Tuesday, July 07, 2009

Facebook Friends

Tonight I met some friends in person for the first time. I am a huge fan of facebook. It's how I stay connected with the friends that I've made in the many places I've lived. Typically on my facebook account I only accept friends that are really truly friends of mine. In this case, however, I bent my rule slightly.

I noticed a comment on the status of one of my Egyptian friends, and I commented in agreement with the first comment. The girl who made that comment replied to mine, and thus a bit of a conversation started. So when she sent a friend request I accepted. She is Egyptian but lives in Kuwait and we have been facebooking back and forth for a while now. We discovered that we have several things in common: 1) our faith 2) we both live outside of our home countries 3) we are both international school teachers 4) we both love to read. I'm sure there is more, but those are the main things that we discovered on facebook.

She came home to Egypt to spend the summer visiting family and friends, and we arranged to meet in person. I wanted to bring my husband along, so I showed him her photo from her facebook page, and it turns out that they knew each other as children,that they were in the same Sunday school program.

So tonight we met her and her sister at Chilli's and had a blast! John was a little concerned that we might not have much to talk about, but the conversation flowed quite naturally. We met at five, and we didn't look at our watches again until it was nine. We talked about mutual friends. They entertained me with stories from their childhood, we discussed the difficulties of living outside of your home country, we talked about faith. It was really good. It was what I needed. We are going to try to get together with them one more time before I travel. By the time I return she will have returned to Kuwait, so this is my last chance to hang out with her.

I've been struggling with the fact that so many of my friends have moved away this year, and God knows that. But it's cool the way He brings different people into my life at different times. He never abandons me.

3 comments:

Jacque said...

FB is neat that way! I have reconnected with friends from when I was in High School and College, to find out a few of them are now saved! It has been 24 yrs since HS and 21 yrs since college! Cool! I am stopping at one of their houses in VA on the way down to the Beach!! I am glad you have a new friend! God is so good to us that way! And how cool John knew her!

Vicki said...

God will do it again and again so look forward to all the people He puts in your path :) Facebook has been a huge blessing to me also- since I have to start over with friends it is the opposite (instead of people leaving me -I leave people) it keeps me connected with the old friends while I make new ones. I am very thankful. Another reason-instead of finding out the highlights (good or bad)once every 3 or 4 years- you can actually be part of their everyday lives between those times-which has been one of the hardest parts of moving for me. So that is huge for me!

Debbie said...

I am so glad that you 2 finally met face to face! God is so good! And it's neat that you both have so much in common! Have a great time visiting, & we'll see you in less than a week!