"How's it going, cobber? Probably not the best way to ingratiate myself to an Australian, but we'll see what happens".
These were the very first words sent across the interwebs from Carrickfergus, Northern Ireland to Moree, New South Wales, Australia back in May 2001 by a Miss Diane Bruce to a Mr David Goodwin.
Before I really get into the story too deeply, I need to state how, even after all these years, I'm totally floored by how God was weaving this story together before we had any idea what was going on :)
I should also say that we are sickeningly sweet, so be prepared to get sugar-induced queasiness as you follow our tale.
We met at
Christian Cafe, and
PalTalk became our technology of choice back in the days when IM was still a little bit novel. The silly Australian was immediately taken by the slight hints of self-deprecation evident in the opening text sent half way round the world by the lovely NornIrisher. Her profile talked of passion for Jesus, a desire to be a history maker for God, and her recent study at the
International Bible Training Institute in England. (NB: that link seems to be having
issues right now...it is the right one though).
Then of course, there was the anticipation of that lovely voice. Don't get me wrong, I didn't fall in love with her because of gorgeous voice, but it sure helped ;)
I was housesitting for my sister's mother-in-law (yes, that's right, and henceforth known as SMIL) who was visiting said sister and her husband in
Palau, where he was the chief local pilot (now there's a whole other story). SMIL had a substantial amount of pre-paid dial up to be used before the end of the month, so I took it upon myself to ensure there was none that got wasted and set about searching for a place to buy the impossible-to-find-in-Australia DVD of "Left Behind". I never found a place to buy it (and I believe I'm not missing anything), but what I did find was Christian Cafe.
This was of some interest as I'd been through a time of enormous spiritual growth in the years prior, and while content with being single, I wanted to find my soul/helpmate who I was fairly sure didn't live in outback Australia. Far more importantly though, the Christian Cafe site was based in Canada, so there were a lot of Canadians on the site. Why did I care about that? I was the holder of a 12 month Canadian work visa which I was planning to use the following year, and I knew no-one in Canada. This might be a great way to help with the trip planning if nothing else.
But I didn't meet anyone from Canada, just a couple of people on the US west coast, and one in Northern Ireland...
I don't want each of these posts to get too long, and as this is now almost 600 words, I think it's time to leave it til tomorrow :)
Sarah suggested we do a video post for some of this story telling series, and we might do that. Just not right this instant as Diane is working out how to use the shiny new (church-owned) MacBook Pro. It's pretty similar to our iMac (and naturally, TokBox was the first thing we did on it the other day), but none of that will get it set up ready to use as our multi-media hub for Sunday. So Diane's doing that...amidst deciding on the layout for her blog...which will be way better than mine when it begins OK, let's just state that upfront :)
Anyway, further instalments in the History/Herstory saga to come...if anything's unclear up to this point, you know what to do!
