2 minute read
quirky romantic joyful
With more than 8 million views in the past two months, Jean Paul Yirka and Elizabeth Challinor are the face of qathet to the world this winter.
Our Valentine’s Day diplomats.
Their short video on Instagram, captured on vacation in Ireland by Christopher Ward for his Model Strangers page, reveals a marriage that is the very definition of #relationshipgoals.
Two free spirits, bound by God
Jean Paul Yirka and Elizabeth Challinor met each other through their children’s involvement in Assumption Catholic School in 2002.
They had lived in vastly different worlds: Jean Paul, a true hippie from the woods, living without electricity or many worldly trappings, and Elizabeth, a probation officer and artist, always happy to be immersed in the vibrant energy of the city. A strange couple indeed. Unlikely to make an easy go of it. Many around them had their doubts about the longevity of this unusual pairing.
They kept company with each other nonetheless, for months and several years.
Jean Paul was, at times, like a fish caught on a hook, thrashing and fighting to get away. And Elizabeth would sometimes pray for divine intervention so that she could be free from this wild and irreverent woodsman.
But their interior protests were to no avail as an unseen author was weaving these two stories into one, and so finally there was a wedding day.
Before Father Hamilton began the Mass, he addressed those gathered: “I’m sure most of us are thinking the same thing: ‘What took you so long?!’”
This sacrament of marriage bound Jean Paul and Elizabeth tightly together, and through the years provided the grace and strength to ride out any storms of discontent.
A union of those two alone would have been a challenge to say the least, but a marriage between three [God] was a chance for perfection.
As strange as it may seem, Jean Paul and Elizabeth continue to fall in love with each passing year. He remains wild and irreverent, but she has learned to live happily with her woodsman. Both Jean Paul and Elizabeth know in their hearts that only death will separate them.
