Renewing Old Friendships

Recently I have been able to renew some old friendships of at least 20 years ago. A lot of things happen in 20 years - people grow older and look different for one thing, they get married and have families, they retire and/or move to places unknown to us, etc., etc.

I had been seeking for some time to make contact with some friends we had in Ohio and NYC with whom we had lost contact since we left there in 1988. Through some other friends we finally discovered where these people live and contacted them via letter. They have responded and now we are able to communicate with these friends of yesteryear.

I also have renewed acquaintance with some people I knew previously 25 years ago or so. These contacts were made through FaceBook. Yes, I got on FaceBook and found out that there were people who were also there that I barely could recognize by their picture. It has been interesting to at least say, "Hi, how are you" to these folks. Most of them are people that were in a church I pastored back then. Some were quite young when we left there making recognition difficult. But FaceBook, I find, is not all its cracked up to be, at least as far as I'm concerned. I guess it is for the younger set of people, but to keep up with that may be a bit much for this old gieser.

And last but not least, living here in the Villa and attending Hesston Mennonite Church has helped me reopen friendships that I had many years ago. Some of these people I knew here at Hesston when I went to Winter Bible Term here, and some from attending Hesston College.

Each of these friendships have their own nature and character, i.e. we are much more involved with some than others. And for some it was just finding out about them but not relational in any way. There are other folks that I would sincerely like to know about but whom we will probably never again see. That's sort of sad. We have enjoyed knowing many people that we now have no knowledge of at all. I guess that's the way life is. As life moves on we can't retain in our memory or experience everything that happens to us.

Pilgrim on the way