The Incredible Story of How We Met

... at least, we think it's pretty incredible! The story below is from our wedding program, with some minor additions (in italics) for clarity.

This web page is dedicated to the memory of our dear friend Sharon Morris -- whose strength and faith were an inspiration, whose love and generosity were an encouragement, and whose fervent and effectual prayers may have been partly responsible for the outcome!

In spring of 1999, one Sunday after church in Victoria, British Columbia, Sora made the chance comment to Bruce and Leslie Dayman that she thought "arranged marriages are a great idea, and I wish someone would arrange one for me." Little did she suspect that Bruce would respond with great excitement, "I have a friend who is a matchmaker!" So enthusiastic was he that he returned home that very day and wrote away for an application for Sora, and this was how she learned about Schlissel Family Service.

(Bruce and Leslie were friends of Sora's who mentored her as a new Christian and were at least partly responsible for exposing her to many of the radical ideas she had adopted by that time... introducting the matchmaker was just the tip of the iceberg.)

Several months later, and a continent away, Matt was given Rev. Steve Schlissel's email address as someone who could be of help as he searched for a faithful church to attend in Ithaca, NY. "Were you looking for a matchmaker at the time?" Matt was asked, after relating the story later. "Well, no. I was looking for a wife -- but I had no idea anyone still performed such a service," he replied.

Not yet two years old at the time, Aedan was oblivious to his mother's plans, but Talia took a keep interest in the possibilities. "Mommy, will God whoosh up a husband for you and put him down on the grass next to you?" she asked. As it turns out, that is precisely what He would have had to do, in order to show His hand at work any more conspicuously.

Having satisfied Rev. Schlissel's requirements for male applicants to his service, Matt then had to win the approval of Bruce Dayman, who was acting as Sora's covenant head to represent her interests and protect her from unsuitable suitors. Matt's interviews with Bruce by phone and email stretched over two weeks, but at last he was given permission to call Sora and speak to her in person for the first time. In a note confirming the time of the planned call on December 7, he wrote, "Get this: In a glaring display of naked Providence, the Lord used a Spring International saleswoman to offer me 'nickel nights to Canada' this afternoon. An hour later, Steve called and told me to call you." It was to be the first of many such signs that God was smiling on our courtship.

Matt later admitted that he had felt like a scared 16-year-old kid when dialing Sora's number for the first time. Such nervousness was quickly dispelled by her voice -- a voice Matt later described to friends as "one I could listen to for a very, very long time." Despite the three-hour time difference, that first conversation lasted two hours. Because finances allowed such phone calls only twice a week, the next day launched an email dialogue that was to exceed 400 letters -- amounting to about 1.5 megabytes of test -- over the course of 5 months. But it took only a week of those letters and phone calls before Matt was bold enough to ask if he could come to Victoria for a visit during his winter break in January. Delighted and terrified, Sora called Bruce Dayman to see if he thought such a plan rash, overeager, or importunate. "Well," he replied, "the only concern that comes to my mind is, where are we going to put him?"

This worry was generously dispelled by Stan and Sharon Morris (also dear friends of Sora's ). Perhaps feeling somewhat responsible for the situation (they had offered up fervent and effectual prayers for things to happen quickly), the offered to put Matt up in a hotel room for a week. They also confidently -- and prophetically -- predicted impending nuptials even before Sora and Matt had laid eyes on one another. "They've already chosen a wedding gift," Sora wrote to Matt just before Christmas. "I'm starting to wonder whose decision this really is."

"I'm a little worried about the fact that we have yet to find anything we disagree about," Matt remarked shortly before the visit. And Sora confessed to Leslie, "If I didn't have two children, I'd agree to marry him tomorrow sight unseen on the basis of his emails." Sora's mother Robin was impressed that Matt was serious enough to be making the trip to Victoria. "Well, Sora," she advised, "You'd better have some water ready for his camels."

The greatest challenge was yet to come, however -- in order to win Sora's hand Matt also needed to secure the affections of Talia and Aedan. By the time January rolled around, Matt and Sora were sufficiently enamoured of each other to indulge in an activity known as "chicken counting" -- a term that was simultaneously an anticipation of things to come, and a reminder that all these delightful speculations would prove to be so many empty eggshells should Matt fail to connect with the children.

The dramatic effects of anticipation of this first meeting were heightened by rough seas and engine failure which forced Matt's ferry back across the Juan de Fuca strait, back to Seattle. His arrival was delayed by eight hours as he took a bus instead. "Multum ille et terris iactatus et alto." Despite this harrowing experience, he maintained his poise, and upon greeting Sora at the bus stop, quipped, "Been waiting long, Penelope?"

The two weeks that followed were truly amazing, exceeding all expectations. Worries about Matt winning Talia and Aedan's affections proved unfounded. Within a matter of days he had been dubbed, "My Matt" by Talia and "My fwavowite Matt" by Aedan. "I expected this to be difficult," Matt marveled, "but it's been like getting to know my own children."

For the second week of the visit, Matt stayed in the home of Sora's parents, and the family made numerous excursions to scenic locations. While Nana and Grandpa kept Talia and Aedan occupied, romance blossomed against the backdrop of beaches, mountains, woods, and gardens.

It had been determined (arbitrarily) that it would be unduly hasty to become engaged on this first visit, and so Matt, straining his willpower mightily, refrained from porposing to Sora in January -- a decision easier to make than to live with in the intervening months. Instead, plane tickets were purchased for Sora and the children to come to Maryland and meet Matt's family during his spring break in March. The parting at the end of the January visit was hard. Matt's willpower had to be employed again, both to let Sora go and to free two fingers from Talia's hand -- she didn't want to see him go, and was doing her best to keep him in Victoria by main force.

As the inevitable was clear to both of us before the end of the first visit, and neither of us harboured any doubts as to God's intended purpose, our un-engaged status before a source of great amusement over the next several months. Our laying of elaborate plans for life together was dubbed "counting chickens before they hatch in the cart before the horse." Sora's father wrote to his mother, "Although there has been neither a proposal nor an acceptance, Sora is planning her wedding to her match-makered Christian young man..."

The eight weeks between Matt's departure in January and Sora's visit in March seemed endless. Hanging up the telephone became increasingly difficult, and during one phone call Sora was abashed to hear Matt exclaim in dismay, "The sun is coming up!" (Do remember that 3 hour time difference!!) At last the glad reunion came. Talia and Aedan were delighted to see "their" Matt again, and Sora to discover that not only had God given her a husband to exceed all her hopes and expectations, but He was also providing inlaws who were just as wonderful.

Matt had been adivsed that a great deal of creativity would be required to "surprise" Sora when he proposed marriage, and he rose to the occasion. He had brought a copy of "Alice in Wonderland" as a gift for Talia in January, and had spent some of the visit reading it aloud to her; this book provided the inspiration for a most unusual proposal. An unsuspecting Sora entered the kitchen at breakfast time to discover her muffin labeled with a note that read "Eat Me!", and her orange juice sporting a similar slip of paper reading "Drink Me!". Sora still did not realize what was happening, until Matt produced a third label -- "Marry me." -- from his pocket, knelt on the kitchen floor before an amused audience of his mother and future daughter, and sent Talia to fetch the ring which had been cached in the silverware drawer. Talia was greatly interested in the proceedings and the Alice In Wonderland labels (she promptly stuck the "Marry me" note into a muffin) and she and Matt's mother Claudia discussed the wisdom of eating a muffin which said "Marry me." If eating an "Eat me!" muffin made one grow larger, what would happen to someone who ate a muffin which said, "Marry me"? "Talia," Claudia asked, "do you think anyone in this room should get married?" "No," Talia replied, and then, pointing to her mother and Matt, qualified her statement: "Except you."

The rest is history.