Day 5.278: Friends far and near

I've never been very good at keeping in touch with people. I have great friendships and value them hugely but I've just never been very good at correspondence of any sort. It's not even that I don't think about people when they're not around - I do - I just don't do anything about it.

I realise that this blog has meant that my friends are very much in touch with what we're doing, but it is - to a close approximation - the only way anyone hears from me.

So it is all the more joyful when we see our friends and find that they are still friends even when we've barely been in touch for so long.

D, often referred to as "Exile #3's godmother" - mostly because it's an easy nameless epithet that fits with the anonymity that I value here - was probably our first friend when we moved house (across the UK) in late 2000. We met her at a church homegroup meeting and she immediately made the place feel more like it could be home for us.  She is flying back to the UK now, I drove her to the Amtrak station after she posed for this picture.

This evening J and T were over for dinner as we mark the end of our crazy little church.  Much like the way we met D, we met them (properly at least) at a church homegroup meeting when we had recently arrived here.  Now, we will move on as friends, but no longer as co-leaders of our church to see what the future holds for us and our families.  After five years it's a strange feeling, but we have gained much and learned much and shared much and will move on positively, not looking back and wondering about the what-ifs.