My friend

Yesterday, our family took a little drive up to Jo-burg to "fetch" our friends, the Beuker family. Sammy and I have been friends since our Freshman year of college, almost 18 years now. We became friends very quickly when our mutual friends introduced us at a lunch table in the cafeteria, and later when I was dating Bryan, he and her boyfriend Eric became quite good friends. After college, we actually moved into the same neighborhood as them and lived across the street from each other for 4 years. We both have 3 children, a boy and 2 girls and they are all within 6 months of each other in age.
I actually was able to be with her as she walked down the aisle to become a wife. I was able to be with her for the births of her first 2 children. Laughing with her (apparently I was doing some sort of liturgical dancing in the delivery room), rubbing her feet when the pain was intense, etc. And now, here they are in Lesotho of all places and I am going to get to be with her as she becomes a mother of her 4th child. I do not get to be in the delivery room as she has the child added to the family, instead I get to be part of the delivery.
You see, I have been waiting anxiously for this day because the Lord had ordained that her 4th child was going to come from Beautiful Gate. I have been holding this child, I got to help her practice walking, I got to help her eat her meals before she could hold the spoon for herself, I got to push her on the swings over and over again, I got to play tag with her. I got to keep her safe and well fed until her new mother could come and get her and I never could have known that this special mother would be my own special friend. God has a way of making the most unexpected relationships happen. Who could have ever guessed that an innocent friendship starting at a lunch table would have ever gone down the path that ours has taken.