How I Fell in Love with an Arab, Part 3

In Part 1 and Part 2 of this series, I shared what had happened in my life from childhood through college that God used to prepare me for the man He would later bring into my life. For those of you who have been eagerly awaiting his appearance in the story, I have good news! Your wait is over! Well…almost. Just a few more paragraphs to go.

After college, I followed my family to a new city and a new church. Each move in my life (college excepted) had been to a progressively larger city, and this move was no exception. In addition to being the largest city I had ever lived in, my new home was also the most international, a fact that my church emphasized in helping us be aware that the nations we were called to reach for Christ were not just “out there” but were right next door—sometimes literally.

I was fairly confident that the Lord was not calling me to serve as an overseas missionary, but as I learned how many people from around the world were right here beside me, I began to wonder if perhaps the Lord wanted me to use my love for interacting with people from other cultures to demonstrate His love to those who did not know Him and who were here in my city. Around the same time, I heard a member of our church speak about his work with Bridges International at the city’s largest university. Bridges is the part of Cru (formerly Campus Crusade for Christ) that ministers to international students at universities all around the world. So when I was hired at the same university in 2016, I asked how I could get involved with Bridges.

Over the next few years, I volunteered at Bridges events and built relationships with students from around the world. Then one Friday evening in January 2019, I went to a workshop hosted by Bridges and a few other similar ministries. To be honest, I didn’t really want to go. It had been a long week; I was in my second semester of living the work-plus-grad-school life, and I was tired. I wasn’t sure I would even be able to stay awake. But I went anyway—and I’m so glad I did.

As I sat at a table at the edge of the room, a café at a local church, I listened to a panel of men with years of experience ministering in different parts of the world share their experiences to help us know how best to relate with students from different types of cultures. Several minutes into the session, one of the men called on one of the workshop attendees to share from his own experience being an international student from the Middle East—and specifically from Palestine. And that’s when I heard his voice.

I couldn’t see him, because he was on the opposite side of the room and other people were in the way, but I listened to him share about Middle Eastern culture, and I immediately remembered the man from Bethlehem I had heard in college. I knew since the student speaking was at this training workshop (and from what he said) that he was a Christian, and I was excited at the chance to hear from another brother from Palestine.

During a break, as we were getting refreshments before moving to breakout rooms, I passed by a few people talking in a group and realized that he was one of them. That’s when the thought popped into my head, “I really wanna talk to that guy,” quickly followed by, “Where did that come from?!” Not being one to barge in and introduce myself to a stranger with no reason, though, I didn’t act on my desire. In my younger days, I would have tried to manipulate the situation, attempting to nonchalantly hover nearby hoping he would look my way or trying to concoct some reason why I needed to talk to him. And it’s not that I wasn’t tempted to do so that night. I knew I had never seen him at any Bridges events before, so I was fairly certain the chances were low of me seeing him again. And I didn’t even know his name. If something was going to happen, I needed to get on it, right? Or did I?

Over the years the Lord had been breaking me of my tendency to manipulate situations, teaching me to rest in His timing instead of trying to grab control. So I left that evening, not with the angst that used to come from trying to make things happen in my own strength or ingenuity, but with perfect peace, thinking to myself, “If God wants me to see him again, I’ll see him again.” I had no doubt of that, and it was a moment of sweetest surrender.

When I got home, I told my mom about “the guy from Palestine,” but after that I didn’t think much more about him—until a couple of months later, that is, when I saw him again . . .

It was a Bridges game night at one of the leader’s houses, and the icebreaker game to start off the evening involved pairing up with someone you didn’t know yet. As I looked up, I saw him on the opposite side of the room. Our eyes connected, and we both smiled huge, toothy smiles. It was the first time he ever saw me, and I was thinking, “How quickly can I get over there,” and somehow I just knew that he was thinking the same thing (come to find out later, he was!). I know, I know—it sounds like a cheesy Hallmark moment, but that’s really what happened, folks. But alas, there were too many people between us, so we weren’t able to pair up. But over the course of the evening we interacted with each other indirectly as teammates either on the same or opposing teams in various games. At the end of the night, though, I still wasn’t sure of his name—but unbeknownst to me, he had figured out mine.

He had been in the U.S. for about eight months, having come on a Fulbright scholarship to earn his master’s degree at the university where I work. During this time, he had continued something he had been doing for around five years—praying for a helpmate. So while I had been waiting, wondering what God had in store for me regarding marriage, he had been specifically praying and alertly watching, looking for someone who fit what he had been praying for.

Another month passed before we would see each other again. In the meantime, I saw a friend’s post on Facebook that convicted me that, while I had been telling myself God had my future in His sovereign hands, I hadn’t really been talking to Him about it. So I started praying differently than I had before, specifically and explicitly surrendering my future to God.

A couple of weeks later, the Bridges Easter party came. I honestly wasn’t thinking about him being there, but when I went to the end of the food line after helping set up an activity, I turned and saw him making a beeline towards me. He got in line behind me, and I knew this was the time. So I turned around and officially introduced myself, and as they say—the rest is history. We talked for a long time that evening, and he was sure to find me before he left to see if we could exchange some sort of contact information. The hesitation I’d felt in similar situations before was nowhere to be found, and I knew that this was something different.

Just over a week later, we met for lunch and spent four hours talking. He was the perfect gentleman and was honest with me from the outset about a lot of things I would need to know if things were to progress between us, like his scholarship requirements. The crazy thing was the things we talked about didn’t seem crazy to me. We talked about so many things that were definitely not typical first date material, but everything felt completely natural, and I felt as if I had found a long-lost friend.

But what stood out to me the most in our interactions, over and above his sense of humor, his intelligence, his handsome features, and his love for his family, was his heart for and relationship with the Lord. When we talked at the Easter party, he spoke of the Lord in “normal” conversation in ways that I had heard few people do. On our first date, his prayer before our meal stirred my heart and made me sense that he would be one who would spur me on in my walk with Jesus.

Although we were raised in very different worlds, we found that we have a crazy amount of things in common—silly things like not drinking coffee; inconsequential things like being only 11 days apart in age; and significant things like agreement on doctrines of our faith. Our conversations soon let me know that this man was one with whom I could truly have a “meeting of the minds” in discussing deep topics but also one with whom I could let my long-buried silly side run free and feel completely at home. He possesses the perfect blend of responsibility and spontaneity, of seriousness and silliness that the Lord knew I needed. And as my mother always said I would find—he’s not perfect, but he’s perfect for me.      

So how did I fall in love with an Arab? It’s pretty simple really—I fell in love with a man, and that man happens to be Arab. Are there cultural differences between us? Yes. But thanks to the work the Lord has done in our lives, to us those differences are seen as assets to our relationship, not obstacles. That’s not to say that navigating the differences is always easy, but it is always rewarding. And more than that, what we have in common is an infinitely stronger foundation than any difference that presents itself: we follow Jesus, and we keep each other second.

Jesus is our first love. And by fixing our eyes on Him, we are able to love each other as we ought—selflessly, with a view toward the other’s good in all things. Do we always do this perfectly? Heavens no. But walking in the grace and forgiveness that has been granted to us by Jesus, we are able to extend that grace to each other.        

This is just the middle of our story, a story the Lord has been writing since before we were born and one which He will continue until He brings it to completion. He will continue to teach us as He has always done, and we will continue to tell of His goodness and grace in our lives—because while this may seem like our love story, the story is really His.

PC: Pamela Hollis. Used with permission.