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Love Across the Seas

by Allison Hunter

Can a widowed retired school teacher find love after a quarter century as a single parent? Listen to his daughter recount this heart-warming love story.

People get used to things. After over twenty years of being a widower, my dad had gotten used to being a single parent. Sometimes though, when we get used to a certain lifestyle, God allows change to alter our lives. Although my dad had certainly experienced periods of discontentment as a single adult, as evident from his participation in matchmaker services, he had also resigned himself to not finding a suitable partner and had even become comfortable with his life as a single adult. As I said though, sometimes our lives don't get to stay static.

Each weekday around noon, my dad would bring home our mail to look at during his lunch break from school. One lunch hour in 1993, he brought home a thin blue envelope with a letter in it from a woman who lived in the Philippines. As it turns out, she had been looking through an old Christian magazine, one that listed pen pal information, and had come across my dad's name. Although the listing had not divulged my dad's age, she had given hers. Immediately, my dad decided that she was too young for a relationship to develop between them and told her so in a polite response.

If she went along with my dad's rejection of her, isn't this the end of my story? Actually, it's not, because her father thought that my dad deserved a partner and took it upon himself to find a wife for him! Being a pastor, her father knew several single Christian women and quickly introduced my dad to one of them. Furthermore, he proceeded to stubbornly push my dad (and the youth leader whom he'd introduced to my dad) in the path which he felt was God's plan for them. Specifically, not long after the two of them had engaged in regular correspondence with one another, he encouraged them to think about committing to one another in a serious relationship.

Over a period of several months, the two of them shared details with one another of their lives such as information about their family, residence, education, and daily routine. Her parents also exchanged letters with my dad. As well, other members of her family (three sisters and a brother) introduced themselves. Plus, she and I exchanged sporadic letters. Everyone seemed enthused about the developing relationship between my dad and Leonora!

Hence, at the end of the school year (and his last year of teaching school), my dad made his first trip to the Philippines. Change rarely seems to happen without a few nightmares being thrown in and this trip constituted one of them. Unknown to my dad until his arrival at the Manila airport, the pastor's family and his potential wife's family were in the midst of a dispute, so neither one wanted the other to meet my dad. She got to him first and her family hustled him away to stay with them. I received a phone call from him that night, filled with adoration for Leonora. Although my dad had shared with me all his earlier attempts to find a partner, I couldn't recall hearing him so infatuated before and so felt delighted!

However, these high emotions evaporated when he called at the end of the week from a mall, for his voice sounded drugged. As well, he asked me for proof of who I was and then talked of an overheard plot to kill him. I prayed the entire night but don't think I rested until Filipino contacts of local friends of ours rescued my dad and returned him home to me. Throughout the hours of his journey home, his girlfriend's family and the pastor's family called so many times to inquire about my dad's whereabouts that I borrowed an answering machine to screen calls. I had no idea what had happened to my dad but had no intention of letting anyone in the Philippines know where he was until he was safe in Newfoundland.

At first, my dad wanted nothing more than to return to routine life. Soon though, to the consternation of other relations and myself, he wanted to resume correspondence with Leonora. Despite concluding that heat exhaustion had been the cause of my dad's near mental breakdown, we felt reluctant to trust anyone with whom we couldn't have an in-person relationship. However, my dad had faith in God, as well as in the woman whom he had fallen in love with in the Philippines, and so he replied to her letters that had been sent after his departure and their correspondence resumed.

Soon my dad's life revolved around corresponding with his fiancée, as well as filling out immigration forms so that he could bring her to Canada. Life suddenly became full of slopes, hills, and potholes, with stretches of highway being remote occurrences. The two tried to write daily, but many times letters were delayed and so there were days when my dad walked home without familiar blue envelopes.

Of course, just as change rarely happens without a few nightmares bring thrown in, so relationships rarely cement without bumps. The two had their share of them and those days, without stretches of highways to coast upon, were filled with anguished conversations between my dad and me. Sometimes I patiently listened, but other times I couldn't fathom the emotional intensities that my dad endured while waiting for the time when he could once again hold his fiancée.

Fortunately, the delays in arrival of letters sometimes meant that there were days when my dad walked home with a handful of blue envelopes! Through regular letters and phone calls, the two shared more of their inner thoughts and feelings with one another. Unfortunately, as their love for one another grew, so did their heartache over being halfway around the world from one another. Obviously then, letters and phone calls compared little to receiving notice that Leonora's immigration papers had been approved!

Of course, then we all had to deal with our concern over how my dad's returning to the Philippines to bring Leonora back with him to Canada might affect his health. Our fears were reasonable, as even my dad's brief stay in Manila resulted in his once again experiencing hallunications. This time though, he had Leonora with him and the two of them returned to Newfoundland without mishap. On June 29, 1994, my dad and Leonora Raagas became a married couple!

Is this the end of their story? No, actually it's more of a prelude, which tells of how the foundation to their enduring relationship was laid. The two were drawn to one another because of their common faith in God, refused to allow obstacles break apart their relationship, and have continued to share their lives with one another.

Their marriage, and how we all adapted to one another, is another account!

Note: At the time of the writing of this article, Allison Hunter was working and studying at the University of Nebraska. Since 2004 she has been working in the state as a special education teacher. Her father, Robert Hunter, has now completed his PhD in Theology by correspondence, specializing on the writings of the Apostle Paul. He is involved in Men's Bible study and Sunday school in his church. His wife, Leonora, is a church musician. She has also rececently completed her certification as a health care worker in nursing homes.

© Allison Hunter