Online Dating

Whenever I hear people talking about the dating scene these days, it seems that so many people meet their significant others though online dating sites or other online activities. For someone my age, this system can be hard to understand.

Except that I met my wife this way as well.

Kind of.

Back in the early Late 1970's and  early 1980's there wasn't an internet to speak of, at least not like what we think of these days. But we did have computers. I know, hard to believe that dinosaurs coexisted with computers. Just a few days after I graduated, I attended the Urbana missions conference. Included with our conference admission was a job search through and organization called InterCristo. InterCristo was an organization that did computer matches of people looking to work in Christian ministry with organizations looking for workers. (InterCristo has since been acquired by Salem Web Network which runs the Christianjobs.com website.)

What was nice about this is that many of the organizations in out InterCristo report had booths at the conference, so that we could meet with representatives of different organizations. One of the organizations on the list was called Emmanuel International. I talked with some of their reps at the site. A few weeks later, someone from that organization was in Massachusetts, so I went to chat with them more. I applied to Emmanuel International and was accepted, so that fall I ended up at their office and training facility in Ontario. While I was hanging out there, a day or so before the training was to begin, Ingrid walked in the door.

(Ingrid's route there was a bit different. She had met representatives of Emmanuel International at a missions conference at a Bible school.)

And the rest is history. I met my wife through a computer matching service—though we never really dated. And they did a good job, because we're still together and like being together. Technology may have changed, but our love remains the same.

Emmanuel International Office in Ontario