Visiting

This weekend I had the opportunity to visit with two friends--one I had never met before and one I met a long time ago.

During college, I worked for a summer camp for kids with special needs (Camp John Marc). It was literally a life-changing experience for me, and I believe one of the reasons I had very little hesitation with the idea of adopting children with medical needs.

A few weeks ago, one of the camp directors emailed me to let me know a current staff member was going to be in St Louis for a few weeks. Marne and I were able to get together and have coffee this past weekend, and it was a lot of fun. I found out that she worked last summer when a couple of girls "graduated" from Camp I-Thonka-Chi (a camp for children who have been burned). They were very special girls to me as I had worked with them when they had just started coming to camp (many, many years ago...and yes, it made me feel old! LOL).

Several months ago, a former student of mine from Michigan State had contacted me about being a reference for her. She was applying for graduate school here in St Louis. She ended coming here and then we realized a couple of months ago that she is attending the same church as we do! Last week, she emailed me to let me know her aunt Lois was going to be in town. In a very bizarre set of circumstances, we know her aunt. In fact, we traveled to Ukraine(!) with her on our very first trip with Master Provisions. She was 70 years old when we went to Ukraine. We loved her gentle spirit and willingness to take whatever came our way with the trip. It was so much fun to see her again, and to introduce her to our Ukrainian additions!