Young Newlywed Entrepreneurs

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Myrtle Alegado: They say that compared to older generations, young people can be very optimistic. They’re full of energy and often come up with fresh ideas because they aren’t always set in their ways. What does this have to do with today’s topic? Stay tuned and find out.

Welcome to Happy Life, a podcast brought to you by INC Media Audio that aims to help newlyweds navigate through the first years of marriage. I’m your host, Myrtle Alegado, and I’ve been married to my husband, Paul, since 1999. And later, we’ll hear some Bible-based advice through Brother Felmar Serreno, a minister of the gospel in the Church Of Christ.

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Inspiration to make your marriage thrive, you’re listening to Happy Life.

Myrtle: The willingness of the youth to try new things, coupled with their ability to quickly adapt to new technologies, make them natural leaders in the ever-developing small business climate. Our newlywed couple today are really quite young, but they’re also aspiring entrepreneurs. Let’s welcome Kegan and Ailafaye to Happy Life. Hello, you two. Kegan and Ailafaye Baker: Hello!

Myrtle: Both of you are still quite young. What made you decide that this is the right time to get married, and would you mind telling us how old you both are?

Kegan Baker: We’re both 21 and we started dating when we were 18. Her parents were very strict. They had a lot of rules. We wanted to gain their trust. We had to be home at a certain time, very early in the night, like eight o’clock. We would rush home at like 6:30 . We were like, “Oh we gotta get home. We don’t want to get her parents to be mad at us. And we wanted to avoid temptations and to be careful.

We saw, like, a lot of people our age going out and doing things that weren’t necessarily appropriate for Church Of Christ members, especially like later on in the night they’d go clubbing and things like that, or they’d go travel together and they’re not married. And we wanted to avoid that as much as possible, because we are members of the Church [Of Christ]. We want God’s blessing in everything that we do.

We wanted to also go and travel the world together, to embark on a new journey, and get to know each other better. So, that’s why we decided to get married so early on, and we wanted to just start our lives together.

Ailafaye Baker: Aside from my parents, we had a lot of help from the brethren within the Church. One of the brethren was Brother Ricky Bravo, who’s a minister in the Church Of Christ, and his wife, Sister May Bravo. So we would go over there for dinner, and they are a couple that we really really trust because, truthfully, they remind us a lot about ourselves. They shared stories with us that they’re actually the opposite of us. Sister May and Brother Ricky Bravo, they got married later on in life, and she actually shared with me that they got criticized for being a lot older.

They always had their home open for us whenever we needed any type of guidance. That’s why we developed a good relationship with them. Since he’s a minister in the Church, we would always be comfortable enough to ask him questions and advice. He would share [with] us the words of Almighty God and counsel us when we had problems.

Myrtle: So did you find that people questioned your decision to get married so young?

Ailafaye: A lot of people actually did question our decision to get married young. A lot of people would ask us why. “Why would you get married so young?” “There’s a lot to live for.” “There’s a lot out there to do.” “You’re still in college,” or “That person is holding you back.” But I think the easiest way to put it is that you love this person, and you trust this person, and you build a relationship with them.

A lot of people assumed I was pregnant, and that was the main reason why we would be getting married. And it hurt my emotions a lot, because I had to have this negative reason to be marrying him. Sometimes, because I’m a human, it would get to me. When you hear the words of other people you start to question yourself, but only you know the truth. We know what’s true. And we trusted in God to get rid of those rumors actually.

My mom, I came to her for guidance. I asked her, “Mom, there’s a lot of people saying these things about me.” And she told me to be more prayerful, and to ignore them, and that God knows what’s true. “Anywhere you go,” she always told me this, she said, “even if I’m not watching you, God is always watching you.” We didn’t let what others said hurt us. We just became more prayerful. It actually strengthened our faith [in] God. We just took all the negative and basically wanted to show everyone that through faith anything is possible.

Myrtle: And, Kegan, Ailafaye said that you two knew the truth and, you know, of course God knows the truth. How important was it to have your family’s support as well?

Kegan: It was very important, but it was really harder for me because I had just become, you know, newly [baptized] in the Church, and they had just met her. They didn’t really believe in the same things we believe. But praise be to God that my mom and my stepdad are now in the Church.

Myrtle: Aww!

Kegan: Yeah.

Myrtle: Congrats! That’s awesome.

Kegan: It was really, really important that I had her parents’ blessing, which is why I bought a house so early on in my life is I saved every penny I made working, because I didn’t want to marry her and not have anything for her. I didn’t want to live on the streets with her being married, you know?

Myrtle: You said that it was important for you to have her family’s support. So, you know, how did you get them, I guess, to come around to the idea of you two getting married so young?

Kegan: A lot of prayer, a lot of going to devotional prayers, talking with them, them getting to know me more. Our families really championed us because they wanted the best for us. Even though we were young they were like, “You guys have a bright future. We want to see you do the things that you want in this life, just as long as they are in accordance with God’s will.

Myrtle: That’s great advice. And you know, with marriage, there are a lot of adjustments and challenges and that might be extra difficult for a couple so young. So I was wondering, what inspired you to start your own business at this stage in your life?

Kegan: I have always had a passion for food. I love cooking. I started cooking when I was 14 in restaurants. That was my first cooking job ever. I’ve always been very ambitious. In culinary, I’ve watched, nonstop studied, practiced all the time. I’d buy, like, bags of potatoes and just practice knife cuts.

But my wife is the main reason I started this business. She always believed in what I can do. She always showed that she really cared about my passions and stuff. My mom, she started a Hawaiian shave ice truck, and she told me how hard it was to start. And she kind of helped guide me. I’m Hawaiian and Filipino. I’ve always loved just cooking. So my goal is to showcase my talents and my family’s culture. Growing up, I didn’t learn about my cultures that much, because we lived separated from my grandparents on both sides.

Myrtle: So what do you love about, you know, the Hawaiian culture and cuisine?

Kegan: I love just the different flavors and how they’re so different. Filipino food is like more, you know, vinegar, black pepper and all that stuff. And then Hawaiian food is a little more sweet and then when you have them together, it’s just so good.

I want to bring my family’s culture and my food to the people of Orlando, because there’s not that many easily accessible foods, for people who are from the Philippines or from Hawaii, here. They’re always like, “Oh, there’s never any good places around here.” They’re all mixed or not authentic and it’s hard for them. I want to support the needs of my family, my wife, and then I want to also be able to give back to the Church.

Myrtle: So you said you started pretty much cooking when you were 14. You know, how else did you kind of add to your culinary skills and how did you continue to learn?

Kegan: I did a lot of reading, a lot of watching people. And then, since I was in restaurants a lot of chefs helped me to develop my skills, as well as my own mom, and my wife’s family as well. They were kind of the harshest critics, but they always did it with love and helped me to become the best chef version of myself.

Myrtle: What do you love about that, Ailafaye, that he’s such a good chef?

Ailafaye: I think the best thing about that is that, like he said, my family is the greatest critic. So, a lot of that comes from how strict they are. So,when it comes to food, we’re from Pampanga, which is the food capital of the Philippines. So, my dad takes a lot of pride in his cooking, because that’s how my grandmother took