Our Story
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Louis and I met in January of 2020 at a Christian fellowship group in Seattle, where I happened to be visiting my parents during winter break. Neither of us left a very strong impression on the other at that point, and shortly after I returned to California, where I was attending a post-graduate Bible program. In March, when the pandemic hit and I got sent home to finish the program remotely from Seattle, I continued to meet with that group, and Louis and I started to see each other weekly on Zoom.
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When Tiffany joined our group online, I didn’t really have too many considerations about her because at that time I thought she would be with our group for only her last semester of Bible school. But as her program was coming to an end, I began to develop a feeling within me and I realized that it was hard to let it go. I started bringing this matter to the Lord. I believed that the Lord yokes people together, but I still needed to know who was the one the Lord prepared for me through prayers. Then I realized that if the Lord really prepared Tiffany for me, then He would at least keep her in Seattle after her Bible school, right?
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Meanwhile, marriage was the last thing on my mind. I am very much a planner, and many things in the first half of 2020 made me feel uncertain and anxious about my future. I had studied to be a science teacher and was planning to go that route upon graduating from the Bible school. But now I was graduating at the height of a worldwide pandemic amidst school shutdowns and a messy beginning of remote learning. At the same time, I was dealing with some health problems and navigating healthcare in a city I hadn’t lived in before. It was too much for me to plan and take care of by myself. This all forced me to open my being to the Lord in a way that I hadn’t before, giving myself and my future to Him more unreservedly than previously. I was also learning to open my needs to others in the group that Louis and I were meeting with, and deeply comforted by their fellowship and prayers. Through this experience, I became clear that the Lord was leading and supplying me to serve Him full-time in Seattle.
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I was pretty excited to find out Tiffany would stay in Seattle and serve full-time. But I was also having a hard time thinking of how to get to know her better. We were in the middle of a pandemic, which meant that we had a lot of limitations for meeting each other. Meanwhile Tiffany was also dealing with her health issue, which made everything more difficult. Throughout the pandemic, I realized that there was not much I could do except to pray. Fast forward to July 2022 (I know, it’s a long wait). By then we had already started meeting each other in person through various church activities. I gradually got to know Tiffany a little bit better. Her health situation had stabilized. I realized that my appreciation of her continued to get stronger. So, through some fellowship with the older members of our church in Seattle, I reached out to know whether or not she was available.
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Around the beginning of 2022, I started to feel that for me to have a normal human life and Christian life, I needed a companion with whom I could grow and pursue the Lord. I started to pray about my marriage, but I wasn’t sure if I was quite ready to be in a relationship. So when I heard about Louis’ interest, I responded simply that if he initiated anything, I would consider and pray about it. The ball was in his court.
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Somehow, what came into my ear was only “I will pray about it”. LOL… And I have to say I had a hard time trying to initiate anything because I didn’t even know if I should initiate anything, because I thought the ball was in her court! This misunderstanding caused me to wait for another 5 months.
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Looking back, those 5 months were, on one hand, a delay caused by miscommunication. But Louis and I can both say now that those 5 months were also the Lord’s timing. It was during those 5 months that I really had an opportunity to get to know Louis through observation, fellowship, and prayer together, which made me appreciate him and start to think that we could be compatible.
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Eventually, in January 2023, after many prayers and fellowship, I decided it was time to reach out. We had a few phone calls, which helped us to quickly realize that we had the same goal and same view for marriage. I realized that Tiffany is what the Lord had prepared for me. The rest, as they say, is history!