Joseph Rose and Sveta Anok - Married June 2013
September 2013 – Joseph and Sveta first met on DT Heart & Soul in April of 2012. One year later, this couple overcame the long distance between Russia and Florida and were engaged! They married on June 8, 2013 and live in Tallahassee. In April 2016, they welcomed baby Kristoff to their family of six!
Joseph: After I visited Sveta in Russia and asked her to date, she came to visit me in Tallahassee with her nine-year-old son for a two-month visit. We wanted to spend a lot of time together and have our children get to know each other quickly. We knew what we were doing. We weren’t messing around, and we didn’t want to jerk the kids around. We had a lot to decide: Were we interested in each other? Were we compatible? Did our kids get along? We practiced having the children all together and managing a life together. It took only a month to realize that this new life could work. We were getting along so well, we were like twins.
Before Sveta’s going-away party, one week before she was planning on returning to Russia, I proposed. We had a big celebration with the church and began to make wedding plans. That week, we visited the immigration office in Tallahassee to find out information about visas for our future. All of a sudden we realized she couldn’t go back! Immigration officials told us that if we wanted to get married soon, Sveta couldn’t leave the country. If she returned to Russia and then applied for a visa, there was no guarantee of when she would be approved. Long story short, I had to marry her if I wanted to have a relationship with her.
Instead of going home, Sveta stayed in Tallahassee and we were married two months later. We had our honeymoon at Disney World while all the kids went to Swamp Camp in Georgia. We’ve been able to enjoy the summer together building our family, and Sveta and I have started leading a family group together.
Joseph’s advice: I encourage brothers to think about DTHS as a tool. You can’t buy a cell phone and then say, “The phone’s not working, I don’t have friends.” Buying a cell phone isn’t going to get your friends. Signing up for DTHS is not going to get you dating. You need to be on the site weekly, looking for new friends, and being open-minded.
If you are hoping to only date someone in this church – if that’s what you want – and you’re in a small church or a small city, how are you going to meet someone if not through this site? In a church with maybe 30 sisters to choose from…you may not be able to pick the love of your life out of 30 people. I dated everyone in my church. They are all wonderful, but not the person I wanted to marry. I think you’re asking for trouble if you’re going to be in a small city, only date people in this church, do nothing else, and then hope you’ll get married one day. You’re putting yourself at spiritual risk.
Sveta’s advice: DTHS is a wonderful chance to get to know many new people and at the same time not have to travel or go anywhere…It is a wonderful opportunity that God has given modern Christians, and we have such an incredible resource that we couldn’t have dreamed about even ten years ago. Even if you don’t meet anyone on this site, it is an incredible blessing from God to gain new experiences in pursuing relationships, find new friends, and find out more about yourself and your own needs and desires in a relationship. The cost of a subscription to this site is relatively small, compared to the spiritual riches you can find. Try it, and don’t miss your chance.
