Mya and I were invited to go out dancing with a group of our friend’s in upstate New York. We were both riddled with excitement and nervousness. At that point in time I was feeling a bit discouraged, needing to be sprung into something new and exciting. A night filled with new friendships and dancing was just what I needed. Toward the end of the night after Mya was pulled to dance by a brother, I noticed someone who already was staring at me. There we were - staring at each other from across the room with our eyes locked on each other. I didn’t move - and neither did he. Which made me wonder why he was staring if he wasn’t going to ask me to dance. I certainly wasn’t equipped with enough boldness to walk up to him, so I offered him a friendly smile and walked in the opposite direction. I went the rest of the night with that little moment tucked in the back of my brain, not thinking anything of it. It wasn’t until the following week while Mya and I were showing pictures and videos to our family of that night, that Mya pointed someone out who she saw come in with one of our friends. It was the guy who was staring at me! And he was cute! I then decided to ask my friend Honestie, who had invited us in the first place. She herself didn’t know who he was, but she thought maybe her friend would, so I allowed her to discreetly inquire about this Mystery Man. But Honestie’s friend unfortunately didn’t know who he was either. The only piece of information he had was that he’s been living in Wallkill for the last. 2 years. He turned out to be his friend’s roommate. So in order to learn a scrap of information about this Mystery Man, I had to add another middle man to the equation. Through Honestie’s friend, I asked him to be discreet in gathering a few basics about Mystery Man. However, after some teeth pulling he told Honestie he was only willing to ask his friend two questions about Mystery Man. Is your roommate interested in dating? And can I give his number to a sister who is interested? I immediately recoiled as to I wasn’t planning on being this bold. But I thought about it in more detail. If all goes wrong, we’ll probably never see each other again. He’s in Wallkill, I’m in New Jersey … right? So I let Honestie’s friend proceed. She also had sent over photos of me so that Mystery Man would know who was inquiring about him. I went the whole day thinking about all the possibilites that could unfold, trying not to get my hopes up too much, constantly looking at the blurry videos I found him in. It was the evening time and I decided to put my phone away while I ate dinner to unplug from the situation for a little bit. When I came back to my phone, I saw that I had a missed call from Honestie and a text message: “I got his number.” My heart plummeted into my stomach as I scrambled to call her back. Soon as she picked up, her words blared into my ears, “Girl we got a positive response, his name is Charlie Barclay!” I was in shock, after a week of thinking about how this would all unfold - Mystery Man finally had a name. He was a real person. Not just someone in the background of a 12 second video. This was real and it was happening. I told Honestie that I would text him tomorrow when I wasn’t so in shock. I had never done anything like this before! But both Mya and Honestie urged me to text him right then and there. I was nervous! What am I gonna say?! Honestie advised me to just be myself, and so I sent out a simple text to say hello and who I was. Soon as I sent out that text message, I saw that he read it right away. He replied within 5 minutes. We haven’t stopped talking since that night, and it continues to amaze me everyday just how a stranger who I made eye contact with from across the room, quickly turned out to be an unexpected answer to the very specific prayers I’ve made to Jehovah. And I’ll always be so grateful to him for granting me the desire of my heart!

My roommate, and a friend from the congregation were wanting to go out dancing. I opted to stay back and relax for the night. After some convincing however, they talked me into tagging along. They promised a good time and that I shouldn’t stay back. So after a little arm twisting we left. After a while of being there I was standing by our table and I happened to look across the room and I made eye contact with the most breathtaking, beautiful sister that I have ever seen. As I was thinking all of that, I realized that I must have been staring for quite a while. Was she actually looking at me? Did she notice me? I wasn’t sure, and as I was wondering she just smiled and walked away. Maybe she was looking at someone else after all, I reasoned. I never got a chance to talk or dance with my bride to be. I still regret it to this day. We ended up leaving the party a little early so we could go to bed and get a goodnight sleep for our work week. Almost a week later my roommate was talking with his friend over the phone. As they were wrapping up their conversation he mentioned that somebody was asking about me. He asked me if I was ready and willing to date and so I asked more about who this sister is. He sent us a picture to confirm if I recognized her. It was a picture of 4 sisters and he never told us who in the photo it was. As soon as I saw this photo my eyes immediately jumped to who I remembered locking eyes with a week ago - it was Kya!!! I was really hoping that it was her. As soon as it was confirmed that it was, my heart was literally leaping with joy. I told the brother to please share my contact with her. After that, I didn’t hear from him for most the day. He literally fell of the face of the earth. It wasn’t until the evening time that he told me that he shared it with her. Very shortly after, I got a message from the sweetest girl that I ever met or have had the pleasure of ever meeting “Hey Charlie! Its Kya 🙋🏽‍♀️.” I was beyond happy to see that the girl I thought I had lost all chances with was literally reaching out to me. This was not real! I could tell right away how special she was! She truly was an answer to a very specific prayer I had made roughly 10 months before I had the chance to meet her. With Jehovah’s help we were very open and honest with who we were with each other. I am so excited to be marrying my best friend who I keep falling deeper in love with every single day!