Tonight was the second night in a row that I felt loved and blessed by my friends. Last night, seven of our once ten member Bible Study, "Community Love", commenced our tradition of a farewell meal, and embarked on another road trip to Winston Salem. :) The 45 minute drive took us to a shabby, but characteristic park which seemed to be at an old YMCA. There were college age guys just finishing a game of basketball, a few children with their teen parents on the playground, and a very algae green, unused pool. The seven of us made our way to one of the three picnic tables, under no light. We spread out a table cloth and unpacked an eclectic array of food; pizza slices, potato salad, banana bread, fruit, and a giant cookie cake (for Nate's birthday). As the night grew darker, the boys at the table began to create a make shift lantern out of an IPHONE and a piece of tin foil. It was actually very successful...thanks to the architect at the table. The conversation consisted of job news, babies, parties, old houses, moving...and then we began our ritual of showering the person leaving (me in this case) with compliments. I have been waiting many months for my turn! :) It was a very intimate and beautiful scene. I love everyone in Community Love with a passion that they might never really grasp. I had the priviledge of ending the session by playing a song I had written for the occasion, on my dusty guitar. I actually just took it out of hibernation, and immediately wrote this song. It went very well, and was compared to the likeness of an emo song...which made me smile. We sadly cleaned up our picnic, and said our good byes, and headed back "home" to Greensboro.
Tonight was just as sad a farewell to Ava's best, best friends from church. We met them at a playground belonging to a Rec center, and the two girls (the famous Chloe and Singer-London) and Ava ran and squealed, and played like they have never ran and squealed and played before! By dusk, they were grimy, dirty, sticky, and exhausted....well we hoped they were exhausted. The girls were so sentimental and genuine as they said good bye to each other. Their mom told me she would make sure that they wrote to us while we were away. Ava has been so blessed to have friends like them, and looking back I should definitely have taken my sister's advice to make time to see them more often. Hopefully we will see them again soon one day. I would love to have Ava grow up with childhood friends, which I didn't get to do. However, to quote the early 90's Michael W Smith song...." A friend's a friend forever, if the Lord's the Lord of them."
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