Josh and Kendra first met last September in Orlando, Florida at a medical missions conference put on by Samaritan's Purse. Both RNs with a ICU background, they had each served in Ukraine earlier in the year as part of Samaritan's Purse DART (Disaster Assistance Relief Team). They had many mutual friends, but had not deployed together. After meeting in September, there was some mutual (but cautious!) interest in getting to know each other better. They spent the fall trading messages back and forth, along with a few phone calls. In December 2022, they both got the opportunity to deploy back to Ukraine, working close to the frontlines as part of a surgical operation. Five weeks together nursing the wounded and living in close quarters turned out to be quite a bonding experience! By Boxing Day, they were officially dating and got to spend New Year's together in the middle of a war zone; pretty romantic and quite the start to a relationship :) Upon going their separate ways back home after the DART ended (Kendra lived in Edmonton, Alberta and Josh in Colorado Springs, CO), the long distance, cross country romance officially began. Trading visits back and forth every month to across the border, the first half of 2023 flew by. Kendra came down for a visit to Colorado in the spring, Josh proposed in May and a month later they were married!