Friends

Tonight (Sunday) we had Papy Alain and his daugher Nathalie over for supper. We belatedly celebrated her 40th birthday, watched the French version of the film "Enemy of the State," on TV, and looked at some of their family pictures. As we saw the photos of them from the past 4 decades, my wife noted that we've only known Alain for the past 6 years as an older man. If we could roll back the clock, it would be interesting to see him at an earlier age.

Friendship is one of the gifts of our vocational career overseas. We're blessed to have friends from many different places. I was reminded of this again at church this morning. We only had one common service today, rather than 2 different ones as usual.

This morning we got to see Marie again, who is back in Paris after a 4-5 month internship in Missouri. We saw Jean-Baptiste, who has moved north to Lille and whose wedding we attended in 2002 when my wife was carrying our first child. We didn't get to see Antoinette (who returned this morning from her 2 month ministry trip to Togo), but look forward to it soon.

I got to have lunch last Friday with Charles, whom I first met in my initial months in France in 1988 in Albertville. That's nearly 20 years ago now!

It's late and I need to spend time with my best friend, my wife, now. It's nice having her as a permanent travel partner now.