Georgia was living at home with her parents and two of her siblings in Kansas City, MO, and after a little over a month of conversing through ChristianMingle, I went up to visit her, traveling from where I live in Wichita, KS (about a three-hour drive).  I will say that, according to a certain study, Kansas City is the #1 worst city for dating, and Wichita is #2.  I can say that I can definitely speak for that, having lived in Wichita my entire life, except for two years at the University of Kansas grad school, and my history of dating can definitely attest to that.  I believe that Georgia would agree with that study as far as KC is concerned.

We believe that God had been protecting both of us from getting involved or committed with the wrong types of relationships throughout our lives; I had all but given up hope of finding love, although I had never stopped praying for the right girl, and neither had my parents.  Georgia had never stopped praying for the right man, either.  When I found Georgia on ChristianMingle, I didn’t expect her to respond to the ‘Smile’ I sent, but when she did, with a quick note thanking me and saying I seemed like a nice guy, I was blown away and followed up with a longer letter.  What followed was history.

Our first date was a picnic that she had packed with help from her sister (she has three brothers and three sisters), followed by watching “The Great Gatsby” and a walk.  The next day I picked her up for church, and afterward we had lunch with her parents and some more of her family.  After eating, we all had a good talk and played games; afterwards I talked with her father privately and asked for permission to court Georgia, with marriage as the ultimate goal, if God chose to bless the relationship (I had remembered studying courting in High School Youth Group, and had mentioned to Georgia during one of our Skypes that I had always thought about that, and wondered if this might be something worth pursuing, even though neither of us had actually tried it before, and she had agreed).  He replied by saying yes, and that he always prays for his unmarried children’s future husbands and wives, with the rationale that whomever they date or court may be that or they may not, myself included.

Well, as the weeks later turned into months, Georgia and I decided that it would be wise for her to start looking for apartments and jobs here in Wichita; as it turned out, an apartment opened up literally across the street from my house, and she can actually see my front porch from her kitchen window!  She also found a couple job openings and was hired easily.  I borrowed my dad’s truck on Columbus Day weekend and moved her down here.

Georgia had already been going to my church on the weekends that she was visiting, and once she was living here, she got plugged in regularly, and even joined the church orchestra as a flutist.  I eventually joined the church choir singing bass, so we get to serve and rehearse together in the same service.

Since marriage was always the ultimate goal, if God desired it, we started planning the things that required time to plan out for the wedding, although we knew it was wise to plan for a short engagement period, when Christ-centered courtship was being pursued.  As a result, Georgia wasn’t sure exactly when I was going to propose – I had told her possibly in May, but it could be earlier, or even later.  I had ordered the ring, which is a very unique one, with an emerald (Georgia’s birthstone) as the center stone, with some 86 diamonds all around the band, online, in order to get the best deal (I got nearly 2/3 off from DazzlingRock.com, through Amazon!).  Unfortunately, it was going to take nearly a month to be ready and arrive.

One night, when Georgia had had a particularly tough day, I prayed over her, and headed back home, where I noticed a delivery attempt notice, and realized that the ring had most likely arrived over the weekend, when we had gone up to Kansas City so my parents could meet hers.  I set a plan in place in my mind to propose the next evening: we both love the movie “Napoleon Dynamite,” so I had the movie cued up at the scene where Kip marries LaFawnduh, the girl he communicates with online (not too dissimilar to our situation, especially since I am 30 years old).  When she came over to have dessert and possibly watch Duck Dynasty (another of our favorites), I opened the door, stating that I had received the ring, but that it didn’t look *anything* like it had online.  I had an obviously fake, over-sized, plastic ring that my mother had given to me as a gag a few weeks earlier, but that I had decided *not* to give to Georgia as a joke, at least not until the night I would give her the real ring, after speaking with my Dad. I put this fake ring in a gift box in which the real ring had arrived, and gave that to Georgia to open, telling her that it must have come from China, all with a straight face, and she believed me.  As I walked into the living room, where I had my cell phone recording the whole thing, she said, “But Jordan, that’s–” and I interrupted with “It’s fraudulent, I know!” She asked if I could send it back, and I replied that, yeah, I guess we could, but, since she had told me awhile back that I didn’t even need to spend money on a ring if I wanted to save money for the marriage, “You did say you didn’t need a ring right?”  And when I turned around, I had the real ring, and dropped to one knee, holding the ring up. Because I had practiced this all in my head, I had really done everything except actually the words of the proposal itself, so I forgot to actually ask that at first, and wondered why she wasn’t saying yes.  So I held the ring closer to her, in clear view of the camera, saying “Yeah,” to her question of was I serious.  Finally I realized I hadn’t asked, and spoke the words, and she said, “Yes, of course!”  At those words I turned around and hit resume on the movie, at which point Kip said, “You know I do.” Another reason this is funny is because I had told Georgia before that I would like to imitate Kip in saying these words during our actual wedding, during the ceremony, but she had said no, it needs to be serious.  So, this way I still got to incorporate it! Another funny and fitting development is that, almost a year before I had even seen Georgia’s picture, I had finished writing a book about a game that a boy writes, that ends up bringing a red-headed princess into the real world, out of another video game.  Of course, Georgia is a red-haired princess, as she is a daughter of the King, Jesus Christ.  And, in a sense, my computer brought Georgia into my World, though of course it was really ChristianMingle and, ultimately, Jesus.  Jesus is also shown to be the ultimate power behind the game in my book as well, which is called “World of Shawn,” available in Kindle and print versions, and available to download free of charge.

Thank you so much for offering this service, I offer my whole-hearted endorsement of it to anyone who is single!  I also owe the idea of trying it to my mother, who asked if I had tried it after we saw an advertisement for it on TV.  I had replied scornfully, as I was pretty disillusioned with online dating in general, after years of trying others.  I did eventually give it a go, however, after my subscription to another service ended, and I met Georgia a mere matter of months thereafter!

Praise God!