A Step Of

Faith is what it took for me to come to the US. I've been asked by several people how and why I happened to move to the US, and whether I intend on staying. So grab yourself a cuppa if you're so inclined and be warned that this post has Christian content and will be long.

4 years ago I was a very content single mother of 4 kids, and managing quite well. I'd just taken a job at the local public hospital working as a telephonist (similar to a 911 operator) and working long shifts. A group of girlfriends from church got together and we posed the question "what would we like in a husband". I thought at the time, what a joke, I'd just come out of a very abusive marriage and another husband was the last thing on my mind or my wish list, but I decided to join in the banter. So we wrote a list of what would be our ideal husband, and prayed about it, and that was that, or so I thought.

I didn't give it another thought until one day as I was doing housework a programme came on the radio, (Focus On The Family) and they were disguising a new online Christian Introductory service, that they were supporting, apparently different from online dating, not that I knew what either was. So I stopped my housework and sat and listened for the half hour. At the end of the programme they stated that their service was free. Well who doesn't like free? I know I do. So I decided to have a look online and see what it was all about. 3 hours later and some 20 odd pages of questions I was done, and then came the last page, payment. What, this was supposed to be free. The personality profile was free, but not the service. I decided that $100 AU was just out of the question, an amount that I couldn't justify when I had 2 kids at home still going to school. So I sent up a quick prayer, Lord if You want this for me then You need to open the door for me. In the meantime my inbox was filling up with possible matches, and I had no way of accessing them as I wasn't a member. A couple of weeks later I received an email from the company e-harmony, offering me a month at half price. I still decided that I couldn't justify it, so sent up the same prayer. Another 2 weeks passed and I received another email from the company offering me a months free trial. Answered prayer, thank you Lord.

The company had their site set up in a way that you had the opportunity of contacting a possible match without giving out your email address. They did suggest that you didn't give out your email, home address or phone number.

There were 3 possible matches, 1 lived in Lightening Ridge, (an opal miner) which is in the middle of nowhere in the Aussie desert and most of the homes are underground because of the extreme heat. I decided to delete that one, living like a mole wasn't very inviting. the second lived on some island in the middle of nowhere, that one got deleted. The third was a man from the States, there was just something about his profile that had me going back. So I took the plunge and contacted him through the site.

Emails went back and forth with great frequency. During those emails we found out alot about one another, where we were from, how old we were, kids, likes dislikes etc. In one of these emails I discovered that he was Inuit. Not knowing what Inuit was I had to ask, his response, Eskimo. So I immediately did a Google search on Eskimo, my memory from school was vague to say the least. My search result brought up a photo of a little man, dressed in a seal skin suit with a pudding bowl haircut, holding a spear in one hand and standing outside his home, an igloo. I'm sure you can imagine my reaction, my immediate thought was "Oh no Lord, not living like that"..... So I asked discreet questions about where he lived and what he did. What a relief to discover that an igloo was not his abode....lol... Just goes to show you how ignorant we can be living in another country.

Emails continued to go back and forth and then my month was just about up, so we did what the company advised against, we swapped email address's. We figured that living on the opposite side of the globe it really wasn't going to be a problem.

I'll jump forward for you so your not getting restless and bored.

Those emails turned into instant messaging with voice activated and international phone calls and eventually swapping of photo's. In October of 2003 I came to the US for a 3 week holiday, to meet him and catch up with some quilting friends.

He proposed, I accepted and after three weeks I returned to Australia.

I couldn't imagine how this was going to work, me living in Aussie and him in the US, but we both prayed about it and decided that I would move. My kids supported me 100% (except for my eldest daughter).

So five months later, having sold all my household possessions which I had only just finished buying I returned to marry him. He truly is an answer to my prayer.

I'll tell you what was on my list.


1. He had to love God more than me.
2. He had to love me, for me, not what I could do for, or provide for him.
3. Love my kids the way they deserved to be loved.
4. Good sense of humor.
5. Gentle spirit.
6. Romantic
7. Tall

I can't remember the rest, but I do remember as a joke adding that he could be dark skinned and from the US. Everything on that list, except for being romantic I ticked off, but what he lacks in romance he makes up for in every other area and so much more. He truly is a gift from God and I feel blessed to have been given another chance at being happy. Do I intend to stay? You betcha....

So there you have it, long I'm sorry, but it was much easier to do a post than write that several times in emails.