By: Leslie Czernik, American Red Cross Volunteer

“I had this crazy feeling like that just wasn’t going to be the last time I saw her.”

Kismet, destiny, soulmates. Like the start of any good love story, it seems as though some larger force was at play to bring two Red Cross staffers together in the midst of disaster in the spring of 2023. At the time, areas in California had been dealing with flooding while deadly tornados struck Mississippi, both requiring significant response from the Red Cross to assist those displaced by the disasters.

David Bluher, Disaster Workforce Engagement Manager for the Red Cross Northwest Region, was presented with the opportunity for his first deployment in April of 2023. While David was encouraged to go to California with other staff and volunteers he knew, something inside was telling him Mississippi was the choice to make.

“I’d never seen a tornado. I knew nothing about Mississippi," said Bluher. "I don’t know what it was, but I wanted to go somewhere I’d never been before."

This simple choice would come to have a significant impact on David’s life in ways he never expected.

At the time, David had been with the Red Cross for 8 months. Prior to that, he was a high school English teacher and football coach. It was while studying for a master’s degree in international community development that David decided working for a humanitarian organization seemed like the next stage for his life.

He found that opportunity with the Red Cross, stepping into a position focused on building capacity in the volunteer workforce through onboarding and disaster response training. But he had yet to experience firsthand what he was asking of others. When David arrived in Mississippi and saw the widespread devastation, it all came together.

“You see things on the news, but it hits a lot different when you see it in person for the first time,” said Bluher.

A town of 300 people David traveled through, similar to the one his mother grew up in, “was just completely wiped off the map. It was really impactful.”

But wait, didn’t we promise a love story? Let’s go back to the second week David was in Mississippi. On Easter, after a long week of coordinating the delivery of a couple of thousand Easter eggs to shelters and local churches, David sat down at his cubicle in the Red Cross response headquarters to see “one of the only people in the whole building that was my age.”

Masiel Castro had just arrived from her home in Panama on her first deployment. Unlike others who had come to Mississippi, Masiel’s branch of the International Federation of the Red Cross typically didn’t support disaster responses locally in Panama or internationally. She was only there because a person in leadership at her office decided to send a staff member to support recovery efforts. The hands of fate seemed to be drawing David and Masiel together. Being around the same age, the two quickly bonded.

“Sitting across from each other, we started talking and I would write little messages on sticky notes and put them on her side of the cubicle,” said Bluher.

The work of disaster response doesn’t lend itself to much free time, so David and Masiel did their best to get to know each other in the evenings by going to dinner, mini golf, or just hanging out.

It wasn’t until they were both asked to travel across the state to set up a shelter location that the two were able to connect in a deeper way. The six-hour car ride to the new shelter gave them time to talk about their roles in the Red Cross. The six-hour return trip back provided the opportunity to talk about life in general, deepening their connection even more.

“We ended up continuing to see each other every night on the rest of the disaster,” David said, until it was time for Masiel to return to Panama. But it wasn’t going to be goodbye. “I had this crazy feeling like that just wasn’t going to be the last time I saw her.”

The two stayed in touch, FaceTiming every day despite the miles between them. That summer, David went to Panama to “figure out if this is for real” for both of them.

“Those couple of weeks told us everything we needed to know," he said. 

That fall, Masiel traveled to Seattle so the two of them could figure out next steps – when they would get married, where would they live, and would they both stay working for the Red Cross. To have their happy ending, Masiel chose to leave her role with the Red Cross and move to the U.S. In July 2024, they were married and are now happily building their life together.

The couple's time in Mississippi was impactful both professionally and personally. Not only did David have the chance to see the “big picture of how things work” at the Red Cross, but it also resulted in an unexpected road to travel with his soulmate by his side.

“Honestly, it just felt like a match made of crazy circumstances that shouldn’t have happened, except for the fact that we both worked for the Red Cross,” said Bluher.