Josh came from the state of Missouri in the US and volunteered with Sar-El for the first time at a base near Tel Aviv in 2007. Irena came from the Czech Republic in central Europe and volunteered with Sar-El in the north of Israel. They are both in their 20’s and they never met each other prior to their time volunteering with Sar-El.

Josh had never been to Europe and Irena had never been to America. In March of 2008 they were again volunteering but this time their locations were closer together. They randomly bumped into each other in Tel Aviv on the weekend. Even though they couldn’t see each other very often it was obvious that something very special was going on between them. Good thing that Sar-El provides fun trips combining volunteers from different bases otherwise Josh and Irena wouldn’t have had so many opportunities to get to know one another.

On the beautiful Purim evening of the 21^st of March Josh asked Irena out for their very first date together. They had a wonderful time walking along the beach and making plans to visit each other in their own countries. Sure enough on July 1^st Josh’s plane landed in the Czech Republic. Shortly there after he bravely asked Irena in Hebrew if she would agree to be his wife. She happily said yes. Josh and Irena were married on September 13^th and plan on returning to volunteer in Israel in the near future.

We had a lot of fun in Sar-El and we learned so much. We both had our own expectations for Sar-El but we would have never imagined that Sar-El would bring us each our true love.

 Todah Rabah!

Josh and Irena