Their First Three Dates Were in Three Different Countries

You never know what’s going to happen when you sign up for CatholicMatch.

You’re looking around at your social circle, decide there’s no one there you would consider dating and decide to cast your net a little wider. Then all of a sudden, you find yourself falling for a girl across the sea, and end up with a man from Montana living in Honolulu marrying a woman from Ecuador living in Mexico.

Jacob (who is now 35) was living on O’ahu when he signed up for CatholicMatch. He was looking to date, but couldn’t find much of a Catholic Community on the island, so he thought a dating site might help him find a like-minded Catholic lady on the archipelago.

He didn’t.

He found her in Mexico.

Her name was Ximena (now 34), and they had chatted off and on for a few months before they discovered that they actually weren’t so separate as they had thought. “In fact,” Jacob reported. “I used to live with her family in Ecuador, though I hadn’t met her at that time.”

You see, in 2013 Jacob was teaching English in Ecuador, during which he had lived with a lady who turned out to be Ximena’s aunt, with whom Ximena herself had lived when she was young! Seems it is a small world after all, though flying over the Pacific certainly makes it seem otherwise.

After discovering that, of course, they had to meet, and so they arranged their first date in Mexico City (now might be a good time to note that one of the things that drew Jacob to Ximena was “her curiosity and sense of adventure”). I suppose if you’re going to date from remote corners of the globe, you might as well run with it.

They spent a week together hiking, exploring, visiting churches and historic sites, and trying new foods like chapulines and sotoi.

“I was excited to have someone travel so far to meet me,” Ximena recalled. “I was also nervous because I didn’t know how to greet him.”

The first date went well, so they arranged for a second, this time in Honolulu, with snorkeling, hiking, and paddle-boarding on the menu. Then Christmas in Ecuador with Ximena’s family, followed by Easter in Montana with Jacob’s.

The Montana trip involved exploring the snow-covered state, daily Mass at the Saint Helena Cathedral, and a marriage proposal.

It happened in the following way: they were just finishing up a seven Sunday devotion to St. Joseph, and Jacob had the idea to finish it at the Cathedral, which has a chapel dedicated to the Saint. He bargained with the sacristan to open the cathedral after hours, so they had it to themselves.

Ximena was so moved by the beautiful stained glass windows that she began to cry, and when they’d finished the devotion she began taking photos of them from her seat. Then, when she finally tore her gaze from the glorious stained glass, she discovered there was a ring on her leg and Jacob was asking her to marry him.

“When Jake first contacted me I was also praying a novena to Saint Joseph,” she said. “I felt the intercession of Saint Joseph throughout our relationship.”

Fancy that!

Following the proposal, their most serious obstacle has been navigating the wonderful world of the American Immigration process.

They had to cancel their planned wedding in Helena, Montana when they were notified that Ximena couldn’t get married on a tourist visa. Now they’re planning a civil wedding in Mexico, on the 4^th of July (rather cheeky that) in order to jumpstart the immigration process, while the sacramental wedding will be in Ecuador on October 19^th. Afterwards, they plan to live in the United States.

But, after all, a relationship that spans oceans and continents requires special commitment, which even the might of US Bureaucracy might be said to pale beside. They are both committed to each other, and admire each other greatly. Jacob says he admires Ximena for her sense of virtue and adventure, Ximena loves him for his “noble heart” and generosity. And on top of that, they have St. Joseph on their side.