Hey Mike, welcome!

Chris, I have a similar relationship with my business partner, although we're personal friends as well and neither of us are native English speakers. It's good to see that such relations are formed across contintents between people who met on the internet -- I hardly think any other medium could have made such things happen on a large scale. Trust is essential, but it's funny how you can actually form trust through digital communication alone, I mean a lot of people would probably say that real world contact would be a requirement, but I know what it's like, I know several people I met on the net that I would gladly send my credit card numbers without hesitation if they asked. But I'd probably get a little curious if they one day did ask ;D