IN THE BEGINNING: God and Match.com

Gary's Experience:

It all began in early 1997 when I began surfing the net. I had read about people meeting others on the internet and was interested but wanted to be careful. Someone told me about Match.com and said it was a good place to meet nice people. I joined and before long was corresponding with people all around the U.S. I even met someone near by and dated her for a few months in the summer of 1997. However, shortly after that relationship ended, things got discouraging. I had a few emails but nothing very promising.

By mid 1998, I was thinking about ending my membership with Match.com and giving up on internet match-making. In June I got several match notices from women in Russia and had decided that any relationship that far away was a fantasy so I decided not to respond to any letters farther that 700 miles from my home. I didn't have much success in finding anyone within my mileage limit and had decided not to renew my Match.com membership when it ran out at the end of the month. Then on June 28, 1998, I got this letter. It was a short note and really didn't say much but I was impressed enough to look up her profile. Everything in the profile sounded good, even the fact that she lived just over 700 miles away.

I could tell from that first email that the writer was a person with a strong faith in Jesus Christ. This attracted me because I also have a strong faith. (In the coming months we would find out just how strong our faith was). Since she hadn't given a city of residence, I wrote and asked where she lived. You can imagine how confused I was when she wrote back"it's me from the Philippines"some 9,000 miles away. After the initial shock, I realized that if the mileage between us had been reported right by Match.com, I never would have responded to this person whose emails had already touched me in a strange way. I knew it had to be God at work.

Things moved along pretty well with emails everyday. After only a couple of weeks, Connie mentioned that her best friend was getting married and that this friend had met her future husband through Match.com. I think mostly as an after-thought, she invited me to the wedding. When I read about this, I was immediately interested in the prospect of traveling to a foreign land. Never having traveled outside the U.S. , except for a vacation trip to the Bahamas many years earlier, I had no idea of how to go about it or even if it were possible for me to go. I wrote back to Connie and told her I would like to attend but would have to check into it. I didn't find out until many months later that she really hadn't expected me to want to come and was a little afraid of the possibility that a stranger from a foreign land may come to visit her.

After a little checking I found that there was a slight possibility that everything could be done in time for me to make the wedding so I emailed this 'good news' to Connie. She wrote back that she was hoping I could come but secretly, she was scared to death. My first hurdle was getting a new birth certificate for my passport application. I needed to get it mailed as soon as possible. The lady first said that it would take several days but then noticed that my reason for the birth certificate was to apply for a passport. She went right then and printed me out one. Next was getting the passport in time. The lady at the courthouse said it would take 30 to 60 days since it was the busy time of year. I didn't have 60 days, I only had 45. I mailed off the application and hoped for the best.

Then I began to have second thoughts about the whole thing. Was I crazy to go half way around the world to visit people I did not know in a country where I was told I would be putting my life at risk? (A friend had jokingly told me he wouldn't be surprised if he read about them pulling my body out of the ocean if I went  ). I prayed for encouragement and direction. I asked God to give me a reassuring sign, let the passport come back in record time. Sixteen days after I mailed my passport application I had my passport in my hand. It was a clear sign to me that God wanted me to make this long journey and He was telling me He would be with me all the way. So, I began planning my trip to Manila, Philippines, and packing my bags.

Connie's Experience:

In the process