New Brigden couple met in Israel

By Joan Janzen

Sometimes you have to travel long distances to meet that special someone. Connie and Jim Ness from New Brigden, Alberta, will celebrate their fourth anniversary this March. They shared the story of their surprise meeting in Israel.

Jim is a farmer in the New Brigden area. He lost his wife in August 2016 and had two adult children and two grandkids. Jim believes in prayer, and by the fall of 2017, was asking God if there was a wife for him. “But I said I’m not looking for her; you’ll have to put her right in front of me,” he said quite emphatically.

Jim and Connie Ness of New Brigden met in Israel four and a half years ago. PHOTO SUBMITTED

Meanwhile, Connie was happy with her life in Surrey, B.C., where she taught deaf children. She had been a single mother for many years, raising two sons. One of her sons was killed in a tragic car accident in 2006. “I was fine being single and wasn’t looking for anyone,” Connie said.

Connie thoroughly enjoyed taking trips to Israel, where she volunteered at a ministry that helps support young members of the Israel Defence Force (IDF) who are just arriving in Israel. On three previous occasions, she had travelled to Israel, where she volunteered at organizations that blessed Holocaust survivors and young lone soldiers of the IDF. In October 2018, she was planning yet another trip to Israel.

“I almost wasn’t able to make that trip because it was the middle of the school year,” she said. “But finally, I did get permission to go.”

Meanwhile, back in New Brigden, Jim was also planning a trip to Israel to volunteer at the same organization. “In June, I told my friends I was planning to go to Israel to volunteer as support for new IDF arrivals, and they asked if they could go with me,” Jim said. So after harvest was done, Jim, along with five friends, travelled to Israel in October 2018.

The group toured throughout the region before heading to a Kibbutz (a cooperative farm), where they spent time volunteering and becoming acquainted with young soldiers.

It was very hot on Jim’s last day at the Kibbutz. “So we decided to go for a cold drink,” he said. “There was a long flight of concrete steps, and when I was about three-quarters of the way up, I saw Connie sitting with friends who I had lunch with earlier.” When he reached his friends, he chatted while secretly checking if Connie was wearing a wedding ring.

At this point in the story, Connie interrupted to explain, “I had a ring that I had bought in Israel, that I usually wore on my wedding finger, but it had just broken, and so I wasn’t wearing it.” If she had been wearing it, this would have been the end of this story, but it was just the beginning.

It was Connie’s first day there, and she was excited to be there and begin volunteering. “I sat down and noticed this Canadian farmer was there,” she said, not paying much attention to him. “Then he mentioned Piapot, Saskatchewan. I grew up in Piapot, and no one in In BC even knows where it is. But here was this man who knew about it, so I wanted to talk to him.”

Jim then piped up, “I happened to mention Piapot, and immediately she started paying attention to me. She wasn’t interested before that, so I introduced myself.”

They started chatting, and before they knew it, their friends had left. “We started sharing from the heart. He shared about his wife’s death, and I shared about my son’s death,” Connie said. “We were surprised at sharing such deep things right away. It was unusual.” Finally, Connie said she had to go work and said goodbye.

While talking to her friends later, she found out Jim was leaving the next day. Connie asked for his phone number and called him. “I was nervous about calling him,” she admitted. Jim said he picked up the phone, and when Connie said hello, he smiled.

It was the beginning of a whirlwind romance of texting, phone calls and visits. Two months later, they were officially engaged. Soon Connie would be moving from bustling Surrey, BC, to a farm near New Brigden, Alta.

“I did ask how far the nearest Star Bucks is from New Brigden,” Connie admitted. “He said about two and a half hours, and it’s over an hour to the nearest Tim Hortons.” Connie continued to describe her first visit to the farm at New Brigden.

“When we were coming down the driveway, I saw his horses and said, ‘You have horses!’” Connie exclaimed. “I have a passionate love of horses, but I never told him I loved horses, and he’d never told me he had horses. But when I saw them and said, ‘I’m home!’”

Four months later, the 69-year-old and 74-year-old were married at Kindersley on March 23, 2019. “It was a traditional Israeli wedding with Israeli music and a Jewish dance,” Connie said.

“We both have a heart for Israel and for young people, and we’re both politically inclined. We know life will continue to be an adventure together,” she said.