The Day That Could "Never" Happen...

Erick's Note: You might wonder why my blog has a new name on my profile (where it says "Erick and Jonalyn")...this blog post is my engagement story, and tells a bit about what happened during the last few months that led to that... :)

Jeremiah 32:27 “Behold, I am the LORD, the God of all flesh: is there any thing too hard for me?”

My story starts about 19 years ago, when upon the request of my sister and a friend (Jenifer), I recorded a cassette tape with a creative extended message to the effect of…”I am NEVER going to get married…” Indeed I was quite serious about this, and by the age of 10 I already had a jumbled list of more than 60 reasons that I wanted to stay single. Honestly I can’t remember even a quarter of those reasons, but unfortunately many of those reasons were based on a couple dozen specific girls and women that I felt had unjustly hurt me, which was hard for my sensitive nature to let go of at that time. I also was starting to be inspired to become a missionary in my future adult life, and felt I could be like Paul (see 1 Corinthians 7:8) and do a better work as a free and single missionary.

Fast-forward a few years, and not much had changed, except that I wasn’t really in “girl-hating” mode anymore, and most of my few best friends that I occasionally kept in contact with, actually tended to be girls. But through those years I was dedicated to furthering my studies and working to pay for my flight training and later college bills, and with all the other stress in my life I hardly even had a second thought about someday getting an actual girlfriend or anything like that. And even when I did sometimes consider the possibility that God might plan for me to have a wife, I was committed to letting God bring that person to me, without me going out of my way to look for a partner. I didn’t believe in dating, and from what I was taught by my parents and others, God’s plan may involve waiting patiently, but He always knows what is best and will do what is right in His time. But by the time I was 26 and had finished college, I thought there was no way true love would happen for me, and certainly not before I was 30 years old.

Next started my missionary experience, when I came here to Thailand nearly two years ago. I still was focused on trying to further my developing nursing abilities and keeping busy with language-learning and teaching piano, etc, Most of the time, I wasn’t thinking about getting a girlfriend or wife, although a couple of my Karen friends kept bugging me about getting married, and some of the older female students and teachers seemed obviously interested in me. In fact, that last part became a bit of a problem because the way the local culture is, if I ever talked to any of the young women or gave any kind of help to my female students, they seemed to think that I was interested in them! So after I started hearing teasing going around about things like that (which weren’t true), I reverted more into my shy self and just tried to basically ignore all the girls (even though I hated it because I would prefer to be friends with everyone).

Meanwhile on January 29, 2014, Jonalyn arrived here at Sunshine Orchard with some friends from Malaysia and America. I remember the first time I saw her—we were in line to get food at the school’s cafeteria for lunch, she was with the students in the girl’s line and I was in the boy’s line. She was with her new friend Lauren Woyke (who had also just arrived) and they were chatting with some of the students. As usual, I shyly ignored the girls but wondered to myself if I would ever actually get to know them somehow. (Usually in the Karen culture that we are in here, people don’t introduce themselves by name to one another when they meet, but rather they ask someone else what the person’s name is—usually later—and allow circumstances to bring them into conversation at some point in the future.)

In the next month or so, I only saw Jonalyn and Lauren a few times on campus, such as when we ended up sitting at the same cafeteria table with some of the other teachers and my friends Saw Dih Yin and Bi Li (who were the least shy of the locals here). At this time there was no inkling in my mind that Jonalyn and I would soon become friends, and 5 months later, engaged! (I didn’t know a lot about her, other than the fact that she was from the Philippines and had recently left her job and everything to become a missionary, and had been baptized recently during the previous year.) But during March, I started having a new workload of taking care of villagers and patients on campus, since the principal’s family/school nurse had gone to America for a month. Jonalyn ended up assisting me with some of those patients since she was also involved with some medical missionary training classes…and so began the friendship that I never expected.

At that time still, friendship was all I was interested in, especially since my usual friends were gone during that (Thai) summer break in March to May. I chatted with both her and Lauren equally, and we sang together in the chapel when one or more of us were called upon at AY. Then in April the three of us traveled to Laos for a visa-run trip and did some sightseeing/hiking together on the way back. I’m so thankful for Lauren because I would never thought to go on that trip otherwise. It was around this time that I had started paying more attention to the fact that Jonalyn and I got along together really well…and that just maybe I should start praying about the possibility of something more than friendship. Was my heart awakening to love?

 

As the weeks were going by, it seemed God put us in so many situations together with more opportunities to get to know each other. I had never had so many opportunities come to me before in such a short time. As we spent time together in natural situations while working together and during activities with Lauren or others, I was impressed with Jonalyn’s attitude and strengths and character traits which complemented mine in many ways. And even though I had been initially resistant to the idea that this could really work into a lifelong relationship, I continued praying and started seeing more and more signs that God’s will was for me to move forward. I also read some things that helped make up my mind:

“Let the questions be raised, Will this union help me heavenward? Will it increase my love for God? And will it enlarge my sphere of usefulness in this life? If these reflections present no drawback, then in the fear of God move forward.” Adventist Home (AH) 45.2

I realized that the answer to those questions was “yes”. But of course I was scared to death to take those real steps toward starting a committed relationship…and I’d never even seen or written a love letter or anything of the sort before. After counseling with my helpful parents, and another godly counselor, on June 12 I finally had the courage to write Jonalyn a love letter and ask if she was willing to start a relationship that was committed toward marriage. (I mentioned that I had hoped to talk to her father first, but I had no way to contact him in the Philippines at that time.)  

Three whole days passed while I waited for her reply, which was awkward since we were still working together during the day sometimes. I started thinking that it was a bit hopeless, that maybe I had taken things too far and we should have just stayed as friends. But then I received her amazing reply email, in which she said yes! But first we needed to contact her father. We were able to get a message to him through her brother, and a few days later, we received his positive reply! I was so amazed and happy to see God working things out that I never dreamed of!

The next few weeks were really packed, as we used many opportunities to spend quality time together and deepen our relationship. We were blessed to have a free class period in the morning where we would read together a chapter or two from the book Adventist Home or The Desire of Ages. Reading these together brought about many opportunities for us to talk about important things together and get to know each other much more.

Meanwhile, I was trying to decide when I should do an official marriage proposal…I had already essentially decided to marry Jonalyn when I wrote the letter asking for a committed relationship (it was that clear to me from the way God had worked things out, beyond my dreams). But now that we had had much more opportunities to learn about each other’s lives and challenges and weaknesses, I didn’t know what her answer would be. I prayed and considered putting off the question for a few months, but due to her visa situation in Thailand I realized that sooner might be better.

So on our next visa-run trip to Laos, I prayed for God to give me an opportunity to propose and to have a memorable engagement day, if it was His will. And on the last day of the trip, He did! She said yes! I’ll refer you to Jonalyn’s story (which will be posted soon) since she wrote about the day better than I could.

I praise God so much for His grace to me that He sent me the right person and brought us together to Thailand from across the world to share in His love! He surely has a thousand ways to provide for us of which we know nothing. And He loves to bring people together in true love as we commit ourselves to following Him in everything. We can never be happier than when we have complete faith in Jesus and trust Him only to work for us that which we cannot do of ourselves. He makes the impossible happen!