“I had no intentions of getting into a relationship with an Aussie,” Angela said bluntly — and she shared that with Joseph after he sent her an emotigram from Down Under.
But a relationship (and eventually more) is exactly what Angie got into, and today the woman who ruled out Australia is moving to Victoria to start a new life with the man she loves.
The success story archives of CatholicMatch are filled with the testimony of couples who insist God transcends distance when a relationship is meant to be, including international boundaries.
In this case, Angela and Joseph were both on a fixed income, but that problem was transcended too. Through CatholicMatch communication, Skype and what Angie called “an amazingly cheap cell-phone plan,” they made it work.
Virtual dates allowed them to be physically present to each other and to gauge attraction along with chemistry. Finally, with some vacation time from work, Angie was able to fly to Victoria for a month. The visit was about not only confirming the attraction they were both convinced existed and exploring the next level in their relationship but also to find out if Angie could handle living there if things kept moving forward.
The answers came quickly.
“I loved both Joseph and Victoria immediately,” Angie said. “It truly felt like home.”
Near the end of her visit, in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament, Joseph asked for her hand in marriage. By then, Angie was ready to say yes.
Joseph made a return visit to see where Angie was from, meet her family and formally ask her father’s permission to marry her. They celebrated his approval with a cookout, where she was delighted to see how well her father and fiancé got along.
Angie and Joseph agree that CatholicMatch was important – not just in bringing them together, but in providing a framework for understanding that they were on the same page morally and spiritually. With that important underpinning established, they moved forward much more freely.
“We wanted all on CatholicMatch to know that distance challenges are nothing if God is the matchmaker,” Angie said. “We allowed God to choose the best person for us both. We trusted. He delivered. We accepted.”
