Proposal - Adj and Maddy
Adj, the vocalist of Munimuni Band, has found the melody that will forever complete the love song in his heart. Congratulations on your beautiful engagement, Adj and Maddy! 💍
It's our joy and privilege to be a part of your milestone. Thank you also for sharing your beautiful story— on how what may seem as a delay, is actually God orchestrating the most perfect and beautiful time for your Love story to unfold.
As told by Adj:
I wouldn’t say our story was the straightforward kind. In fact, when we talk about how we got to where we are now, we often describe the journey as full of delays and times where we just had to wait it out.
I met Maddy when we were in UP, as undergraduate students. We shared some common friends from church, and we really didn’t think much of each other. We did not instantly become close. It was more of a gradual process of getting to know each other as friends. Actually, I wouldn’t normally call this the start of our love story; much of the significant development in our relationship happened after graduation.
Half-way through 2015, we started to get to know each other better while we were starting off as young professionals, just hanging out with our group of friends from time to time. Those moments became opportunities for us to understand each other better, without any pressure of getting into a romantic relationship, but it was also in this part of my life that I started praying to God for many things related to my future.
In that process of praying about the future and adjusting to a new chapter in my life as a professional, I got to know her in a more meaningful way, and this led to me praying to God specifically for her. Soon I decided to ask her if I could pursue her, with the intention of one day getting married to her. Although so many things were unclear in my life at that time, it was clear to me that I had to take a step of faith. It was mid-2016 when I first asked her out on a date, and asked her if I could court her. It was a clear ‘no’. She did not find herself getting into courtship at that time. There were many things going on in her life during those months, and I figured that I had to respect that. At the very least, I got some clarity.
After a year of ups and downs for the both of us, in November of 2017, I asked her for the second time if I could court her. Timing did not seem to be on my side, since she was going through another difficult situation at that time. It was a bad time to ask, but she did say that we could talk again at the beginning of 2018, after our annual week of prayer and fasting with our church community.
Apparently, she already had an answer right after that week. I, on the other hand, got very busy because of a big project at work. And so began another period of trying to find the right timing, for both of us. After struggling through that month, we finally got to talk again on the month of February, 2018. It was rather a quick conversation. She agreed to courtship.
When I remember this whole process leading up to courtship, I cannot help but reflect on those moments where the timing did not seem right for us. There were so many things in both of our separate personal lives that were out of our control. Finally, something worked out, and it was not because we did great in our life decisions or anything like that, but because God taught us both to submit our plans to Him and trust Him with how and when every chapter of His wonderful plan unfolds.
And so began our courtship. I still wouldn’t call this part of our story smooth-sailing. We had to go through a lot of personal struggles and to address some problems in our relationship. It was not until another three months when we finally became official, as boyfriend and girlfriend.
It was a relief for us that we got through that stage in our relationship. We felt more comfortable opening ourselves up to each other, eventually, through this new chapter. Yet, it was not the end to the delays and the waiting-it-out process.
When the pandemic hit at the beginning of 2020, I was actually already preparing to propose to her. I had talked to her family about it. I managed to save up for a ring, and actually already got to contact Lucce for it. Unfortunately, because of the pandemic, there was a lot of uncertainty in terms of finances, which led me to delay my planned proposal, which was supposed to be around March or April of the same year.
I would say that this was the most difficult period of waiting that we both had to go through. There was just so much uncertainty, as well as mental and emotional turmoil. I do not know exactly how it got through my mind, because to be frank, I think it was a miracle that I even considered the crazy idea of proposing to her anyway.
With help with some married couple friends—shout out to Mark and Rio, and Erwin and Jiezl—I managed to come up with a plan to surprise Maddy with a proposal on October 18, 2020. Thank God for the gift of friendship, because we finally got engaged!
Our proposal story certainly did not end up the way we envisioned it to be, but it is a testament of God’s sovereign plan. We may have lost hope and struggled along the way, but God remained faithful. We’re pretty sure that the next chapters of our story will not always go our way and according to our own schedule, but we do know that He who authored it is sovereign and faithful.
