Thirty Years and Counting

The Most Bizarre Phone Call Ever

It started while I was dating a woman I met at church. Her name was Jan. We went out for about 3 months. The first 2 months were great but, as we got into the 3^rd month, things went sour. It was almost as if someone had flipped a switch. We starting picking at each other, getting on each other’s nerves, always being kind of annoyed. Just not great. 

It all came to a head, ironically, driving to church one Sunday morning. We had a fight. And it was huge! And it was over the smallest, most trivial, unimportant thing you could possibly imagine. But, inside that car, it was World War III. We sat through church – not a word. We didn’t stay for coffee after the service, just headed home – not a word. I pulled into the parking lot at her condo and she got out of the car and walked away. No goodbye, no kiss, no “We’ll talk about this later.” Nothing. And as I drove out of the parking lot I wasn’t sure if we were still going out – and I wasn’t sure I cared.

But here’s the thing. There was an upside. The strengths in my character tended to be weaknesses in hers and the strengths in her character tended to be weaknesses in mine. So there was growth going on. But, as a Christian couple, we were setting a lousy example and something had to change. A little Divine Intervention was required.

I really didn’t know what to do. I was completely on the fence. There was an upside to staying together and there was an upside to breaking up. The Bible says to Step boldly before the Lord and make your requests known. So I did. That night I prayed about it. “Lord, there’s good reason to stay together and there’s good reason to let it end. I honestly don’t know what to do. But You do. Tell me what to do and I’ll do it. Amen.” And I rolled over and went to sleep. That was about 11:00 on Sunday night.

9:00 Monday morning – 10 hours later – I was sitting at my desk at work when my phone rang. It was a friend of mine named Randi. I hadn’t seen Randi in a couple of months and this morning she was in a hurry. You know how you have something that you always say when you answer the phone at work? Mine was, “Technical Services, Al speaking.” I think I got as far as “Te...” and Randi just cut me off.

She got straight to the point. “Al! It’s Randi. Are you dating anyone right now?”

Um… errrrrr… um…. uhhhhhhhhh… I gave her my best answer, “I’m really not sure. Why?”

“I’ve got someone you’ve got to meet. You’re perfect for each other.”

It’s 9:00 on Monday morning, I'm at work and I’m staring at the ceiling mouthing the words, “Are You doing this?” I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. So I had to ask, “Randi, how long have you been thinking about this?”

“A few months.”

“And what made you pick this morning to call?”

“I don’t know. Something just told me the time was right.”

At this point, it was everything I could do just to keep from falling out of my chair. I’d seen answered prayer before but this was crazy! If you had driven a Mack truck through the outside wall of my 4^th floor office, it could not have surprised me any more than I already was.

I explained the situation to Randi – yes, I did have a girlfriend but things had gotten pretty bumpy lately and I wasn’t sure what was going to happen next. But I also wasn’t prepared to start exploring new relationships until Jan and I had had a final clearing of the air.

Well, by Wednesday, Jan and I were not dating anymore and on Thursday I called Randi and told her that I wanted to meet her friend. My curiosity was definitely piqued! So Randi set up a barbeque at her house. Her, her boyfriend, me and her perfect-for-me friend. Just the four of us.

Have you ever been on a fix-up date where it’s just you and the fixer-uppers? Awwwwwwwk-warrrrrrrrrrrd!

We sat in Randi’s backyard and then she and her boyfriend would periodically disappear into the house for 15 or 20 minutes to “check on the food.” But there didn’t seem to be a lot of food-checking going on. Their faces would appear in the kitchen window and just watch us. We were on display. Performance art. I commented that I felt like we were a couple of trained seals in some water park show. At one point I even said that if there was a beach ball around I might try balancing it on my nose and maybe then Randi would throw us some fish.

The evening did eventually end (it seemed like forever) and Randi’s friend was very attractive and she seemed pretty nice, so I called her and we started going out. After an introduction like that, how could we not, right?

The Sweater

It was our first Christmas together. We had been dating for about 5 months and I was Christmas shopping. I was walking through Portage Place mall when I saw a sweater hanging in the window of a women’s clothing store. It was more money than I wanted to spend (or could afford, if I’m being honest) but I knew instantly that I had to buy it. I knew that she would look spectacular in it and I needed to see her wearing it. And I wasn’t wrong! She looked amazing! I don’t know if it was what the sweater did for her or if it was what she did for the sweater. All I know for certain is that, every time she wore it, my knees got weak (more on this a bit later).

December rolled into January and an interesting thing happened at work (“interesting” is a word with many meanings).

The company I worked for was a fantastic company. I loved the company, I loved the people I worked with and I really loved my job. So I hadn’t been taking vacations – for 3 years! My job was a vacation and I looked forward to going into work every day. But, between unpaid overtime, trade time and unused vacation, I had accumulated 10 weeks of unused time off and, in the words of my boss, I had become a liability. She told me that I had to use up my vacation. But what to do?

I decided to give it to God. It was January, 1988, and there was a terrible famine happening in Ethiopia and, in my heart, that was where I wanted to be. I would have done anything. I would have dug ditches, I would have built shelters, I would have worked in relief camps, I would have loaded supplies on aircraft…. anything. Tell me what you want me to do and I’ll do it. But God, as He often does, had other plans.

There were two main organizations running the Ethiopian relief program: World Vision and SIM. World Vision was the face of the effort. They had an international presence and were widely known. They had partnered with SIM. SIM stayed mostly behind the scenes but they provided a lot of the logistics and were doing most of the heavy lifting.

I put out some feelers to a couple of mission organizations, including World Vision and SIM, and SIM got back to me in less than 24 hours (this was in the days of snail mail, so that was really fast!). And any obstacles that might have been in the way simply vanished. It was clearly meant to be. I had a degree in Computer Science and 12 years of IT experience at that time. My resume was pretty much IT and little else so, surprise, SIM wanted me to work in their data centre at their headquarters in Charlotte, NC. I had promised God that I would go where He wanted me to go and, even though I really wanted to go to Ethiopia, a deal’s a deal, and I went to North Carolina. Imagine my surprise when I showed up at the Charlotte data centre for my first day of work and the IT manager informed me that they wanted me to help design and develop a better logistics system for the Ethiopian relief effort. So, even though I never got to Ethiopia, I did get to work on famine relief, sort of.

I would spend 8 weeks in the SIM data centre in Charlotte and the last 2 weeks doing some technology training at their Canadian headquarters in Toronto.

Debbie and "The Sweater"

Before I left, my girlfriend sat down with a photographer and had a portrait done of her wearing my favourite sweater. And I still have it! She said that she didn’t want me to forget her while I was away. Yeah! Like that was going to happen!

Two copies of the photo went with me to Charlotte. One sat on my desk in the data centre so that I could spend my days gazing dreamily at it and being far less productive than I should have been. The other sat on the night stand in my apartment in Charlotte so that she would be the last thing I saw before I fell asleep at night and the first thing I saw when I woke up in the morning.

And it worked! I didn’t forget her.

Of course, I didn’t want her to forget me either and the enormity of that truth really started to sink in in the last few days leading up to my departure. And so, on the night before I left, I found myself down on one knee asking her to marry me. And she said yes!

I guess it should have been an omen or a harbinger of things to come, but we were apart for 10 weeks and she spent a significant portion of that time shopping for rings (she really likes shopping). By the time I got home there was an envelope with my name on it in the back room of a prominent Winnipeg jewelry store. Inside the envelope was an impressive (without being gaudy) diamond ring. It worked! She hadn’t forgotten me, either.

Which brings me to today. Today, Randi’s friend and I are celebrating our 30^th wedding anniversary. 

Debbie and her match-making Maid of Honour, Randi

Thirty years ago today, Debbie and I stood in one of our very favourite places, King’s Park, and promised to spend the rest of our lives together. And I think I love her even more today than I did the day I married her. The last 30 years have been amazing and they’re only getting better. And what would I like for an anniversary gift? Nothing much. Just thirty more years.

Happy Anniversary, Deb. You are still my answered prayer. I love you.