LOVE STORIES
Chance meetings opened up lifetime conversation

By Zenaida Serrano Espanol
Advertiser Staff Writer

Newlyweds Jusufu and Lisa Williams Kazen, who met at HPU. Bianca Photography

With the ocean at Kualoa Beach Park serving as a backdrop, nearly 50 guests from Sweden, Mexico, Singapore and all over the Mainland were treated to an afternoon ceremony under clear blue skies.

"It was perfect," said Lisa Williams Kazen, 22, a public relations account executive.

It seems an apt word for the couple, as everything about their relationship seemed to fall in place.

The bride, formerly Lisa Cripe of Spokane, Wash., and the groom, formerly of Stockholm, Sweden, met in the summer of 2000 at Hawai'i Pacific University.

"I first met my now-husband through a series of chance encounters with another HPU student who moved here from Washington," she said.

Cripe met Collette Kuntz at an HPU new-student barbeque in Washington, flew on the same flight to Hawai'i with her, saw her later that week on a bus in Waikiki, and ran into her again at a back-to-school lu'au at Kualoa.

By then, she knew Kuntz better than anyone else at the school. Kuntz introduced her to Jusufu Williams Kazen, who was Kuntz' orientation group leader.

The two exchanged numbers, and Jusufu Williams Kazen promised to show Cripe around the island.

"Not only did we travel around the island together, but were soon spending all our time together, got a job in a coffee shop together, and eventually went home to meet each others' parents," she said.

In January 2002, the couple traveled to Sweden to meet his family. They stayed at an apartment where he once lived, and that's where he popped the big question.

"I thought it was appropriate, (because) that's where my journey to the U.S. started," said the 26-year-old sales manager.

For Cripe, the response was a no-brainer.

"I knew I wanted to marry the guy within three months (after meeting him)," she said.

While good looks lured the two to each other, the attraction goes much deeper, said the couple, who live in Makiki.

They appreciate each other's intelligence and ambition, share common interests and views, and always have colorful conversations, whether about politics, travel or business.

"There's never a boring moment with her," he said. "We can sit and talk about everything between heaven and earth. I've never really met anyone like that."

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Reach Zenaida Serrano Espanol at zespanol@ honoluluadvertiser.com or 535-8174.