Besties

You may or may not have noticed the two week hiatus from the blog and my Facebook page. Why the long break?

Because, dear reader, I was visiting my best friend!!! 😀

As I mentioned in my post about my writing history, Rachel Miller and I have been friends for a LONG time. Almost our whole lives. She spent years in Russia, then caring for aging grandparents, then finishing college and working jobs around Montana. I’ve been having and raising children, going on deputation, and living in Africa. We don’t get to see each other very often but we keep up with each other through messaging and email and FaceTime (if the internet is working). (Thank God for modern technology! In the old days we’d be thankful to hear from each other once a year. Now we can message every day if we want.)

Rachel came to visit us in Uganda in 2012. She’d been in Kenya for three weeks and God provided for her to spend a little over a week with us. We had a blast! We talked, and sewed, and talked, and went for walks, and talked, and shopped my favorite Mbarara haunts, and talked, and…well, you get the picture. The last night she was there we spent several hours constructing a box wherein a large Ankole hide drum could be transported back to the states without being damaged. It worked!

In September of 2013 my family and I got to spend two weeks in Montana with Rachel and her family. We stayed in the prophet’s chamber at their church and went to meetings in the surrounding area. This meant that Rachel and I got to see each other almost every day. We went for coffee at this wonderful local coffee house in Billings called City Brew. We went for walks by the Yellowstone River. We sat around at the MIller’s house. We stopped at Walmart for things. And we talked…and talked…and talked… 

One morning, we left Billings very early and visited Yellowstone National Park. Rachel went with us. The weather had been warm and sunny — unseasonably so — in Billings. It was freezing cold and rainy in Yellowstone. We would get out and hike and see the sights, then get back in the van and crank the heater up as high as it would go. We also climbed stairs and paths. It felt like hundreds of stairs, maybe even thousands (hyperbole overmuch?) but at least it kept us warm.

I even got warm enough (thanks to the heater I was carrying on my back) that I could take off my jacket.

Early in 2014, Rachel’s dad passed away unexpectedly. We have never felt the thousands of miles of separation as acutely as we did then. Phone calls are better than nothing in a situation like that. But nothing can make up for not being able to hug a grieving friend and let them cry on your shoulder, not being able to be there for them in their loss because of the distance, bearing their pain, but not being able to share it in person. 

So, when my wonderful husband suggested a visit to Rachel as my birthday present this year, well, to say I was overjoyed would be an understatement. I was beginning to fear we’d go the whole visit stateside without being able to see each other.

I arrived on Thursday and we started talking. We didn’t really stop except to eat and sleep for the next 5 days. We got coffee. We shopped. (She has just released her first novel!) We fixed food. And we talked, and talked, and talked… It was a healing balm for both of us, a treasure of time and wonderful memories.

I’m not great at selfies, but this picture captures exactly how we both felt.

I’m so grateful to God for this time I got to spend with my friend!