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Richard was 32 years old and just home from deployment in Iraq. He struggled to stay consistently true to God’s plan, and when he wasn’t finding much success in the dating scene he turned to online dating and CatholicMatch for a last-ditch effort.
Kim had already tried online dating but found the results abysmal.
She had a very bad experience within the Catholic Church and was estranged from it for a brief period, but upon returning she realized that she only wanted to date a Catholic.
“I knew I wanted to date only Catholics and I saw an ad for a Christian matching site,” she said. “Right next to it was a CatholicMatch ad, she said.
Kim reviewed CatholicMatch and like Richard, she liked that questions such as frequency of Mass attendance, along with uniquely Catholic devotions such as the rosary and adoration, were a part of the profile questions. She also liked the personal interview feature.
She made a decision to expand her search parameters just a bit wider in her state of Texas. The wider search enabled her to pick up Fort Hood, the Texas military base where Richard was stationed.
His profile was honest and funny, she recalled. “I could tell he had a great sense of humor,” she said.
Kim, then 27, was a little nervous about contacting Richard and they swapped profile views.
She decided at least to fill out his personal interview. It had several off-beat questions such as, “What does green smell like?”
His playful interview confirmed that Richard was indeed lighthearted. He sent her a message in response to the interview and two weeks later they got together at a point halfway between them.
While Richard and Kim trusted each other, they each took appropriate safety precautions before meeting for the first time. Each told someone else where they were going, who they were with and promised to call if they weren’t home by a certain time — wise counsel for anyone in online dating.
When Richard and Kim met in person everything clicked. They shared a common outlook on faith and family, and found they shared a lot of the same likes and dislikes.
Most of all they were impressed with the character of the other. Wholesome, genuine and sincere were the words Richard used to describe Kim, while her descriptions for him were honest, light-hearted and trustworthy.
It was during Richard’s third deployment to Iraq that he came home on leave. His plan was to propose after the deployment was over, but he couldn’t wait, and had bought a ring. Kim picked him up at the airport, and on the way home they stopped for lunch at the restaurant where they first met.
In the middle of chicken fried steak he proposed, Kim recalled. “This was a total surprise to me (because) Richard doesn’t like attention, and is not a showy or public person,” she said.
Today, Richard and Kim are happily married with two beautiful children, Eva Marie and Samuel James.
Kim now is glad to be a stay-at-home mom with the children, where the three of them generously share their husband and dad in his service to us all.
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