Yesterday was a long, but wonderful day, but I have to give you some background in order for you to get the wonderfullness of it all. When I first moved to Illinois in January of 1998, I came as a youth director for a church. I had long, odd hours, I knew no one but the kids I was ministering to and their parents. Socially, my saving grace was that the organization (Tentmakers) that trained me for youth ministry had set up networks of youth directors called clusters. Most of these clusters were not what they should have been, but the northern Illinois/Chicagoland cluster was kind of the poster child of clusters. We met once a month for a Friday night to Saturday (yes about 15-25 of us "adults" would have a sleep over). We did extra training together, prayed together, worshiped together. We were all transplants from other areas of the country or state, so we were each others family. We were there for each other when babies were born - or lost, jobs were lost and new ones found, and when parents died.
Sadly, over about a 2 year span, it seemed that everyone moved on. They either moved away or got married and changed their name. Regardless, I lost touch with just about everyone, as sometimes happens with groups of friends. I've never been good at consistently keeping up with people. Then, about 2 months ago I was interviewing a young woman for a job a church and as we got to talking I found out that she had been in one of my friends youth groups - and she was still in touch with him. I got his email address and found out he was getting married.
This brings us to yesterday. C and A's wedding was beautiful. I think I can honestly say, with all of the weddings I've been to in my life, I've never seen happier faces on the bride and groom. The best part of the whole day, however is the number of other "Tentmakers" that were there. I was able to catch up with some of the dearest people to me during the hardest and best time in my life. N had been a dear, dear friend throughout my Tentmaker years. Maybe the best. She got married and moved and I moved all at the same time. Then I got married too. I didn't think I'd ever find her again, but she was there yesterday. Not only are we in touch again, but it turns out that 3-4 weeks ago, she and her husband actually moved back to the area. How lucky am I?!
Well, as you can see, I'm thrilled. I've gushed for quite a while now. Our hope is to restart the annual camping trip that we used to do so we can all see each other and catch up at least once a year.
That's all for now.
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