Minnesota for about a month, Jennifer remembers asking him, “So at what point are you going to live in Minnesota?” Within days, they decided to get married and even skipped the engagement.
“I proposed on Friday before the ceremony and we got married on Saturday,” Caleb said.
They tied the knot at Grace Baptist Church in Owatonna with Jennifer’s father officiating the marriage.
Their family consists of Nikki, 32, Ben, 21, Luke, 19, Emma, 18, Levi and Joseph (twins), 17, Joshua, 15, Troy, 15, Jewlya, 14, Abigail, 14, Jeremiah, 14, Jude, 9, Jarrett, 8 and Jessayln, 7. Ten of the 14 children currently live at home with Jennifer and Caleb.
 
Different Paths
Jennifer, who grew up in Owatonna, had been living in Washington when her 39-year-old husband died after battling cancer. They had one child at the time.
“Those were very, very dark years,” Jennifer said of her first husband’s fight.
After she became a widow, Jennifer moved to California and lived in the valley outside of Los Angeles. “There was terrible crime and lots of poverty,” she said.
While in California, Jennifer adopted seven children from one family. She did not want to discuss the details of that situation.
In February 2018, she moved back to Owatonna with her seven adopted children. Her oldest daughter was already living on her own and remained in California.  
Though it was tough losing her husband, Jennifer said she has closed the chapter on that part of her life and is now fully focused on her new life with Caleb.
Meanwhile, Caleb was living in North Carolina when he became divorced from his first wife. He ended up with custody of their six children.
Both Caleb and Jennifer knew the odds were stacked against them because they each had so many children. Jennifer said she dated a few guys who simply weren’t up for the challenge.
What complicated matters even more is that they both were hesitant to get into relationships over being extra protective of their children and how they would deal with a potential new parent.
“It’s a miracle,” Jennifer said of finding Caleb. Added Caleb, “I wasn’t really looking for anybody, but God had a plan.”
Jennifer, 46, said she was worried about telling Caleb she had eight kids, even though her father had long made that disclosure to him without her knowledge.
“I wasn’t scared at all,” Caleb said. “She had been through a hardship.”
 
New Blended Family
After spending 10 years alone without a spouse, Jennifer said she is finding comfort in her marriage with Caleb. “He makes me feel safe,” she said, adding she likes having someone else help her make decisions for the family.
As for being a mother to six new children, Jennifer is ready for the challenge. “I love being a mother,” she said. “If we had 15 more (children), it would not make me sad.”
Being a strong mother is partly what attracted Caleb to Jennifer.
Caleb, 37, doesn’t like the stigma that many people often associate with motherhood by not considering it a very high calling. “For a lot of people, it’s all about a career, prestige and a title, but where does that get you?” Caleb wonders.
“It’s one of the greatest callings to raise the next generation,” Caleb says. “She does an amazing job at it.”
Jennifer is currently homeschooling all of their children.
And as for Jennifer’s father, well, he’s getting high marks from the couple for his efforts.
“He gets an A+ for the matchmaking. In retrospect, I am pretty grateful he did,” Jennifer said. “This should be about him.”