Simon Tapia and Tabitha Austin - Married April 2014
Tabitha: In February 2013, Simon sent me a message on DT Heart & Soul expressing his interest in my profile. I had just joined our church dating site a week prior. Oddly enough in that time I had decided once again that I was not interested in meeting someone that way.
Thankfully, I had only paid for a one-month subscription at that time. Little did I know that God would have other plans. Simon continued to email me, but I was not keen on the idea of him being so far, even though I was open to international dating. After about a month of emails he asked if we could Skype. I agreed on the condition that another sister could be present at the time of our talk, and he happily agreed!
About a week later we had our very first Skype conversation that easily lasted more than three hours! We hit it off right away. I loved how easy he was to talk with, and that day he expressed that he was interested in building a friendship with me. He is the campus minister for the church in Ecuador and he explained that he had already received a ton of advice before even speaking to me. He also said that if we were going to build a friendship through Skype that we needed to be completely open and honest about our characters and take lots of advice from the spiritually wise people in our lives. This included getting to know each other’s friends as well.
We were completely transparent about our lives, our character struggles and strengths (with appropriate dialogue) and we started to get to know each other’s friends in that time as well. Simon is a man of integrity and set up really great boundaries for us to follow. He had two days a week set aside for us. One day was to have a quiet time and prayer together that would not last more than two hours. The other day was for a fun date. He would have fun games planned for us, and he even got my friends involved and had a sister deliver a flower to me. It was hidden on my back porch. He made things very special for me.
After seven months, I went to Ecuador to visit for one month. That is when we knew that it was as real for us in person as it was over Skype and email. We decided to seek more counsel in moving forward. We knew that we wanted to spend our lives together and so after much advice, we decided that getting married was our next step. In February of 2014 I moved from Seattle to Ecuador and began marriage counseling with our church here. On April 12, 2014 we were married alongside family and friends. Needless to say we are very happy, and thankful for our church website. If it weren’t for DT Heart & Soul we never would have met. Both of us never imagined we would have met someone never mind get married. God works in his own way, and he affords us ways to allow our dreams come true.
The best advice we ever received was: Let go of your way and let God decide. We all have an idea of what we desire and want. But the reality is that we hold ourselves back from seeing the blessing God has right in front of us because we have our own ideas and desires. God says that if we delight ourselves in him he will give us the desires of our hearts. Well, if we really are delighting ourselves in him than most likely our desires change and become like the desires he has for us. That was what I had to do. I let go of what I thought was good for me and I let God decide. As a result, I have something very special and God allowed us this great blessing. Let go and let God, and use the resources he gives you without complaining!
Update: Simon and Tabitha welcomed baby boy Ethan into the world on August 13, 2015. Tabitha writes, “Simon and I are so happy and thankful for meeting on DT Heart & soul. Without this opportunity we wouldn’t have met and we wouldn’t have Ethan. What a blessing for sure. “
UPDATE: Join us in celebrating the addition of Quinn to Simon & Tabitha’s family!
