Conchita (Ching) and Steve found each other across 10,000 miles.
She lived in the Philippines. He lived in Virginia. “Maybe Steve’s profile appeared because he was new to CatholicMatch,” Ching said. She appreciated the importance Steve placed on his faith, evidenced by the fact that he volunteered as a hospital chaplain. She clicked “like” on his profile.
Steve saw the “like” and checked out Ching’s profile. She described herself as loving, understanding with a sense of humor, family-oriented, a friend, and comforter. In spite of their geographic distance, Steve clicked “like” too.
They began writing each other twice a day, mornings and evenings. They learned about each others’ hard pasts.
Steve’s first wife had been a troubled soul who insisted on separation after 40 years of marriage. She died four years later. Ching’s husband of 33 years died in a car crash on her birthday years earlier. Neither Ching nor Steve had dated since their spouses’ deaths.
Ching’s sister in New York signed her up for CatholicMatch. Steve signed up after comparing several Catholic dating sites. After corresponding with Ching, Steve told her he felt they might have a future together. She reassured him that she felt the same.
“She was the missing piece in my life,” Steve said.
He was ready to commit the rest of his life to her but knew they needed to meet in person first. After mentioning marriage several times, he also realized he was rushing her a bit. “I said I would accept her timing as God’s timing,” he said.
Several other women “liked” Steve’s profile, but he told them he was seriously interested in Ching.
In December 2019, they both let their CatholicMatch subscriptions expire. Steve applied for a passport to visit Ching in the Philippines. In the meantime, they continued their daily talks, now through e-mail and occasional Skype video calls. They sent each other Christmas cards, which arrived months later.
In late January 2020, Steve flew to the Philippines and met Ching in person. He also met her daughter, son-in-law, and granddaughters. Everyone warmly accepted each other.
“Our first date was at Tokyo Milk Tea in a shopping mall, and we spent the day together,” Ching said. Over the next few days, they had lunch and dinner, and attended Mass at the Divine Mercy Shrine. They visited Ching’s home parish, and on their last full day in the Philippines, they enjoyed Saturday afternoon Mass followed by dinner at a restaurant with Ching’s family.
The next day, the couple left for the U.S. Two days, three flights, and two layovers later, they arrived. Over the next two days, they went shopping and attended Mass at the Basilica of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C.
“At dinner together, we talked about the possibility of marriage later in the year,” Steve said. He asked if she was ready, and she said yes.
They traveled by train to New Jersey and stayed with Steve’s mother for a few days, where Ching also met Steve’s brother and sister. Then they headed for New York City, where Ching planned to stay with her sister for a few months.
Steve and Ching registered for an engaged couple’s conference to take place in March. Their plan was to complete marriage preparation in the United States, get married in the Philippines, then return to the U.S. to start their new life together.
Then the pandemic struck. The March conference was canceled and Ching was stuck quarantined in New York City. From February to mid-May, they only saw each other through Skype. They kept emailing and sent a few handwritten messages.
Undeterred, they signed up for engaged conferences in April, May, and June, but all were canceled. Steve kept in touch with his pastor, who emphasized the six-month waiting period before marriage.
Steve consulted an immigration lawyer, who said if they got married in the Philippines, it would be at least a year before Steve could bring Ching to the U.S. He advised getting married before Ching’s visa expired and applying to have her residency status adjusted; she could stay indefinitely while that was approved, and having married a U.S. citizen, approval would be all but certain.
They promptly scheduled a meeting with Steve’s pastor.
“When we told him we wanted to get married in July, not six months later in November, he said we had extenuating circumstances,” Steve said. “He could see we were mature, and he would marry us in July.”
Then another challenge arose. In May, Ching’s medical prescriptions were getting low. She didn’t have a doctor in New York, and she couldn’t make her scheduled May trip to the Philippines. Steve’s doctor agreed to take Ching as a new patient, so she left New York for Virginia.
In the two months before the wedding, Ching slept in the bedroom of Steve's apartment while he used a sleeping bag on the hardwood floor of the living and dining room. During this time, they completed the FOCCUS marriage questionnaire and the Unveiled marriage preparation online. They secured a marriage license via an online video interview.
As part of their marriage prep, Steve and Ching listened to the Gospel story of the miracle at Cana four times.
“We drew the lesson that it’s good to invite Jesus and Mary to your wedding, so we did just that in prayer,” he said.
In July, Ching and Steve married in their parish with about 14 guests present, a few friends and family members. “The wedding and reception were delightful,” Ching said. A friend’s son took video and photos.
“We weren’t sure until the day of the wedding where we would go after leaving the church,” Steve said. They found a restaurant to safely accommodate their group. “We already knew how to distinguish between the sacred and the trimmings, so the details didn’t cause us too much concern,” Ching shared.
“I was glad to put the sleeping bag away in the closet,” Steve said.
Though they have only been married a short time, they each have more than 65 years of experience to draw on. Both are retired, so they get to enjoy a lot of time together. “We expect that good times, bad times, sickness, health, and maybe riches and poverty await us,” the couple shared.
“We will love each other no matter what. We love and respect each other, we laugh together, and we’re mostly interested in pleasing each other rather than getting our own way,” they said. “We will put each other first and God above all.”
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