• June 10th - My younger sister (Katie) flew to France on a ministry trip
• During her stay she met Coralie who was the translator for the church
• My sister and Coralie became great friends and my sister talked with Coralie about her family back in the united states
• Katie told me about a beautiful French woman she met but told me I wasn’t allowed to talk to her because she was too good for me (and I would agree, she is way out of my league)
• During the following week (June 10th – June 22nd) Katie and Coralie would talk about ministry in the USA and develop a life-long friendship
• June 25th I decided to send Coralie a friend request.
• Coralie saw the request and didn’t accept it so I waited a week and sent her another one.
• Katie Called me and asked me what my intentions were with Coralie. I explained that she told me about how wonderful she was and I wanted to find out for myself.
• Coralie accepted my request on July 8th. We began talking that day via facebook messenger
• After we started talking, we haven’t missed a day to communicate with each other.
• I began developing feelings for Coralie after about a month of speaking for hours through messages. I decided to get an international calling plan so I could talk with her on the phone. That first month we spent 477 minutes combined over 24 phone calls for the month. We had to limit our phone time because of the time difference. I would only get 30 minutes to an hour every day that we could physically talk.
• I discovered she had an iPhone and that we could facetime video and audio call. So instead of paying the extra $20 a month for international calling we decided to stick with internet calls.
• I thought it would be a romantic idea to mail each other letters So I asked her to send me a letter
• I sent a letter back and Coralie sent 3 more letters that I haven’t been able to reply to
• In early august I asked Coralie if I could come to France to visit her and meet her family. She said yes and I made plans to come.
• In September I bought a plane ticket and put in for PTO at my work. I unfortunately applied for my plane ticket at the same time I applied for my passport.
• I am in an open custody case with my daughters mother and have some child support arrearages from over a year ago. Those late payments have resulted in my being unelidable to get a passport. I lost the money I sent to expedite my passport and I couldn’t transfer the plane ticket.
• Coralie decided she would come to the USA instead. She bought her ticket but I wanted to make the financial burden easier on her so I wired her money to cover the cost of the ticket
• October 17th – Our meeting is still going to happen!!!
• The countdown is under way and Coralie and I are sending videos back and forth.
• I began speaking with her family who were also excited about our trip
• Early September I began speaking with Coralie about the idea of marriage as I was falling in love with her
• We discussed our goals and how us getting married would fit into that.
• November 13th I picked up Coralie from Tulsa International Airport. She was very nervous and could barely speak English at first. I drove her to my parents house where she would be staying while she was in America.
• November 14th I took her to breakfast at my favorite breakfast restaurant, Black Bear Diner. And that morning I knew this was the woman I wanted to marry.
• I asked my mother to clean the ring my grandfather gave to my grandmother so I could use it to propose to Coralie.
• November 15th I picked up my daughter from her mother so she could spend the weekend with me. She and Coralie met that night where they exchanged gifts and laughs.
o I had talked with and had Facetime conversations with Coralie while Aubree was with me so they had “met” before
• November 17th I took Coralie to my church and we were able to worship together. She told me that day she felt God confirm to her this was where she needed to be
• November 19th we took a trip to Oklahoma City to see my office headquarters and go shopping. I introduced her to my boss and some of my co-workers
• During her time in America we spent every day together because I was on PTO. We went out to eat, we made food together at my parents house and made lots of memories
• Friday November 22nd (technically Saturday morning) I stayed up until 3:30 am so I could speak with her mother and father to ask for their blessing to propose to Coralie.
• They were so happy and were pleased to give me their blessing.
• Saturday November 23rd I planned to take some professional pictures so we could have them and also to document the proposal.
• I took Coralie to 3 locations:
o A local park in Broken Arrow
o Downtown Tulsa
o A small garden in tulsa
• I picked the greenhouse to propose to her in because she had told me in a conversation once how much she wanted a greenhouse in her future home.
• I’m pleased to say she said YES!!!
• We ended our day with some BBQ and lots of kisses/hugs.
• Sunday November 24th I took Coralie to church for her last day in America. We had lunch with my family and I took her to the airport at 5:00 for her 7:00 take off.
• Monday November 25th I started building our I-129F petition packet and here we are today
