The one thing you don't want to lose on a flight across the world...
Aaron was flying from New Jersey to Indonesia to meet Indra in person for the first time when he realized on the flight that he had lost her phone number.
To make things worse, he didn't have her address or any other way to contact her!
“I didn't think we were going to meet at all. I panicked ‘Oh, I'm in the capital city, and there are millions of people here, and I have no way of ever finding her because I don’t have a smart phone,'” he laughs.
The only saving grace was that Indra knew his arrival time.
I just ran back and forth between gates!
Meanwhile, Indra discovered that there were two international arrival gates at the airport, and she didn’t know which one Aaron would come through. Back and forth, she hurriedly walked from one gate to the other looking for Aaron.
It took her about three minutes to run between the two gates. She kept doing this until passengers began disembarking at one of the gates. When she didn’t see Aaron’s face, she knew he had to be at the other location.
“I went outside, and then that's when Indra spotted me,” he remembers.
It didn’t matter to him that she lived on another continent.
Aaron signed up for CatholicMatch because he had a busy work schedule, and he didn't have time to go out and meet people. He had tried other dating sites, but they didn’t work for him.
“They were Protestant sites, and the women I met didn't have too much in common with me when it came to the faith,” says the former seminarian.
On CatholicMatch, he talked to several women, but it didn't go anywhere. He kept reading profiles, hoping to find the right woman. In September of 2016, he saw the profile of a woman named Indra from Indonesia who he found attractive.
“She seemed to have the same interests as me. We both like the outdoors, the same kind of movies, and our faith is important to us,” he says.
They were also both in their early 40s. Looking at Indra’s photos, Aaron thought that she was lovely.
The first Skype date.
Aaron sent Indra a message, and they hit it off right away. Still, Indra felt shy because she was talking to someone she had never met in person. As an added challenge, communicating in English was difficult for her.
When Aaron first saw Indra on Skype, it was a moving moment for him. He never believed that love at first sight existed, but the minute he saw Indra on the screen, he fell in love.
“I heard an interior voice tell me, 'This is the woman that you are going to marry.'”
He didn’t share his revelation with Indra until later in their relationship. For Indra, Skyping reassured her. She felt relieved that Aaron looked like a good person and that he matched up to his profile.
“He had what I was looking for in a future husband,” Indra shares.
He emptied his bank account for the trip and ring.
They talked often and during one of their conversations, Aaron—after only a few months of knowing one another—asked Indra if he could to visit her.
He didn’t have any reservations about flying so far to meet her.
“I like adventures," added Aaron.
Anxious to met Indra in person, Aaron booked the flight for $1200, reserved a hotel, and bought an engagement ring.
“I knew that I was going to ask her to marry me,” he says.
During his stay in Indonesia, he took Indra to the church where she was baptized, and he asked her to marry him.
“I cried when he showed me the ring,” she remembers.
My family didn't know I had met someone, much less proposed.
Just when you think their story can’t get any wilder, Aaron shares that he didn’t tell his big family that he was going to Indonesia let alone that he was going to ask Indra to be his wife! They didn’t even know that he had met someone. When he got back to the states, he told them the exciting news.
“They wanted to know everything about her and who she was,” he says. “They were surprised that I had gone all the way to Indonesia.”
Indra’s parents knew about Aaron, but they were surprised when they found out that he’d proposed. They wanted to make sure that she was sure. Once she reassured them that Aaron was a good man and they saw how happy she was, they were supportive.
“Her family liked me, and they were welcoming and courteous to me while I was visiting,” he shares. “They asked me a lot of questions. They wanted to know that I loved Indra and that I would take care of her and treat her well.”
In July of 2017—after three trips to Indonesia—the couple was married in Indra’s home parish. After the wedding, Aaron stayed for three weeks.
“Instead of going on a honeymoon, I spent three weeks meeting all of Indra’s family and friends, and we spent time together at her house,” he explains.
And then the visa wait.
After they tied the knot, Aaron returned home and waited for Indra’s Visa to come through. They planned on her coming to live with him in the States.
“I didn't see her for eight months after we got married and that's extremely difficult,” he says.
In August of 2018, Aaron was able to fly to Indonesia and bring her back to his home in New Jersey. It was proof of his love that he didn’t have her come alone because almost every time he visited Indonesia, he would become terribly ill.
A new life in New Jersey.
Leaving her family, friends, and job was an adjustment for Indra. It was also hard for her family. Except for missing home and the cold winters, Indra likes living in New Jersey.
She doesn’t miss the food so much because Aaron—a graduate of The Culinary Institute—makes her many delicious dishes from different cultures.
“I am so lucky!” exclaims Indra, who makes Aaron traditional Chinese dishes.
Besides cooking for one another, they also like to shop together for the ingredients for their meals.
Aaron and Indra say they were eager to share their story because they could see God's hand in everything.
“Most of my life, I pursued a vocation to the priesthood, but I was never able to acquire it though I tried hard,” Aaron shares. “I thought it was to the priesthood that God was calling me to. Leaving it behind was one of the hardest things I ever did, but then I started praying about it and that's when God led me to Indra.”
