Married in The Philippines
Mr. and Mrs. Terry Maunu
Terry and Arlyn Maunu

The Introduction:

The advertisement on the Penpals Corner e-mail club web page read:

"Anrie...

Anrie Female, 27 yr. Filipino, Single, looking for boyfriend of any race. Must be responsible, single and marriage minded."

 Just for the heck of it, I sent an e-mail to "Anrie" to see what would happen. It was Saturday March 1, 1997. I was tired of being single so I had been checking out various introduction web pages, particularly those with contacts in the Philippines, for a couple of months, but I hadn't built up the curiosity to actually respond to any of the ads. This time I thought "Why not?" so I composed an introductory letter and sent it off to "Anrie". On the following Monday I received a brief message from "Anrie" introducing herself and encouraging me to respond further. Over the next ten days we exchanged a dozen messages. She sent me digital photographs of herself and finally on March 11th I sent her some photographs of myself.

An intriguing lady!

Merilyn (Arlyn)

On March 14, 1997 "Anrie" sent me a message that a friend of hers had seen my picture and was interested in writing to me. She said her name was Arlyn (Merilyn R. Acosta), she was 35 years old, and she included a picture and the e-mail address of a very cute and intriguing young woman with incredible eyes, a wonderful smile, and beautiful long hair. That same day I sent my first e-mail to Arlyn not realizing that it would change my life forever.

On Sunday March 16th Arlyn sent her first message to me and we began our romance over the Internet. We exchanged phone numbers and postal addresses. Then she surprised me with a phone call on Thursday, March 20th. It blew my mind. During that 20 minute call, we were both strangely very nervous and neither of us could find the right words to tell each other our true feelings at the time. In the next several days after that call we both realized that something extraordinary was happening between us and we were actually falling in love with one another. But we had only just met, and we had met on the Internet, through e-mail! Could this be? Are we insane, we are 6,500 miles apart? What is happening? Can we trust each other? All of these questions and many more filled our minds with curiosity, confusion and concern. But over the next few weeks and then months of daily and sometimes 2 or 3 e-mail messages per day and 2 or 3 phone calls per week we quickly got to know each other. We vowed that we would be 100% honest with each other and that we would not "play games" with each other. When I told my friends about our long distance relationship they gave me strange and concerned looks and offered guarded encouragement.

It felt as if a force much greater than ourselves was drawing us together. Arlyn was convinced that it was divine intervention that was guiding us, that it was meant to be, and that we would be very happy together. Her confidence in this belief and her natural ease in accepting and welcoming this "divine intervention" gradually convinced me that perhaps she was right. We both began dreaming that possibly we had finally met our "destiny". Soon we could no longer bear this long distance relationship without having met in person. We had to "check each other out". Soon we began to plan my trip to visit her later in the summer, in July. We also talked about perhaps getting married during my trip if we both agreed when we finally met. Then very early in the morning of May 1st, when Arlyn placed one of her surprise phone calls to me, I could contain my emotions no longer. I proposed marriage to her and she accepted. "Are we insane?" "What are we doing?" "We haven't even met in person yet!"

Over the next few months we finalized the plans for my trip and at 11:44 AM on Saturday, July 19th Canadian Airlines Flight 27, enroute to Hong Kong, took off from Vancouver International Airport. Later in Hong Kong I would be transferring to Cathay Pacific Airlines Flight 903 enroute to Manila. I was beginning the adventure of a lifetime.

  



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