In 2017, Jed decided to switch up how he was praying for a future wife.
He began to pray to meet someone who was perfect for him in God's eyes, not someone he thought was his type. About a year later in March 2018, he began searching for long-distance options on CatholicMatch.
Even with a decade of online dating experience under his belt, he hadn’t found a good match close to home. So maybe it was time to try something a little different.
That’s when he found Vero's profile.
Even after seeing more than 10,000 profiles in his life, this Ecuadorian lady jolted him as never before. “She was stunningly beautiful, believed what the Church teaches, and seemed open to long distance,” Jed, age 32, says. “It was an easy decision to message her, but I was not expecting to hear back.”
When she did respond, he was ecstatic but cautious, knowing how infatuation can cloud judgment and tempt him to jump in too fast.
Vero, for her part, gave CatholicMatch a try after her best friend met her husband online. She remembers checking Jed’s profile before responding to his message, and was pleasantly surprised to find how interesting he was.
“We started a friendly conversation (online) and after several messages, we exchanged numbers to have our first call,” Vero, age 30, says. “I suggested that he download WhatsApp to be able to communicate by instant messages.”
WhatsApp is a free international messaging app that many couples use to communicate while their sweetie is traveling elsewhere. The two began talking, watching movies, and singing karaoke together over video chat.
“In the first call I could feel connection with him,” Vero remembers.
She says that despite English being her second language, they could communicate well: he understood her English, and she understood his limited Spanish. Sometimes Google Translator was handy for confusion, though!
In May, a couple months after getting to know Vero, Jed decided to speak with a priest he knew and trusted. Since he was talking to multiple women, including Vero, he felt it was time to find direction in one way or another. One of his main worries about Vero, besides the language difference, was that he might have to fly to another country to meet her for the first time, which was intimidating.
After a good talk with a priest, Jed decided that it was time to go on some first dates with the women close to home.
This was a necessary step to eliminate confusion or “what ifs” before deciding to fly to Ecuador.
Even with the allure of being close to home, these first dates quickly gave Jed direction. “It was readily clear to me that I needed to buy an international plane ticket to meet someone who, all along, I had sensed had the strongest faith,” Jed reports.
“One night in June, after chatting all day, Jed told me about his feelings and his intention to visit me,” Vero recalls. She was thrilled by his announcement, and admitted to herself she’d been waiting for that moment for a long time.
They discussed possible dates for the trip, and though Jed was thinking November, Vero asked if he could come in August, instead. She knew, with prayer, that the sooner they met in person, the better. Jed bought August tickets the very next day. They continued to video chat, and soon Jed gathered up the courage to ask Vero to be his girlfriend.
“I told him that I had to wait for the month of August to give him my answer,” she says.
The fateful day in August arrived when Jed woke in the middle of the night to catch his plane to Ecuador. “Many other people would see this as crazy, but I had a sense that I was doing what God wanted me to,” Jed declares.
“When I saw him exit from international arrivals I was so excited. Finally I had him close to me and I could hug him!” Vero recalls. That night, she made good on her promise and told him she would be his girlfriend.
“I already knew I wanted her to be my girlfriend. Then while I was there, I knew that I wanted her to become my wife,” Jed says of that trip. Exploring Guayaquil, Ecuador felt unlike any other first date, and he felt closer to Vero than ever before. Vero introduced him to her family and brought him to her favorite places in her home city. They went to Mass, received Communion, and went to Confession together as well.
Each day that passed together, Vero felt a confirmation of the love she had for him, and a longing to share a home together.
“I had never felt so loved and protected by someone,” Vero reflects.
Saying goodbye when Jed returned to the U.S. was especially hard for them. In the airport, Jed told Vero he would be back for her. She whispered back that she would be here waiting for him.
Needless to say, soon Jed was planning a proposal. He recalled a story Vero had told him about the Sanctuary of Schoenstatt in Guayaquil. Many years ago Vero and a friend wrote letters of what they would like their future husbands to be like, and they buried them under one of the trees in the sanctuary, with the purpose of remembering their prayers. Little did she know the surprise coming in that very spot!
During one of several trips to Ecuador, he and Vero got up for early Mass in that same Sanctuary. They then prayed the Rosary together, and Jed asked if she would join him for fifteen minutes of meditation on the life of Jesus.
When they finished the meditation, Vero got up to leave.
She thought maybe he wanted to pray aloud together, and turned to say they must whisper so not to interrupt others in the Sanctuary. But she saw Jed on one knee, holding a ring! He asked her to marry him in Spanish, and Vero was delighted to accept.
When asked what advice they have for other couples, Jed says not to confuse what you want with what you need, “It is easy to look for something easy that fits in our life, someone that lives near us, speaks the same first language, or has a lot of the same interests. But sometimes what we need is not the same as what we want!”
Jed and Vero have already gone through the Visa process and approval, since they plan to live in the U.S. after they wed. Their wedding was July 25th, 2019 and took place in Pennsylvania.
