Company Cheer

Comings and goings, community living, warmth and conversation with friends and family: so has been the past month at 5 Kerr Street. My parents came for a three week visit on September 12th and on October 4th, the day after they left to fly back to Alberta, Canada, our dear friends who are from Wisconsin came for a five day visit.

When we lived in India, God gave us the gift of Dean and Jayne Gilge as our friends. An American couple with children my age, they lived two blocks from our apartment in India and we spent many happy evenings together and took the hazardous Sunday drive through Hyderabadi traffic to church together. On October 2, 2006 we left India and spent a week in Scotland before going back to the States for three months. Dean and Jayne left India on October 2, 2007, exactly a year after us, to go back home to Ogema, Wisconsin. They are spending the same days that we did in Paisley, Scotland— how ironic! Though a whole year had passed since we’d seen them, it feels like we haven’t been apart for more than a week. It’s strange to think that so much has passed in that “week”.:-)

So what have we been doing these past four weeks? With my parents we ate a lot of chocolate-coated digestive biscuits, went to the vegetable store, celebrated October birthdays, explored the countryside and Doune Castle, looked at birds, and John and I got to go on a date every week. With Dean and Jayne, we’ve eaten steak pies and fresh cream apple turnovers from Gregg’s, explored the Paisley Abbey, took an extremely crowded train to Edinburgh- mulling over the ancient cobbles, buildings, and museums, and drank a lot of tea. Both my mum and Jayne have been wonderful dishwashers and everyone has been entirely delightful and a blessing to have. How different life will be when all the company leaves. Jayne and Dean leave for London tomorrow and then head home to their children and friends.

How beautiful life is with people who love one another, care for one another. The little inconveniences of having one’s own space pale in comparison with the joys. We are thinking often of John’s family and how much we’d like to see them again, have them meet Kiera and enjoy Aria—not to mention seeing the many friends we have scattered about every where. The life of a traveller has its consequences—some good, some bad. But no matter where we’ve gone, God has blessed us with people who love us and who we grow to love, people we delight to know and open our homes to. These relationships are things that will last beyond the trials, joys, tragedies, and triumphs of our brief sojourn on this earth. How blessed we are in our friends!

This entry was posted on Monday, October 8th, 2007 at 8:14 am and is filed under Rachel's Musings, Reflections & Musings, Updates. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.