To tell the story of how we met, it is necessary to travel back in time to July 2022. We both attended a Seed Sowers effort in Marysville, Washington. It is a minor miracle that this happened as even one day before leaving, Hope was having significant regrets about her decision to go. By the time that she left, though, she had had a couple of meaningful conversations that had intrigued her with this certain guy from New Jersey. Andrew…[insert sigh here]...remembers scant-to-none of those conversations. Fortunately, we ended up working together to make the Seed Sowers recap video, Hope provided the encouragement and pristine photos and Andrew provided the embarrassing candid photos and commentary. After this, we saw each other at several Bible conferences including those held at Stark Road (Michigan), Tampa (Florida), and Jackson (Michigan). Hope even convinced her sister (Grace) to drive with her to a gospel hall that they have never visited before (or since) because she heard that Andrew had come out with his parents when his Dad was asked to speak there.Somewhere in the range of January/February 2023, Andrew began to think about this Hope girl that he kept seeing and with whom he kept conversing. We continued to text periodically, but only when we could at least somewhat excuse it as benign. Andrew would also happen to come by whenever Rebekah was Facetiming Hope and Rebekah would make way for Andrew and Hope to chat. A pivotal moment came at a conference in Mansfield (Ohio) in late April of 2023 when Andrew met Hope’s other sister (Faith) who tried to get to know him a bit and asked some interesting questions. Well, that part wasn’t super important, except that it showed that Hope was interested enough in this South Jersey boy to have mentioned him to her sisters. Anyway, we ended up having a nice, long one-on-one conversation here and we were spared interruption by our respective sisters. After this, we spoke almost every day over text and even had a couple of calls.This all climaxed at a conference in Denver (North Carolina) where Andrew expressed his great interest in Hope by…barely talking with her all weekend because he felt so awkward. Fortunately, Hope is patient, Hope is kind etc. and we agreed to call the following day (that would be Monday June 19th, 2023 for those keeping score at home). That day, we called and Andrew asked Hope, “Do you think that our conversations might turn into something else?” [the actual verbiage of this quote has become disputed with time] and she said that she would like that. What has proceeded is many Facetimes, many laughs, a few hard conversations, and a few slices of Casey’s Breakfast Pizza. Now, we stand on the doorstep of the greatest step that we will ever take in our relationship. We look forward to it with excitement, solemnity, anticipation and fear and we look forward to having you there with us!