Old friends

For lunch yesterday, Jon and I met with a dear friend from missionary days. Steve was the one who gave us the pre-married "sex" talk in his suffocatingly hot little apartment in Malaga, Spain, right before Jon and I were engaged. The three of us laughed about it yesterday, because at the time, Steve and his wife, Jean, had been married about four years. Big expert. :)

Five years later, Jean and I became pregnant at the same time, when I was carrying Johannah. The missionary team held a baby shower for Jean and me at our annual team meeting in Spain in 1989. Jon and I had been on furlough in the states at the time so we flew to Spain for the meeting and were surprised with a baby shower. It felt so good to be with this "extended missionary family" where all of our children referred to the adults as "Aunt Julie" or "Uncle Steve."

We returned to the states after that team meeting. Two months later, Jean lost her baby on its due date. That was the same summer that one of our team members drowned in the ocean off the coast of Casablanca while his family played in the sand, and also the same summer that a dear French co-worker was killed in a freak accident involving a pebble the size of a quarter that rolled down a mountain in the south of France, banked into the car window and mortally pelted his temple. He died instantly, leaving behind his wife of seven years.

Seeing Steve brought it all back. The pain, the closeness, the sense of family and destiny rolled into missionary work.

Time collapsed between us as we went back over those years and all the people we have in common. Jon and I spent four years in the 80s in Morocco while this friend has been there since 1984 and continues to this day, fully immersed and fully satisfied. Jon made a Seinfeld crack and Steve responded, "Who's he?"

But it was not he who was out of touch. We were. Morocco has changed dramatically since we were there. One couple on our old team has planted a church in a region we only hoped would ever have a convert, let alone a church. Missionaries are no longer merely taking "cover jobs" but are starting NGOs and doing development work in agriculture and medicine. Development work! Back when we were in Morocco, we were encouraged not to do that kind of work because it might produce "rice Christians."

We spent the requisite time catching up on children: who is married, who turned out to be a brainiac, where others are going to college. We chatted about memories and all the funny peculiarities you remember about people with whom you worked and lived—affection pouring out like hot mint tea.

Poignant and painful.

And sweet.