A love connection isn't what Tim Young was looking for when he
joined a dating service designed exclusively for Christians.
Just a connection. A bond. A social lifeline, so to speak.
He'd lost his wife of 40 years to cancer. He'd been 19 when they
married, she 18. He had worked in the insurance industry for years
and owned a business. He had grown children. The aim wasn't to play
the field or reinvent the romantic wheel.
"I just thought it would be nice to have some Christian ladies to
talk with," says Tim. "That was it."
So on that night in November of 1997, while searching the
Internet, he stumbled upon the Christian Connection and, what the
heck, signed up for a 30-day trial. He completed his online profile,
turned off the computer, went to bed.
Ginger Morgan wasn't waiting around for Cupid's arrow to strike,
either. She'd been a CC member for a brief period. It was that same
night in November when she signed on and noticed a new profile, the
one from Tim, and thought, well, how interesting.
"I figured anyone married 40 years was a saint," says Ginger. "Or
she was."
The next day Tim logged into the service to find several e-mails
waiting. He read their profiles, even responded to a few.
One lady sounded particularly interesting, though. It was
Ginger.
"She seemed to be a self-reliant go-getter," says Tim. "She'd
raised four kids while working at a high-pressure career in
pharmaceutical sales. She got a master's degree, an MBA, went to law
school. And we just seemed a lot alike."
A whole lot. As they struck up an e-mail conversation, they
learned how close they were spiritually, philosophically,
politically. They each had four children, were trying to get in
better physical shape, drove a Dodge Intrepid.
So pen pals they became, talking about everything under the sun.
In time, as these things often do, they began to feel an emotional
attachment through the typed words (and, soon, phone calls).
Which under most circumstances would be just fine.
The problem: Ginger lived in Burleson.
Tim near Seattle.
So he came to see her in Texas. She went to see him in
Washington. Their families were a bit leery -- it was, after all, a
match made over the Internet. But Tim and Ginger had no such
trepidations. In fact, getting together only reaffirmed what the
e-mails had already suggested: There really was a love connection
here.
Six months after that November night spent at their computers,
after what turned out to be several hundred e-mails, many hours of
telephone calls, trips between Washington and Texas, Ginger, 61, and
Tim, 66, were married on May 1, 1998, in Colorado Springs, Colo.
They conducted their own marriage ceremony, a process that's
legal in Colorado, even without a witness.
Not just to be different. Falling in love via e-mail was unusual
enough.
They simply believed that God put them together, so who'd make a
better witness?
Tim has since moved to Texas, and the pair, as happy as can be,
live on a ranch just south of Fort Worth.
Tell us your story
Did you meet cute? Would your courtship, engagement proposal,
anniversary or marriage make an interesting story? If so, we want to
consider it for our new Sunday feature, "I Do, I Do." Send your
story to features@star-telegram (put I Do, I Do in the subject line)
or include it on the Star-Telegram wedding announcement
form.
