B: It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. It was March 2020: SARS Cov-2 was rampaging across the globe, and we were shuttered into our houses. My roommate George and I had no sports to watch - our usual bonding mechanism - so we started to have long, deep conversations about anything and everything. Among those discussions were what exactly I was looking for in a partner and why I had grown so pessimistic over time. While describing my ideal spouse, George, on his phone, clearly invested in me and my woes, but also clearly enthralled by something on his phone, voiced in an inflection-less tone, "Hmm what about Vicki?" Four words, nonchalantly thrown out, that would change my life forever. Ah. Forgive me. This is not where I should have started our story. Let me rewind a little bit. *enter time machine* - 1960s: Taipei, Taiwan V: My grandparents, who were unbelievers at the time, lived next door to a family of believers, who happened to be Ben's grandparents. Fortunately, Ben's grandparents preached the gospel to my family and brought my mom and her siblings to church. At that time, I don't think they could have anticipated that fifty-three years later, their grandkids would meet up halfway around the world. B: Ok sorry about that. Where were we again? Oh yeah. "Hmmm what about Vicki?"

B: Vicki had everything on paper that I was looking for. A rare breed of someone who had a genuine spirit and loved serving the youth in our church community, someone who had a funny and brazen personality with whom it's easy to make conversation and laugh, and someone who ahem um is easy on the eyes :). We had met at a frisbee outing 2 years prior, but she was in her fourth year of college at the time. Something that unconsciously put a mental block in my head from considering her as a potential spouse. But George, in a blink of an eye, with his offhand comment, removed that block from my head. I didn’t know Vicki too well at the time, but I then determined that the next chance I would get, I would try to get to know Vicki a little more, and, you know, turn on the charm :) V: I had first met Ben at a frisbee game with some church friends. He had just moved to the Bay Area to work and I was back home for break. During frisbee, we happened to score a goal together and Ben gave me a friendly high-five. I remember thinking, "So this is the guy whose grandparents brought my mom's family into the church life in Taiwan. Cool". But besides this fun fact, I didn't think too much of him other than "He seems nice".

B: It wasn’t until a month after my conversation with George that Vicki had moved back into the area and we had finally crossed paths again in a church youth gathering on Zoom. It was only a 1inch x 1inch face tile on Zoom, but it was the first time I had seen her since having my eyes unshackled. So I texted her just to see how she was doing... V: It was the start of the pandemic and my Bible School program had just sent us all home to continue on zoom. Because I was back home, I started helping out with the local youth groups where Ben was. I remember logging onto a zoom for our church’s youth conference and seeing that little red message notification pop up: “Hey Vicki!”. B: That night we texted back and forth for well over an hour. We caught up on life, on our enjoyment from Bible readings, on how good the kdrama “Crash Landing on You” was, on our friends, family, and health, and it all felt so easy. Hours soon became days and days soon became weeks. All the while, I kept thinking to myself that this was a lot of fun. Vicki was the real deal. But was she just being nice? I had no idea what she thought about me. V: I totally thought Ben was just being nice. Afterall, he was a pretty nice guy. I did notice that he would text me a lot, but I attributed it to Ben being curious about my Bible School program. However, the more we chatted, the more I realized how much I enjoyed interacting with Ben. He was so easy to talk to and we always had fun conversations. It didn’t take long for me to look forward to the next time he would text me. I soon began lighting up whenever I saw his name on my notifications. Although I hadn’t admitted it to myself, I was falling for Ben. B: Over time, I started to get more clues in our interactions that maybe the feelings were mutual. First of all, she started posting Stories to her Facebook profile. No one really does that, except me, as it was the product I was working on at Facebook at the time and as I didn’t have an Instagram account at the time. “Hmm… maybe she’s doing this for me,” I pondered optimistically. I was also dropping hints myself, and I’m sure she started noticing too. V: Yes. I’ll admit it. I only posted on Facebook stories because I knew Ben didn’t have an Instagram at the time (even though he works for their parent company ¯\_(ツ)_/¯). However, I was also trying to figure out if this guy was just being nice or if he really liked me. First of all, I couldn’t really comprehend why Ben would ever like me. We were in different stages of life; he was working and I was still in Bible School. Ben was a huge soccer fan and I wasn’t interested in sports. He was working as a data scientist and I barely knew (or really cared at the time) what that was. The list went on and on. In spite of all the differences I drummed up in my head, there were a few instances that showed me his true feelings (i.e. replying to ALL my Facebook stories, dropping off boba at my house, etc). B: As this went on for about a month or two, I began to face a conundrum. On the one hand, here I was on cloud nine - each and every text or interaction we shared was enough to send me into ecstasy. On the other hand, I still wasn’t 100% sure that she wasn’t just being nice, and even if she did like me back, I knew that she was only at the halfway mark of her Bible program - a program that asks its students to not enter relationships to focus those two years on studying the Bible and receiving training. I myself had graduated from the program a few years prior and knew the guidelines all too well. But I wanted to let Vicki know that I liked her, and hear her response in return. I wanted to let Vicki know that I would gladly wait a year for her to finish her program. And I wanted to unburden my full and aching heart…

V: By the end of my second semester of Bible school, I concluded that Ben genuinely had feelings for me and wasn’t just being nice. I also finally admitted that I liked him back. Words couldn’t describe how happy I was to realize that our feelings were mutual. However, with this newfound conclusion came a new issue: I was still in Bible school. I had consecrated these two years of Bible school to the Lord, to focus solely on growing my relationship with Him. Although I liked Ben, I wasn’t going to give up my last year of the program for this relationship that I didn’t even know would last. This conflict really pushed me to go to the Lord in prayer. I would often take walks with the Lord and pray, “Lord, if this [relationship] isn’t from You, I don’t want any part of it”. However, the more I opened to the Lord and prayed in this way, the more Ben would pop up in my life (at boba, hiking, etc). Every time we interacted, my heart would race and I would come home super happy and giddy. These feelings would again bring me to take prayer walks with the Lord. In my time with Him, the lines of this hymn would come up in my heart again and again: “Lord, I would not be satisfied until I've got Your best; Your perfect will for my life a choice that I should make; Don't allow me to linger and settle on the less; Don't allow me to choose by myself while You have prepared the best” At this point, the Lord had touched me about my consecration and I realized that although I liked Ben, I didn’t want to choose him apart from the Lord. Through much prayer, I also realized that the Lord had already prepared the best counterpart for me, whether it was Ben or not. Therefore, I didn’t need to worry about who I would end up marrying. My only responsibility was to honor my consecration to the Lord and love Him with my best love. After this transaction with the Lord, I stopped wishing that these feelings between Ben and me would come to fruition. I still liked him, but I decided to put my feelings aside to focus on Bible school. And I didn’t want to lead Ben on any longer so I did the only thing I knew that would get a guy to stop interacting with me: ignored him. B: As you can imagine, being ignored was hard on me. I just couldn’t understand what had happened - flurries of back-and-forth texts all of a sudden dried up to a series of “K”s and “haha”s from Vicki. I racked my brain for what I said that could have offended her, and my mind even wandered to whether she had finally figured out that I had liked her and decided to keep me at an arm’s distance. But the positive thing is that it led me to pour out my soul upon Jehovah. I cried out to the Lord in my sorrow and bitterness, “Lord what did I do?! My soul is in such anguish!” I really believe now that those few days were sovereignly arranged by God - I spent those few days constantly before the Lord and aligning my prayers and will with the Lord, for my gaining of a spouse to be for His gaining of a spouse. In those days I had been enjoying a spiritual song that really became my prayer: “If I struggle within, You must never let me win. Lord, defeat me, and conquer me wholly; Not a half-consecration but absolutely giv’n, Lord, I’ll pay the full price for You solely.” I had no idea what was going on, but no matter what would happen, I was determined for the Lord to have His way and gain my consecration. Later that week, I went over to hang out with my friends Jason and Devin Jung, and before long, I just started to pour out my heart to them. Jason, Devin, and I talked for a few hours before it became clear that I really needed to talk to Vicki face-to-face. Clearly something was going on and rather than operate on hunches, we needed to talk it out. So, on August 1st, 2020, I texted Vicki, asking to talk - not knowing whether she’d want to talk, not really certain where she stood on our relationship - terrified, but wanting to know more and trusting in the Lord for His will, not mine.

V: And so, we met up the next day at an 85 Degrees Bakery (yes, how stereotypical of an Asian millennial love story) just 10 minutes from my house in Cupertino. I was a nervous wreck. All I could do while driving there was to call on the name of the Lord over and over again. When I finally got there, Ben was waiting for me with two bobas already in his hands. Then after a couple of minutes of catch-up, Ben got straight to the point and told me how he felt. I could tell he was nervous too, so I immediately told him that I felt the same way. Finally, there was no more guessing and speculating. It was clear; we both liked each other! After confessing to each other, Ben and I found a quiet fountain to sit by and just talked. The funny thing is, our conversation felt like it lasted only an hour, but it was really four-and-a-half hours long. I don’t even remember what we talked about, but I remember laughing a lot and smiling the entire time. At the end of our date, Ben made it clear that he wanted me to finish Bible school with a clear conscience. So we agreed to not secretly date until I finished the program.

During my last year of Bible school, I missed Ben a lot. However, this yearning would push me to open to the Lord. I definitely told the Lord a lot of “I miss Ben‘s” during the rest of my time in the program. B: It was a long year apart, but once we started to actually court, everything got way easier. No more second-guessing each other’s feelings, we could freely communicate and just enjoy spending time together. Even though we had such different hobbies and interests, it was a beautiful experience getting to open our lives and worlds to each other. I went with Vicki to an art show - something I never thought I would do; and Vicki went with me to a professional soccer game - something she never thought she’d do. (We did have some things in common too haha, like taking walks, cooking together, and going shopping 🤪🤪 .) Even though neither of us had dated before, everything came so easily and effortlessly. We enjoyed the Lord together, we laughed and shared jokes together, we opened our worries and anxieties to each other, and we both soon realized that we were going to spend the rest of our lives together. So on October 30th, 2021, I took Vicki to one of my favorite spots, the Taco Bell on Shoreline Ave, and asked her to marry me. JUST KIDDING. If you believed that, I’m ashamed that you think that lowly of me lol. I did take her to the Shoreline Taco Bell that day, though, as a prank. I had a feeling she knew I was going to be proposing, so I took her there to throw her off while she coyly badgered me about where we were going. After that slight detour, I took her to one of our favorite date spots (Shoreline lake in Mountain View), recounted the major milestones in our relationship together, told her how happy she made me, got down on one knee, and asked her to marry me.

In the immediate future, Vicki will move in with Ben at his place in Mountain View, while Vicki will continue to serve on the Christian campus ministry team at Stanford and Ben will continue to work as a Data Scientist at Meta. In the long-term, we will continue to follow the Lamb wherever He may go. Please pray for us and our going on, that our being together would be for Christ and the church :) THE END THANKS FOR MAKING IT THIS FAR