At age 35, Sang had begun to pray for God to find him a wife.
Unsurprisingly, as many of us have experienced, God was silent. Sang figured that God just wanted him to wait, so wait he did. Age 37 came, then age 42...and nothing had happened. Sang began to lost hope.
When 45 hit: “I decided to throw myself on the floor, praying in the morning before going to work and at night before heading to bed,” Sang says. And guess what?
Nothing happened.
That’s right, nothing.
When January 2018 rolled around, Sang turned 47 years old. It had been twelve long years of looking for a Godly, Catholic wife. He’d been using CatholicMatch, but Sang hadn’t been led to a faithful marriage.
So he decided that God's silence meant the obvious: he was supposed to remain single.
A happy married life just wasn’t God’s will for him. He resigned himself to this fate and tried to move on with his life in Toronto, Canada.
And then. Has anyone else noticed that just when you’ve given up, God gives you a great big surprise?
Sang logged in to his CatholicMatch account, to begin deleting messages and emails he’d received over time. He noted how a few messages were from women in with a country code “PH.”
“I thought ‘PH’ was an abbreviation for Philadelphia, but to my Google research, it was for Philippines. Immediately I deleted all emails coming from there,” Sang said. “It's too far to travel and I don't know the culture or language.”
But just when he was erasing the last ones, Sang ran across Maria’s smiley icon in his inbox.
He almost pressed delete, but a little voice in his ear said “not this one!” Sang decided to take a leap of faith. After all, he couldn’t get any more alone than he already was, right? He sent a smiley icon back to Maria. As Maria recalls, she’d messaged him out of attraction to his smile, and because he was an accounting graduate, just like she was.
From those two smiley faces onward, their relationship blossomed! After they began talking on CatholicMatch, it was as if a whirlwind of romance hit them both. By May of that year, Sang flew down to the Philippines to celebrate Maria’s birthday in her native land. Meeting him in person, Maria found that Sang accepted her family as if they were his. He also displayed traits of her dad, like honesty and always staying calm and soft, even in the face of conflict. Her favorite thing about meeting Sang was how he made her laugh and smile all the time!
Despite the twelve hour time difference between them, the two kept their relationship going strong by sending each other messages in the morning, so the other can read them before they go to bed. They scheduled video calls similarly, so they could chat “face-to-face” almost every day. Both began to rely on those calls more than they’d ever expected.
Sang made more trips to the Philippines as the months passed. This impressed Maria because Sang kept carving time out for her, despite his busy schedule and the long travel hours. One of their favorite things they got to do while dating was to travel to new countries. Maria says exploring unfamiliar places let them discover more about each other.
To no one’s surprise, the two were wedded on March 23rd, 2019 in Maria’s hometown of Bohol, in the Philippines.
“Time was so short and there were more challenges,” Maria said. The two had to plan a wedding together while they were separated by an ocean, after having known each other a total of fourteen months. “But when Sang said ‘I do,’ I knew I would love doing it all over again!”
The wedding wouldn’t be the end of their challenges. Right now, the two are working hard so Maria can come join Sang in his Canadian home. Having your spouse halfway across the globe presents some unique obstacles!
“Being miles from him is the hardest. I know God is teaching us to be patient, be stronger, and have faith in Him as He will take me to Sang's side. Wherever Sang is, there will I be,” Maria says, a simple explanation of how she deals with the difficulty of being separated.
She says the best part of being newlyweds is being able to decide together with Sang how to deal with the many challenges that face them. Working through things like distance, small arguments, and future plans helps them know each other deeper. “We talk, laugh, and pray together,” Maria continues, “And as we continue to discover each other more, our commitment to love grows with it.”
“I want to encourage others not to give up on hope,” Sang emphasizes. “Be a prayer warrior! God is listening but his timing is perfect.” Sang himself didn’t know for twelve years what would be coming. He sees now that perhaps, if he had married someone else earlier in his life, he would not be happy as he and Maria are right now. Love is always worth the wait!
