1,000 dollars & 8,000 miles for the 1st Date: How I Met My Husband

Right now, I am curled up on my couch in South Asia next to the oil heater and our 1-level-up-from-a-Charlie-Brown-Christmas-tree. It will be our 2nd Christmas married and our 1st Christmas together overseas. When I reflect on how we got here, I am always amazed at the Lord’s direction and grace in our lives. I’ll do my best to succinctly piece it together and share this love story with you. It definitely wasn’t of our own doing.

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I guess the story starts when I broke off an engagement. Of course, I never thought it would happen but it allowed me to re-evaluate my life. To put it all on the table– my future, my desire to be married one day, my career, my family, & my time. I sensed a calling to move overseas for a year. It wasn’t the first time the thought came to my mind but now I  was really serious about it. A couple who have now become mentors advised me to just go for it. They said, “You will have confirmation one way or the other– that you should continue living overseas or that it’s not your cup of tea.”

So, I told my class of 2nd graders that I was moving to another country. Next came the hugs, and the sweet we-will-miss-you statements and the advice from an 8-year-old to not get Ebola, but I felt truly confident and at peace with the decision.

I was told I wouldn’t meet anyone over there and I might be single for a long time, but I was totally fine with it all. I was going to live the life God had called me to live.

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The Set Up

Fast forward a few months… OCTOBER 26, 2015 . 11 AM. I was living in South Asia and things were going well. I was hanging out with an awesome couple and made a passing statement about how I wanted to live overseas for a long time. The next sentence was, “There is this guy you have to meet.” The husband knew him because they met years before  in the same South Asian country I was in. I gave the couple permission to give my number to the guy living on the East Coast. The husband messaged Robby saying, “Dude, I have met your wife.” Yep– That was the first text he sent to convey that he wanted to set him up with me.

I was at a place of such contentment in my singleness that I felt pretty neutral about a guy who was living on another continent having my number. My friends said great things about him, so it couldn’t hurt to talk or text, right? I didn’t have any expectations and I thought, “Why not give it a shot.”

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The First Conversation

A few hours later…OCTOBER 26, 2015.  9 PM. I got a text that said, “Hey, is this Rachel?” I have no idea why I replied like this but I said, “Indeed, it is.” (What? Who says that?) Even though I was 10+ hours ahead of the time zone he was in, he was wide awake. Not just because he was talking to a girl but because he was working night shift at the time, which was a perfect schedule since he was awake when I was up too. We texted on and off for a few hours and then the couple who I had talked to earlier in the day texted him and said, “You should ask her to FaceTime you.” He thought it was a little early to FT (a couple hours into talking via text) but they asked me if I would FT him too (schemers). I was up for it since the texting was going as well as texting can go.

When he got off work at 7 AM, he called me on FT and expected to talk for 30 minutes or so. Well, 5 hours later, after we talked about life and family and so many other subjects that I can’t remember, we finally pushed the little red button and ended the call.

Okay… Confession/ Evidence.

I snuck a picture of our first FaceTime call.

We continued to talk and get to know each other through technology. The longest call we ever had was 7 hours long—-that night I got locked out of the guest room I was staying in since my roommate had the key.  I thought we were just going  talk for a little bit (yeah right). I ended up sleeping on a concrete floor and using thin cotton scarves as “blankets.” Haha!

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8,000 Miles 

5 months  later (after meeting via FT)...March 22, 2015. Robby and a friend flew over to meet me. It was sort of to see friends that he knew from living there before but mainly to meet the girl he had been talking to for the past 148 days.

My heart was beating out of my chest as I waited for him at the airport that evening. What would actually meeting him be like? It seemed like we already knew each other’s hearts so well, but what would it be like in person? I didn’t know what to do or what to think.

Well, it didn’t quite go as planned. He was fantastic. Outgoing. Kind. He even brought presents and peanut butter M & M’s from the States. I was awkward and nervous and just couldn’t be myself. I put pressure on myself and many people where I was living knew both of us.  He took me around on a motorcycle the next day to meet his friends and I just didn’t feel like me.

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DTR

March 24, 2015. By the end of the second day, we simply had to have one of those DTR (define the relationship) talks. We ate Italian on a rooftop (which sounds romantic) but that’s not what either of us were feeling. I knew I had to tell him where I was at, so I said I just wanted to be friends for the time being. I felt terrible about it but knew he could tell I wasn’t myself either. I was shocked at his response of complete grace and patience. He said he would be disappointed if that was really my decision but he wanted me to be happy.  He even took me to get Baskin Robin’s after I basically crushed his heart (what a guy!).

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Trek Beginnings

March 25, 2015. We joined some friends and began a drive and then a 5 day trek up into the Himalayans over the Easter holiday. The scenes were beautiful but the relationship, on the other hand, wasn’t looking too good. I was hardly talking to him. I don’t know what else to say about that except be glad you weren’t in the car with us.

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Landslides

March 27, 2015. Things still didn’t look great but a landslide and some snow helped to turn the situation around. We came to a point in the trek where we had to decide if we wanted to continue going or turn back. We knew we would have to cross a huge landslide that settled the year before but we didn’t know there would be another landslide on the other side of the mountain from the one we were on at the time. We heard a roar from the other side and dust came over the mountain, clouding our view. We collectively decided to keep going, tighten all our straps and shoelaces, and run across the landslide in pairs of 2 or 3.

Once we all made it safely over the quarter of a mile rock debris, I felt heavy with the weight of the situation but also with the reality of what we had just crossed. It was a landslide that had covered up a whole village, 243 people, in a matter of seconds from an earthquake. It left one little house standing that was nestled into the side of the cliff. (see below)

During the quake, an entire section of a mountain crumbled which meant that  approximately 40 million tons of rock and ice were channeled directly on top of a beautiful little village. The next day, we saw the evidence of the powerful gust of wind that was created from the landslide. The air pressure flattened every tree on the other side of the valley for miles and miles. It was as if every evergreen was a toothpick and just snapped at the base.

Our whole team felt closer after the tension of the scenario. We were quiet; we just stared into the rubble we had run across and the beautifully strong villagers who were left, working to rebuild their village right next to it all. We continued to walk on ahead and I turned to the man I had spent countless hours talking to on FaceTime.  We talked all the way up to our destination for the evening, a guest house that looked like it was taken straight out of an adventure magazine.

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Snow, Mountain Tops, +  Love 

March 28, 2015. The next day it began to snow and we joined the kids in a snowball fight. Before we knew it we were laughing, throwing snowballs, and eating snow ice cream. Things were getting better. I couldn’t really explain it but I was starting to feel different about where I had left the DTR conversation.

March 29, 2015. 4:00 AM  A handful of the group wanted to climb a peak the next morning. I was a part of the handful, which meant I bundled up, grabbed my headlamp, unzipped my tent, and met everyone else outside, surrounded by the blackness of the night and fresh snow. I have never seen anything like that morning before. Bright stars filled the entire sky with gleaming dots and as the sun came up, we began to see the silhouettes of spiky snow-covered mountaintops. We heard perfect silence except for the crunch beneath our feet. It was incredible! It was the first time we actually took pictures and there couldn’t have been a better backdrop. We finally made it to the top: 15,200 feet.

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Complete 180

March 29, 2015. 7 PM  So, by the end of the trek, you could say I did a complete 180 turn from the beginning of the week. I was myself. I was actually talking. I was excited for where the relationship might take us and ready to continue getting to know the handsome guy who flew 8,000 miles just to meet me. And there we were, breathing in the crisp mountain air and basking in the bliss of love.

April 1st, 2015. The day Robby left to go back to the States, April fools day, we officially began dating and it wasn’t a joke. Three months later, once I moved back to the States, we met in person for the 2nd time. That went much better than the first time we met.

And that’s the story of how I met my man in the Himalayas!

Click here for Part 2 of our love story.