My Oldest friends....

Cheryl, Sharon, Cindy, Melissa, Brenda

Things have been busy around here as we are wrapping up our time in MN. One of the things that has kept us around was a visit from my oldest friend. Cheryl and I met in 3rd grade at church and soon her family moved out near mine and we became neighbors. We were cheerleaders together, played flute together, went to Bethel College our freshman year together, were married a year apart and I had Madi and Kailee within months of her Elsie and Noah. She now lives in Thailand were she and her husband are missionaries.

One of the blessings in where we grew up are the incredible frienships that were made. Cheryl and I are blessed by a group of friends who we have grown up with and remain our best friends to this day. Several years ago we started getting together once a year to catch up with each other, share joys and hard things and we always end by praying for one another. It was three summers ago during one of those times I asked them to pray for an answer to my desire to adopt AND that night was when God whispered YES to my heart...(they knew more than anyone how badly I wanted this as I had talked about it my WHOLE life) anyway.....we have come a long way from quirky little girls. We experienced jr. high and high school struggles alongside each other, saw each other thru young heartbreaks, stood at each other's weddings, welcomed LOTS of litle ones, shared losses and grew in the Lord together. Several of us went to Youth With A Mission (YWAM) as we all share a love of missions and I hear adoption talk among a couple of them... To have a group of women who know ALL there is to know about one another and feel complete trust in is a rare gift. Our times together are few and far between now but our friendships remain strong and we always share many laughs, sometimes amid some tears.

Last Friday we spent the day together at a friends cabin. It was a small group this year but as always our time was not waisted! We wish the rest could have joined us......we missed you!

(Earlier in the week those who could came out with kids. It is great to see them re-connect although they don't see much of each other.......so fun to see them having fun together like we used to! We usually do a lake day together every summer also but that didn't happen this time. MN is taking its sweet time in warming up!) Pictures below.