'Let your vision be world embracing!'

Hi my name is Adam, I live in Norway with my wife Cecilie. We are Bahá'ís who met each other on the internet. This is the story of how an Australian (me) and a Norwegian met, fell in love, married and crossed oceans in order to share their lives together.

At the age of 26 and feeling ready to get married, I decided to let my vision be world embracing and see if there were any Bahá'í women from other countries who were also looking for someone. I found a website and decided to put up a profile of myself and also see how many Bahá'í females were out there in the big wide world.

I wasn't quite sure I was on a Bahá'í site because I found quite a few profiles with dubious descriptions of themselves that did not sound Bahá'í, and the site allowed me to select whether I preferred a "drinker" or "non-drinker"??. But finally after much searching I found a profile of someone who did sound very genuine and I was very impressed with how she described herself. Without embarrassing Cecilie about what she wrote all I will say is that she sounded like devoted Bahá'í with a love for the Faith and Baha´'u'lláh, who was looking for someone likeminded who she could share her life with.

So I wrote her a letter and told her a little about myself and to my joy I received a reply back. In the first email she said that she felt she already knew me in some strange way. We sent a volley of letters back and forth to each other and it became quickly apparent that we had many things in common other than being Bahá'í, and a mutual attraction on an intellectual level. After a few days I thought to myself "I need to see a picture of her before I fall head over heels, without knowing what she looks like".

When I first looked at the picture of her that she sent me, I nearly fell off my chair. I could not believe that such a beautiful woman was still available and this totally erased any preconceptions I might have had of the sort of people who look for love on the internet. I was so happy then that I had fallen in love with her character before seeing how she looked because then I knew it was not just physical love. The next step was sending my picture, and after seeing her' I wasn very confident in matching up, but I thought I would give it a go as I had nothing to lose. As it turned out, Cecilie was happy with my looks, which was a big relief to me.

After getting over the "visual test", we quickly moved to calling each other on the telephone. I remember the first time we talked. She told me later that she imagined me curled up on the couch with a cup of tea, candles burning, and music playing in the background. When in fact I was talking to her from my oily garage surrounded by motorbike parts and I had to put a towel over my head to drown the sound of our conversation so my flatmates did not wake up.

Over the next two months we phoned each other nearly every day. I had to get up early before work to talk due to the 8 hour time zone difference. We asked each other lots of questions and sometimes difficult and confronting questions that would give us an insight into the other person. Some of these you can read here. We realized that it is easy to fall head over heels for someone over the internet and telephone, but it may be an entirely different story when you meet them. So we took our time asking each other questions about daily life, habits (bad and good), life goals, children and family, our family history and also shared our undesirable character traits and flaws. As it happened we both had some friends serving in Haifa at the same time, so they were able to give a second opinion or character reference.

Fortunately, due to my work situation, I had the opportunity to take two months off work over the summer, so I decided to travel to Norway to meet Cecilie and her family. Before leaving I thought to myself, the worst case scenario is that it doesn't work out, in which case I have met a really nice Bahá'í and had an international holiday, and the best case scenario is that I will meet my future wife! It was a surreal experience when we met for the first time at the bus stop in her town. Here was someone I had already confessed my love to and I was meeting her for the first time. To my relief the person I had fallen in love with over the phone and internet was even better in the flesh.

The next two months were very exciting and happy times, I stayed with some of her Bahá'í friends and I would meet her everyday after she finished work. We were able to do some youth classes together at the Bahá'í winter school, which was great as I was able to meet my future Bahá'í community and they told me how wonderful Cecilie was. I would recommend to others, that if you are going to travel across the world to meet someone, make sure there is some Bahá'í service activities you can do. Not only is this a good way to assess another person's character but also gives you another reason for going, if things don work out.

Ok, back to the story, I met all her family at her Grandmother's home for Christmas, and I felt very at home and welcome. I fell in love with her family and could see that she had received lots of love during her childhood. I felt it was so important to get to know Cecilie's family as this would give me an insight into Cecilie and her nature. After meeting her family I had no doubt that she was the woman for me!

I proposed to Cecilie in Ireland, on a trip we made to visit my ancestral village. I had planned to pop the question in a romantic location, but due to the fact that she was in bed most of the time with a throat infection, I proposed to her at her bedside. She later told me it was perfect timing, as she knew I loved her even when she looked and felt horrible.

That was one month after I had arrived. I thought it was too soon to ask our parents for consent, as they would think we're crazy, so I waited another two weeks! (six weeks felt a little more sane!)

Although our parents were surprised at the speed our relationship had progressed, they felt our love was true and we were given consent to marry. The speed at which a relationship develops is going to be different for everyone, and Cecilie and I acknowledge that our experience is probably not normal nor a model for how fast others should progress. But it was right for us.

We were married in my home town in Australia with my family and friends present and Cecilie's mother and a friend made the trip over too. It had been six months from when we first wrote an email to when we were married. It has truly been a fairy tale story, and we are now very happy living in a small Bahá'í community in Norway. As of 2009 we now have two children Elliot and Emily and the adventure is continuing. Although it was difficult to leave my country and learn a whole new culture and language the benefits of finding someone truly compatible have far outweighed any downsides.

When I became a Bahá'í 7 years ago and decided to let my "vision be world embracing" I didn't realize how far that quote would take me...

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