by Dave Hrbacek, OSV News
CHATFIELD, Minn. (OSV News) — As slivers of September sunlight spilled into a dark and dusty dairy barn near Chatfield, Bridgette Fink threw a bunch of rubber tubes over her shoulder and set off to the far end of the weathered building to begin the process of extracting milk from more than 30 dairy cows.
Not too long ago, this suburban girl wouldn’t have known what these sets of tubes were called — milking clusters — let alone how to use them. That all changed in the last two and a half years, along with her life’s trajectory, when she met a young dairy farmer and fell in love.
It happened while she was selling her home-baked bread at the St. Paul Farmers’ Market near a dairy stand manned by Jake Kappers, who grew up on a farm just on the outskirts of a town that is authentically and unmistakably rural.
As providence would have it, on a Saturday in fall 2022, they struck up a conversation at the market. At the time, Kappers was Lutheran but was reading the Father Brown fiction series by G.K. Chesterton. That piqued Fink’s interest. It just so happened, on that same day, Fink’s older sister Mary was attending a Chesterton conference in the Twin Cities.
A friendship between Fink, 27, and Kappers, 32, began that day and eventually turned romantic. Their courtship became a sacramental marriage Sept. 14 as they professed wedding vows at St. Mary in Chatfield, near the farm where Kappers grew up. For Fink, now Bridgette Kappers, the seemingly huge leap from the Twin Cities suburb of Edina where she grew up to a place where the smell of a barn never leaves one’s clothing is what she calls “a perfect fit.”
Father Kyle Etzel, parochial vicar of St. Joseph in West St. Paul, was one of five priests at the Chatfield church, which was packed to near overflowing, to concelebrate the wedding Mass.
The principal celebrant was Father Bryce Evans, co-pastor of St. Mary in St. Paul’s Lowertown neighborhood in downtown, just blocks away from the St. Paul Farmers’ Market. These two priests of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis live together in the rectory at St. Mary, along with the other co-pastor, Father Byron Hagan, and all three have gotten to know the couple.
Also at the wedding and up at the altar were Father Francis Floeder, who was just ordained in May, retired Father Joe Fink, Bridgette’s uncle, and transitional Deacon Alexander Marquette. All were happy to make the hour-and-a-half drive to the small, rural community just south of Rochester.
In addition to the wedding, the three priests living at St. Mary in St. Paul had played a part in Jake’s joining the Catholic Church during the Easter Vigil Mass March 30 at St. Mary.
“Such a joy,” said Father Evans, summarizing the significance of this wedding and this pairing of a country-raised dairy farmer with a girl whose roots are in the suburbs.
“These are two of the people we respect most in the world,” he told The Catholic Spirit, the archdiocesan newspaper. “It’s been a privilege to witness the unfolding of their relationship, the unfolding of their faith. . . It’s beautiful to see some of the fruits of the Lord in this new life they’re beginning. And we’re full of confidence that they’ll be a blessing to many people.”
Bridgette was not at all looking for love when she began selling her bread at the St. Paul Farmers’ Market in 2022. She had studied philosophy at the University of Mary in Bismarck, North Dakota, and started a teaching job at Holy Family Academy in St. Louis Park in fall 2020, shortly after her college graduation.
But she had a desire to bake and run a baking business, and she eventually followed that dream, buying a storefront in St. Paul in 2022. She broadened her business to include selling at farmers’ markets in Minneapolis and St. Paul. By the time she met Jake, her business was flourishing. On most Saturdays at the St. Paul market, she was sold out of bread by noon. Only at that point did she have time for conversations with Jake or anyone else.
Jake, meanwhile, enjoyed an idyllic life on a dairy farm run by his parents, Bob and Jeanette, who bought the 140-acre property in the early 1980s for raising dairy cattle and growing crops for the cattle to eat. Bob grew up in the area and decided to start a new dairy operation on land that borders the outskirts of Chatfield.
Jake, the oldest of three boys, chose to stay home and work on the farm after trying college for a time. He milks cows daily, then gets help on days he travels to the St. Paul Farmers’ Market to sell his family’s dairy goods, which include milk, cream and the family’s signature cheese curds. Jake and Bridgette said they hope to buy the farm someday.
The Kappers farm has come to reflect the shared life that Bridgette and Jake are building together. Just a week before the wedding, one of the buildings on the property was converted to a bakery, complete with commercial ovens and equipment that were brought in just in time for the two of them to bake bread for their wedding reception, which included more than 400 guests.
Each table featured a loaf of bread baked just days before the wedding. And of course, there were plenty of dairy products on hand, including homemade ice cream for dessert.
Each helps the other in the life Jake and Bridgette have forged. There are times throughout the week devoted to baking, and times devoted to milking. The two work inside the barn mornings and evenings, and Bridgette has learned to wear the same set of clothes each time she milks because the smell cannot be washed away.
Do Bridgette and Jake see what they are doing as unconventional, even countercultural?
“I would say no,” Bridgette said. “I don’t think we ever really thought” of it that way.
“I think this is what comes naturally,” Jake said. “I think it’s just what I enjoy doing. I don’t think there are any philosophical underpinnings. It just happened to be that way.”
Bridgette then added further analysis of how what she and Jake are doing fits into God’s plan and the Catholic faith, a response perhaps tied to her philosophy background.
“I think that I’m following the will of God generally — not perfectly, but that’s my mission,” she said. “And that is synonymous with living a good and beautiful life. I find baking to be life-giving. I also find being on the farm to be life-giving.”
She noted that her family and close friends support her new life. One friend came down and saw her in action baking and doing farm chores and was won over.
“She just looked at me, and was like, ‘You just fit right in, Bridgette. This was made for you,'” Bridgette recalled. “And it’s true. . . Part of my nature just enjoys what the farm has to offer or what the farm asks of you. My close friends and my siblings really think that it’s a good fit.”
The priests agree. They also think that Bridgette and Jake will be able to plant seeds of faith in addition to seeds of the crops grown on their farm.
Both Father Etzel and Father Evans said they plan to keep coming down to the farm to check in on Jake and Bridgette and pay what they call a “pastoral visit.” And they expect to see the couple at Mass at St. Mary when they are in St. Paul for the farmers’ market.
Then there’s the future and the possibility of being asked to perform baptisms. The two priests exchanged friendly banter about which one would perform the sacrament should Jake and Bridgette bring babies into the world.
They also said the couple is a visible sign of what God is doing in the church right now.
Father Evans called their wedding celebration “a sign of the fruitfulness of the Spirit.”
“It’s not just in the lives of these two individuals, but it’s something that overflows,” he said. “This manifests the power of God and the church. As long as things like this are happening, the future of the church is bright.”
