April 22, 2012 seemed like any other Sunday in Washington, DC. The streets were quiet as thousands of DC residents headed to church or slept in. That morning, at Capitol Hill Baptist Church (CHBC), a few hundred DC folks listened to Pastor Mark Dever deliver a sermon on James 5:12-18. Immediately after the service, 28-year old Richard Lim headed over to the basement of the church for a lunch organized by the church’s International Student Ministry. In the middle of lunch, Richard met a cute brunette 23-year old named Tammie Harrison. Immediately, he found himself attracted to her warm and bubbly personality. His curiosity piqued, Richard asked her where she was from. She told him that she had grown up in the Philippines. “The Philippines?!” he responded, a bit surprised. “Yeah!” she responded. Richard was surprised. He himself was from the Philippines – although he grew up in the United States. But he thought, she didn’t look Filipina. So he asked, “how did that happen?” Tammie explained to him that her parents are missionaries and, although she was born in Oklahoma, she and her family had moved to the Philippines when she was five years old and lived there until she was sixteen. “Can you speak Tagalog?” he asked? “Yeah,” she responded. “Ooh,” he responded, “say something in Tagalog!” Tammie sometimes felt awkward whenever she was asked to speak Tagalog – it was never as natural to speak in any language after being asked to speak it. Still, she indulged him with a sentence or two. Richard marveled. He had never met a single person who wasn’t Filipino or Filipina speak Tagalog. He knew that there was something different about this one. The way she laughed and smiled; the ease with which they conversed; her pleasant personality and sense of humor; her modesty and wholesomeness; her knowledge and curiosity about the world; and the fact that she knew his birth country and his culture better than he did. Instinctually, he knew he wanted to get to know her more.