Christian Testimony - September 2012

God had chosen your site to be an instrument in making it possible for two people 7,295 miles away from each other to meet, share, trust, and love.

I met Robert June 2010. Communicated at your site for the whole free trial period, (it was love at first pictures:))

Because of our busy schedules, it took a year for us to finally see each other. June 2011 when he flew 7,295 miles to see me. Prayed and God showed us that we belong together.

April 2012, I flew to his country, US. This year, July 7 2012, we got married :) Again, our heartfelt gratitude to everyone at ChristianCafe.com. You are all God's blessing!!

Eyela-smile290 {Singapore} & Robert-allforjesus779 {California} September 2012

Brian: It was a sunny, clear day in April. I was working in my home office when I decided to take a break and browse ChristianCafe.com a bit.

I wasn't looking outside of my immediate area, but I noticed that Alissa-Jo had visited my profile. Or at least, I thought it was her, it wasn't until later that I found out it wasn't actually Alissa-Jo who was looking at my profile but her mom, who was on her account looking to see if there were any eligible guys in the area for her aunt... LOL the irony.

I saw she was a long way from my local area but decided to go ahead and read her profile anyway... and I was really very impressed. She talked about clear boundaries, and her commitment to the Lord to not kiss a man until she was standing at the altar.

So I decided to write her a message and tell her as much. At this point because of the distance I had no thoughts of starting a conversation, much less a relationship, I was just impressed with the maturity, integrity, and God-centeredness of what she had to say, and wanted to tell her so.

Alissa-Jo: As is the tradition of my immediate family, I committed myself at the age of thirteen to wait for my father's blessing before entering into any romantic relationship or marriage. I also committed to getting to know a guy first through family friendship and then in a family chaperoned courtship rather than by dating.

The purpose of this decision was to place my heart under my father's protection and to seek God's wisdom about any potential relationships through my father. This decision has had a huge impact on my life and the life of my family. I highly recommend it!

Making things even more complicated, I was personally convicted to save my first kiss for my wedding day. I didn't realize at the time just how complicated that could be but God has used it in my life. Not many guys today find that idea doable or even remotely appealing. But of course, I wasn't looking for a lot of guys, I was looking for a humble, Godly man, strong and mature enough to willingly set his own preferences aside for the good of another.

I have for a long time been convinced that I had a place to serve God within a marriage and family, but with who? Posting a profile on ChristianCafe.com was actually a very guarded family decision at my request. I was of course hopeful to meet someone, but very cautious of whom I would meet there. Finding a Godly man with Godly character and leadership ability was what I was looking for. Enter, Brian :-)

Brian: I was kind of surprised to have received a response at all, but I decided to try to find out more about her. And so I sent her a question that was intended as a personality gauge (I wanted to know how she would react to my more-than-a-little ornery personality). So I asked her, "Say you're walking through a park with your significant other when he suddenly gets a playful twinkle in his eye and tackles you in a tickling heap in a snowdrift... Not that I would ever do such a thing (*cough*), but if it were to happen what would you do?"

This question almost ended the relationship before it ever got started! I really should have explained in advance that it was a personality question and that I wasn't trying to be forward... Luckily Alissa-Jo is a very graceful lady and gave me an opportunity to explain myself .

Alissa-Jo: Yes, well, my first thoughts of a guy even thinking of a tickle fight with me after just a first chat was "Weirdo! Obviously this guy doesn't get it!" Of course I didn't tell him that, but I did tell him I was uncomfortable with his question and assumed he would be gone.

Once he explained his thinking though, I had to laugh and I couldn't help but respond, "I'm not a teacup of a girl, I know how to fight back and you'd be eatin' some snow!" I guess I passed the test :-)

Brian: I wrestled early on with the idea of chaperones being present at all times in our relationship. Not because I thought it was bad, as I actually thought it was a great idea in theory, but because the concept was foreign to me, like something from a time gone by. I had no idea how it would work in practice, and as such the idea took some getting used to. And while I was impressed by her resolve, I was a little unsure of the idea of refraining from kissing until our potential wedding day.

I did greatly appreciate the role her father was filling in guarding Alissa-Jo's heart though! Anyway by mid-June I was starting to realize that I really liked Alissa-Jo and that I needed to make a decision as to whether I was going to pursue her. I actually prayed for, and received, a sign from God as to whether I had His blessing to proceed. It was sometime around mid-June that we started talking over the internet in addition to shooting emails back and forth via ChristianCafe.com. During this time I also had the first of two surgeries to try to save my left eye, and Alissa-Jo and her family were remarkably supportive through all that... In fact I would say that they were just as much support in that time as my own family.

Alissa-Jo: I enjoyed Brian's quirky personality from the beginning. Once we started chatting via internet and having phone conversations, I realized I really enjoyed his laugh and his kind, easy going nature. One thing I was concerned about from the beginning was that he answered one of the profile questions about his religion very vaguely in my opinion.

We spent a lot of time verifying and clarifying each other's spiritual beliefs and values. My Dad invited my uncle and a Godly family friend to help us evaluate and discern Brian's stated beliefs and the beliefs of those he chose to worship with.

Brian: Around this time Alissa-Jo and I exchanged church website information to try to get an idea of what each other believed. At the time I was going to a church that had some pretty good teaching, but I was always a little uncomfortable with it for reasons that I couldn't put my finger on.

But when Alissa-Jo read the belief statement on the church website she put her finger on it immediately. To quote her, "I can't find anything on the doctrine of Salvation. [The church] talk[s] about sin and the need for a Savior but I can't find an emphasis on how Christ is to be found." Nothing they were teaching was ever wrong, it just always felt a little skewed and I couldn't figure out why. I was very impressed with her unwittingly putting her finger directly on what had been bothering me for such a long time!

In the beginning of July, it worked out that Alissa-Jo's mom and her youngest brother were coming to Denver for a week or so to visit her aunt, and so we decided to meet up as a preliminary face-to-face. My mom was also in town because she'd come up to help me out after my surgery. Things went well and soon we were making plans for me to fly out and meet Alissa-Jo in person the last few days of July and the first week of August.

Alissa-Jo: Honestly, my first impression of Brian when we met at the Indianapolis Airport was that he was a little odd. To be fair, I was able to surprise him by being there at the airport that day. He wasn't expecting me there and it was a little bit awkward warming up to each other in person.

I wasn't exactly set up for success after dreaming the dream I had the night before. In my dream I was headed to the airport and we stopped at the gas station. For some odd reason Brian was already there at the gas station and leaned his head through my car window to introduce himself. When I realized who he was, I got out of the car to greet him. It was then that I discovered, he was only as tall as my waist! He then proceeded to offer to sell me his hat. It was awful! Can you tell I was a little stressed? :-)

Brian: Within about 2 days of being in Indianapolis with Alissa-Jo and her family it became very clear to me that my impression of her and her family that I'd gotten over the phone and internet and via email didn't begin to do her justice (and my impression was very high). I made a decision on the spot that I was henceforth going to pursue her without reservation.

I could tell that she liked me as much as I liked her, and so I actually asked her father mid-week whether he would consent to allow me to formally court her. Of course he said no (or rather, not yet), but I wasn't expecting otherwise. My asking him was a respectful declaration of my decision to pursue her, within the guidelines that he established for the pursuit.

Alissa-Jo: Brian's positive comments about my family are a testament to his sweet nature. Each of my family members have taken the protection of my heart very seriously and have given Brian very little slack. On one of our first outings together to the Creation Museum, my 13yr old brother sided up to Brian as we stood in line together and frankly told him, "whatever you do to her, I will do to you!" It was hilarious to watch Brian's face as he took that thought on! As you can see, boundaries were clearly set and guarded, even by my youngest brother. :-)

Brian: What she didn't mention up there is that when Nathan said that I promptly decided that since I had been hugging Alissa-Jo I'd better get a hug from Nathan... it was kind of funny how awkward he found that moment, lol.

Anyway moving forward about a month, it was about a week before my birthday in September that Alan called me and said that he'd been thinking about it and had decided that he was ready for me to re-ask my question about permission to formally court Alissa-Jo. I had been planning on asking again on my next planned trip to visit in early October. But this gave me the opportunity to surprise Alissa-Jo, which I greatly love to do.

I arranged to set up a dinner "date" via internet for my birthday. Alissa-Jo thought this whole thing was just a special thing to celebrate my birthday and had no idea that my birthday was really the last thing on my mind!

Alissa-Jo: OK, so, Brian had this great idea of a dinner together via the interet for his birthday. We weren't officially courting yet and this sounded like a date to me. At this point in our relationship, we were just supposed to be friends. (I must say though, I really wished things were different but I was trusting my dad's timing.) Brian supposedly got special permission from my dad for this one special occasion and so he set it up with my mom.

I thought it was odd that I wasn't allowed to plan the meal or even make it, but I didn't read too much into it. I had to work that day but I wanted to look extra nice for Brian. I tried to get into my salon to get my hair done but they were fully booked. I did something I never do and went to a different salon to get my hair done.

When I got home, I saw mom had set a table in the front room all special like, which made me wonder even more of what was going on. Anyways, our date began with a salad and then there was a knock at the door. It was my little brother standing there with a beautiful bouquet of sunflowers. When I came back and sat down, Brian said to me "obviously, this isn't about my birthday at all." He then proceeded to formally ask me to court him with the intention of marriage. I was blown away and very excited for this new stage in our relationship.

Brian: Alissa-Jo didn't mention her dad hovering over the table taking pictures through this whole process... we have some fun pictures from our little Internet date. Anyway, when I came out to visit again for two weeks in October we had a wonderful time of exploring our new relationship, part of which was defining boundaries. It was actually a little nerve-wracking being in this new stage of our relationship as neither of us was entirely sure what was and was not acceptable and so we were exploring with great care.

Alan wisely refrained from stepping in and giving us all the answers and let us for the most part figure this out on our own. But nerve-wracking as it was, it was also very nice to finally be able to put my arm around my girlfriend, and hold her hand. However, much as I really wanted to, I made a decision early on (with no prompting from Alissa-Jo or her father) not to tell Alissa-Jo that I love her until I was prayerfully sure that it was the right time to say it. In addition, up until this point, while we would read and discuss various articles on spiritual and relational topics, we were not permitted to sit down and do any serious bible studies together in order to guard our hearts from becoming too quickly entangled. Once the official courtship began this restriction was lifted and we were finally able to really start digging into the Word together and discussing, praying together, and generally growing much closer spiritually in addition to emotionally.

Alissa-Jo: Yes, holding hands and sitting close with Brian is very nice of course! ;-) I also very much enjoyed the new privilege of Bible study and prayer with Brian. His spiritual leadership with me has been amazing and such a blessing.

Brian: The October trip was the beginning of a series of basically monthly trips until Christmas. For Thanksgiving, Alissa-Jo and her mom actually flew out and along with her aunt Rynette who lives here in Colorado joined my family for thanksgiving dinner.

It was a great time getting to see Alissa-Jo interact with my family, and I really enjoyed seeing her volunteer spirit helping out with dinner and again when we volunteered at the Operation Christmas Child processing center. We also went on a helicopter ride over Denver as a special date during this week! That was fun! :-)

As a special date activity, we bought Christmas ornaments with the intention of starting our first "family" Christmas tradition together and picked out a live Christmas tree at a tree lot and decorated it together :-) It was during this period I first asked Alan for permission to propose at Christmas, but he said "not yet." This was not an unexpected answer, but I wanted to ask anyway because I had already decided that Alissa-Jo was the woman I want to spend the rest of my life with.

Alissa-Jo: After Brian's October trip, I was highly aware this relationship was beyond serious. I knew God had given me a love for Brian and that it was getting nearly impossible not to speak of it with him. I didn't have my father's blessing for that yet so I only clearly shared it with my mom and siblings. As much as I knew I had a growing love for Brian, I also knew I wasn't ready for a marriage proposal and my daddy wisely knew this as well. Besides my father's blessing, I also needed peace that each of my family members had peace about Brian. Although my dad didn't allow Brian to propose marriage to me in November or December, he did bless us with being able to speak of our love for each other. Brian set up a moment before the helicopter ride in Colorado to first declare his love for me. It was very special to finally share this together.

Brian: For Christmas I flew out to spend the week with Alissa-Jo's family in Indianapolis. This was the first time I had ever spent Christmas with another family, and also the first time I'd ever willingly spent Christmas outside of Colorado. I'm so glad I did! Her family's Christmas traditions are quite different from mine in many ways, and yet in others they're very similar. And moreover, they made me feel as if I were already a part of the family. I've never felt so welcomed by anybody outside of the family I was born into in my entire life. I also had the pleasure of surprising Alissa-Jo with a locket... she'd forgotten telling me at Thanksgiving that she wanted one :-)

Alissa-Jo: Christmas was amazing! By the time Christmas got here, I couldn't wait to share our family's traditions and celebration with Brian. Christmas is my favorite celebration of the year and it was very important to me to share it with Brian. God blessed us with my Grandma and Papa Hight being able to join us, so I was able to get their evaluation and blessing of Brian as well. This was a huge encouragement to me.

Brian: Following Christmas was a seemingly-endless two months before we got to see each other again - and we didn't know exactly when we WOULD see each other again! We were growing closer by the day, and during this time Alan started asking and going through questions he pulled from a book called "101 Questions to ask before Engagement." While I was answering Alan, Alissa-Jo was answering more or less the same questions to Renee. They must have liked our answers.

Anyway, Alan planned a big road trip with Renee, Alissa-Jo, and Nathan-Andrew to meet my family, first driving to Amarillo, Texas (where I was going to fly down to meet up with them) and then to Denver. I called Alan again before the Superbowl on February 6th to ask again for permission to propose to Alissa-Jo on this upcoming trip. He wasn't quite ready to say yes yet, but he did give me permission to start conspiring with Alissa-Jo's sister Katie-Jane to pick out a ring (but not buy it yet). The reason was that he wanted to meet my family before making his decision, and I totally respected that. Anyway, this began a very fun time of conspiracy with Katie. I guess Alissa-Jo almost accidentally intercepted one of my texts about the ring on Katie's phone so Katie renamed me on her phone to "Emily"! lol Anyway I was very glad to have Katie's help in selecting the ring, as my idea of what Alissa-Jo would like and what she actually likes were, shall we say, a little out of sync lol. It was also a great time for Katie and me to get to know each other better.

The Saturday before the trip, I was planning on calling Alan to ask him if it would be OK with him if I were to go ahead and buy the ring, so that I would have it ready when I asked him again after he met my parents. But he beat me to it - he called me and said that he'd been thinking about it and if I wanted to re-ask my question he was ready. I distinctly remember the sound of their rooster crowing in the background while we were talking... The rooster was expressing my feelings perfectly! Naturally I asked him on the spot... and after we got off the phone I did a happy dance all the way to the jewelry store! Then I spent a great deal of time trying to come up with a romantic and creative way to propose without giving the game away - I wanted it to be a complete surprise! But I'll let her tell the story of the actual proposal - I like hearing her side of it better :-)

Alissa-Jo: Short version of the story - we were in Brian's hometown in TX visiting with Brian's family. They took us to tour the Botanical Gardens where his mom used to work. At one point Brian suggested we go walk under the water fall and as we did this I saw a large package with my name on it. We sat down on a bench nearby so I could open it.

When I opened it, inside of the large box was another box and inside that box was a book of poetry. As I opened up the book to the spot he had marked, I saw that he had cut out a heart shape in the pages where he had tied in a most lovely diamond ring. Brian sweetly slid down on one knee in front of me and asked me to marry him. With our families gathered around us, I just sat there and nodded my head for a few seconds, which Brian calls an eternity and then I was finally able to get out a "yes". I gave him a huge hug and could not quit smiling the rest of the day.

Brian: And that's our story! That evening after we got engaged, we promptly set our wedding date for August 25th, which as it happens is 6 months to the day from when I proposed. We drove to Denver the day after I proposed, and I had planned out an engagement shoot with my friend Andrew from work for while she was here. We went registry shopping the next day and started making plans right off :-)

We're both looking forward to starting our life together!

Brian-stormehawke123 {Colorado} & Alissa-Jo-ajfgg248 {Indiana} September 2012