Well, as you probably already know, on July 22, 2008 I went through with it and married Elena (Helen) Gavrilova from Russia.  I've been single now for 10 years, so it was quite a big step for me.  After my last (third) marriage ended in divorce in 1998, I decided I needed to work on myself because there was obviously something I needed to heal inside to develop the kind of relationship I wanted with someone. I've had a couple of girlfriends since then, but no one who has even lived with me.

The story of how I met Helen is interesting and I thought I'd share it with those who are interested.  Several years ago I was listening to an audio series by Hans Christian King called Stop Searching and Start Living.  He talked about the importance of defining very carefully what you want in every area of your life and asking for it.  For instance, he said, if you just ask for a relationship, God will hand you the first relationship that comes along.  He suggested you define exactly what kind of a partner you were looking for and what kind of a relationship you wanted. 

I realized that I had done this in my professional life, but had neglected to do this in my personal life. I decided to think very carefully about what I wanted, especially in a relationship.  I wrote down the qualities I wanted in a partner and the kind of relationship I wanted to have with her.  As Mr. King suggested, I prayed and told God that I wanted a partner like this and a relationship with her that was like this (and I added or something better because I knew God might know better than me what I needed) or I wanted to stay single for the rest of my life. I was not going to settle for anything less.

I was not raised with the idea that you ask for what you want and sit back passively and wait for God to bring it to you.  So, I decided to do my part by putting up my profile on various websites and otherwise trying to meet women.  Mr. King said that you have to trust that once you ask, the wheels of the universe start moving to bring you what you want, but like a journey from one place to another you have to cross the distance in between.  So, I figured that each date I went on, each person I met was bringing me one step closer to being the kind of guy that would be attractive to the kind of woman I wanted.

After about a year and a half of doing this, I was feeling pretty discouraged.  I had not been able to get past a second date with anyone before alarm bells would start going off inside of me and I'd just want to bolt.  It just never felt right.  This was in the fall of 2006.   Shortly after returning from the TAC trip to China, I told God, this is frustrating, if she's out there, please bring her to me.

Five months earlier, I had put a profile up on an international dating website for Russia, Ukraine, Brazil, etc.  This somehow put me on other Russian dating sites and I would up getting all kinds of emails from attractive, usually much younger, Russian women.  It was kind of fun, but I ignored them, thinking it was ridiculous to pursue a relationship with someone that far away, that young and from a different culture to boot. 

Well, within a couple of days after I told God to bring her to me, I got an email from Helen. There was something about her eyes that seemed kind (and perhaps a bit sad) and something inside of me said "write to her."  My logical brain kicked in and said, "no, she's too far away, she's too young and this website is too expensive."  However, for the next few days I kept going back to her picture and kept getting the feeling to "write to her."  After four or five days, I decided, "she seems like a nice person, it might be nice to have a pen-pal," and so I decided to write to her on that basis.

I figured I had nothing to lose, so I was completely upfront about the fact that I had been married and divorced three times, had five children, was still recovering financially from my last marriage and some problems with previous business partners.  I figured that if this scared her away, it would save me wasting my time and money.

Her responses were very kind and genuine and something about what she wrote back to me felt like it entered my heart and touched a place that had been dead for a long time, a feeling of romance.  I talked to my men's group about it because my logical brain said, "this is nuts," but something in my heart felt drawn to this lady.  My guy friends said, "go for it."

I found out later that the reason she had written to me was because she had a temporary job as a translator for the dating agency and because she was single they had her write to some of the guys to get them to write back (you have to pay to send emails and have them translated).  I was one of the guys she picked to write to, but she was no more interested in finding a foreign guy than I was in looking for a foreign woman.

We corresponded almost daily for four months, and I started to lose interest in dating anyone.  Still, I resisted the idea of taking it further.  After all, she was a lot younger than I was and it would cost me several thousand dollars just to meet her.  But, my heart kept telling me that I should pursue this.

After four months, she wrote me some things and they so touched my heart that I knew I had to meet her and I also knew I was going to ask her to marry me.  I found some Russian phrases on the internet and constructed a marriage proposal in Russian and memorized it and bought an engagement ring.

So, in May of 2007, I went to Krasnodar, Russia and met Helen.  We spent the whole week together and it was wonderful and I did ask her to marry me, in Russian.

I went over and saw her again in September and spent a week with her in Moscow. 

I won't go into further details except to say that Helen is very different from any woman I've ever been with.  She is what I asked for (and better). 

I think the lesson I want to share with you is that defining what you desire carefully, asking for it and trusting your heart to guide you towards it (your head won't) does work.  I don't know what's next, but I do believe that the almost miraculous way I met Helen is enough to tell me that this wasn't my doing.  I would never have pursued anything that appeared so foolish or illogical.  But somehow there's a destiny that brought the two of us together.  Where we go from here, only time will tell, but I have much greater confidence that God hears our heart-felt requests and will guide us towards the good desires of our hearts if we allow Him to.