Last night we had our good friends Joe, Abigail, and Ryan over for dinner and a movie. We made homemade pizzas (five of them), customized to our unique individual tastes. Homemade pizzas are better than you can even imagine and they are such fun to make.
In this photo, Ryan is spreading the sauce for one of the pizzas. Ryan is a wonderful and unusual person. He greeted us warmly the first week we visited the church here in Lynchburg. He asked about our son by name the next week and asked how we were doing emotionally with our 10-year-old son staying in the hospital rather than in our home. Ryan continued to show this very caring and loving friendship week after week, always asking about both David and our emotional condition.
It wasn't until at least three months later that we found out that Ryan was going through tremendous turmoil in his life at this very same time—in addition to being away from home and in his first year of college. Ryan is a deeply gifted person who has an obvious love for people and for the Lord. We are proud to name him among our friends.
I met Joe the first week we visited our church also. I love to do work on web sites and volunteered to help the church with their site. I was pointed toward the guitarist in the church's worship team. Joe, who is a fantastic guitarist and singer, was attending college at Liberty University, playing guitar and singing in the worship team, and developing a web site for the church. He told me that he would love to have my help with the site and then was very patient as over the next few months I changed all kinds of things on the site.
We attended Joe and Abigail's wedding earlier this year and are delighted that they are now expecting a child (as you can see from this photo of Abigail). My wife and I have thoroughly enjoyed getting to know Joe and Abigail better. We have many similar interests and they are both wonderful conversationalists with a wide variety of interests and knowledge covering many topics.
After the pizza last night, we shared one of our favorite movies with our friends. "Dead Again" is a thriller/romance/mystery/sci-fi ... okay, it's essentially impossible to categorize. It's a fantastic movie starring two of our favorites: Kenneth Branagh and Emma Thompson. We love sharing movies that we enjoy with friends. And last night was very enjoyable watching our friends react to the many unexpected twists and turns in this movie.
This is another one of the things that we love about Lynchburg. There is time here to enjoy friends. In Northern Virginia, after a 10- to 14-hour day of work and then a 2- to 3-hour commute home through mean and angry motorists, no one wants to see or talk to anyone else after they get home. It is very hard to make and maintain friendships there.
There are wonderful people living here in Lynchburg and there is time and the inclination to enjoy them. And Joe, Abigail, and Ryan have brought a lot of sunshine into our lives.
Ah, yes, I've GOT to get out that recipe and try it. I'll let you know when I do.
ReplyDeleteYou're gonna love it, Lynne. Homemade pizza is the best!!
ReplyDelete