good times with old friends...

I had a meeting out in east central Alberta tonight, so I stopped in Wainwright this afternoon to take a look at some buildings and also to catch up with some good old friends. Ryan is the pastor of the Nazarene Church there and we've been friends since camp days as kids back in BC. His gracious friendship has continued to be a blessing to me over the years, and visits with him are always life-giving for me somehow. We met up at the Church (which is launching expansion plans - the drawings looked quite beautiful), toured the new home he and Rachelle and the boys have built and are just about ready to move into, and then went for coffee. While we were visiting, lo and behold my good friend and college roommate Sean walked by outside! Brilliant. I'd been hoping to see him, so I dashed out and got his attention. Sean teaches Grade Six there in Wainwright, and is quite a gifted apiarist, amongst other things. He joined us for coffee, and we caught up a bit and just enjoyed the slow ryhthms of afternoon coffee that takes place in all small towns, everywhere. We joked at the high number of Nazarenes teaching in the elementary school there... nine? ten?! All in all, it was very good. No anxieties, no pressures. No earth-shattering news. Just life, together, as it comes, and the goodness of being with people who you know and who know you in return.