I don’t think I have ever shared our story of how we met, fell in love and got married. A lot of people ask us this… even now after a year and a half of marriage. The likelihood of two people living in 2 different countries meeting and falling in love was pretty slim. Yet God didn’t let what seemed impossible stop Him from bringing us together across the Atlantic.
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| So thankful that God didn’t let the distance keep Him from bringing us together! |
It all started in 2008 at my former college roommate, Melissa’s wedding. I was involved in the ceremony. Melissa was marrying Leon’s brother Lucas, so Leon was in the wedding as well. Melissa and Lucas wanted to have waltzing at their reception, so we got to practice at the rehearsal dinner. While dancing with another one of the groomsmen, Leon decided to cut in and dance with me. He was a very good dancer! After the dance was over he was off again to perform his duties as best man, and we never really interacted again after that. In fact, he never even asked me my name!
Melissa and Lucas’ wedding went well, and Leon and I went our separate ways. I went back to St. Louis to stay with friends, and Leon went back to England. Neither of us really thought much about our meeting at the wedding. I thought it would be nice to get to know Leon, but didn’t think it could work with the long distance. Leon doesn’t really remember, but he is reported to have said that he danced with ‘some girl’, but didn’t think anything would come of it.
Little did we know…
A year after that, after some reported (subtle) attempts at setting us up, I got a phone call from Melissa. She said she had a question for me, and I immediately knew she was up to something! She said she and Lucas had been praying, asked me if I remembered Leon from the wedding, and if I would mind if she gave him my contact information. I decided I would give him a chance if he wanted to contact me.
A week or so later, I got an email from Leon. We communicated by email for awhile. Then email turned to chatting on Skype, chatting on Skype turned to phone calls from England, and phone calls turned to Skype video calls that lasted for hours. We began to realise that our friendship was becoming more serious. On Thanksgiving Day in 2009, we had our first official date over the phone—I was in the US, and Leon was on a ship in Singapore (13-hour time difference).
We really began to see God working at that point in our relationship. Leon got sent home from the ship earlier than planned, allowing him to make a trip to the US so we could meet in person for the first time. We got to spend Christmas together and meet each other’s families. After Christmas, God used our families to bring up things that we really needed to work through if we were going to think seriously about marriage.
In February 2010, I got to fly to England to visit Leon for a week. We thoroughly enjoyed our precious time together and realised that we had fallen in love. A week or so later, Leon was back in Singapore to help decommission the ship he was on the November before.
May 2010 Leon came to visit for a whole month! I was over the moon to spend an entire month with him! It was then that we completed pre-engagement counselling through my church and just did life together. Not long into Leon’s visit, he proposed.
We were at an English Country Dance hosted by Lucas. Leon had gone up to ‘call a dance,’ and Lucas was to be my dance partner to get me to the front of the room. Leon then called me up and introduced me to the rest of the group. He said a bunch of lovely things that are, unfortunately, a blur now… explaining how we first met at a dance. Then he asked me to marry him. Of course I said ‘yes!’ We then got to dance our first waltz as an engaged couple.
We were happily married on 14 August 2010. By the grace of God, our story continues on… looking forward to whatever adventure God brings us through.
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