Like every great modern love story, it began with a heart emoji. It was January, the dead of winter, and John had all but given up on dating apps. After months of fruitless searching he had more or less convinced himself that he was an old-fashioned type who would meet his future bride the old-fashioned way, or stay single forever. But after praying about it late one night something stirred and he decided to give it one more try, and that’s when he found her… Rebekah had likewise spent months in the wilderness of online dating. She had gotten a lot of “likes” but none she really liked back. She was holding out for someone special. Then, early one morning while swiping through notifications, there he was. Despite one questionable picture that almost landed him in the reject pile (a shirtless climbing action shot) she decided to give him a chance… John met Rebekah at a coffee shop in Dumbo, Brooklyn, and his first reaction was to think, “She is gorgeous, and she’s way out of my league!” They walked and talked and grabbed a slice of pizza at Julianna’s, where they stumbled on their first genuine point of connection (nerd alert) - the Lord of the Rings - with many more to follow. By the end of the first date they both felt they had met a kindred spirit and didn’t waste any time in planning date #2. They dated for a year and discovered many other “secret threads” that wove them together. Rebekah met John’s family at their annual Scottish new year’s party, “Hogmanay”, where she fit right in, being of Scottish descent and graduating from a college with a Scots mascot and Scottish traditions. John met Rebekah’s family in Indianapolis over Easter where he fell in love with their community-oriented, open-door hostpitality, having spent years striving to create his own forms of intentional community in various contexts. And they traveled together to Switzerland, where they spent a week studying at the Christian retreat center l’Abri and hiking in the Alps, discovering a shared foundation of faith and a love of adventure and the outdoors. If only we could say “the rest is history”... Despite the strong start, after a year of dating John’s unresolved ideas about what his future was supposed to look like led them to break up. Fortunately that was not the end of their story. John spent the next year having those ideas broken down one by one and replaced with a deeper experience of God’s love and grace. In the dead of the next winter - with a changed heart and encouragement from his closest friends and family - John decided to take a leap of faith and find out if it was not too late to ask for forgiveness and start again. It would be another six months of rebuilding the relationship and earning one another’s trust before John and Rebekah were finally ready to make it official. Kneeling on a sand dune with the sun setting over Lake Michigan, John asked Rebekah to be his wife and she said yes! — We are so grateful to our friends and family who prayed for us, encouraged us, and did not lose hope, even when it seemed that all was lost. We are so excited to celebrate with you in a few short months!