The Joy of Friends and Fellowship

Yesterday was the annual Eggstreme Easter Egg Hunt out at the Berberich’s home in Stone City. This is I think the fifth year that we’ve had a hunt at their place. It’s a beautiful venue, out in the country with acres of clear lawn and then miles of trails through the woods. This is the first year that we haven’t had a big hand in actually organizing and preparing for the hunt; we just showed up. It was nice. :-)

The Berberich family has become like our own family to us; the parents are about our parents’ age, and their seven children range from older than me to a big younger than my sister. They’re up to 11 (I think) grandchildren now, with a couple more on the way this year. So much fun. Past years we’ve gone out to their place on Monday nights to play basketball on their indoor half-court. They are the models of generous hospitality; you are always welcome in their home, and there’s always a cup of coffee, a fresh-baked roll, and time for some conversation.

But somehow amidst the busyness of this year, we’ve managed to drift apart a bit. That’s the way things go sometimes, I guess. As we were driving out to Stone City, I realized that it had been an entire year since we’d been out there, and nearly nine months since I’d seen the family, dating back to their daughter’s wedding last summer. I have occasionally wondered if there was some reason that perhaps we’d slipped off their radar screen, some offense we’d caused or some misunderstanding that had kept us apart. But what a joy to see them again Saturday, the hugs and the “wow, it’s been too long”, and the “is that Laura?!? I didn’t even recognize her she’s so big”. Restored fellowship is sweet.

So we had a great day out there. Laura did her first real hunting for eggs and had fun. We enjoyed the food afterwards and the chance to catch up a bit… with a hundred or so people there it was hard to have too much time to talk! But we all agreed as we left that we needed to get together again, sooner rather than later. I have confidence it won’t be a whole year before we visit again.