Make a friend

This year, I did something extraordinary: I made a new friend. We met several years ago at a kind of careers fair for Christian missionaries – so we already have God and international aid/travel in common. She’s also smart and funny – and, since she recently returned from several years in Gambia, she’s rebuilding her life (very few friendships survive mission trips). It can be hard to make friends with introverts, so I invited her to a few group things so I could get to know her a little without either of us having to hold up the whole conversation. She said yes, so I knew she was willing to risk spending a little time with me. And a few weeks later, we didn’t need the crowd to help us along conversationally; we’d found enough in common. Voila! We’re actually friends. I love it when a plan comes together.

We both had birthdays recently, and it turns out that her family takes her blackberry picking in the pine forest each year. She brought a giant pot of fresh wild blackberries to dinner with myself and CJ. They were insanely delicious. She is one classy broad, and I’m incredibly impressed with myself for realising how much I wanted to get to know her better.