And the cheese stands alone...

My friend Kerry left the coast this week. I am thrilled for him because he has a wonderful adventure planned for the summer that will take him all the way to an orphanage in India. And I'm not freaking out too much because when I move to Chicago this fall, he will also be living there and we'll get to see each other all the time. But I am terribly sad about this because Kerry has been a great friend and support for me down here. The two of us have been through the ringer and back again and after all of that, no one down here quite gets me/tolerates me/challenges me the way he does.

Also, it's tough because this makes me the last of the GCM PDA/MS Pres gang left. When I signed a one-year contract with PDA last summer, I knew this day would come. I just didn't know how hard it would be. Brenna and Linda made up a good large chunk of year one in Mississippi and when they left last summer, I melted a bit, but I had Lauren and Becca, Mical and Kerry to hold me together. Becca left in November, but Mical, Lauren and Kerry promised me I'd be fine. Lauren left, and Dan and Kerry shaved funny moustaches and built me a deck to keep my spirits up. Dan and Mical left and Kerry let me turn him into a wonderful girlfriend for gossip and chick flicks (um, I did also manage to take him to a NBA playoff game, so it wasn't all braiding each other's hair all the time). Kerry left this week.

In this business of ministry (?), I am learning that relationships are everything. These folks are the people who hold my hand when we have a bad day and dance and sing with joy when we have a good one, and who totally understand when both those days happen within a span of 15 minutes.

They are the freaks who pray with me at Chilis and dissect a sermon while waiting in line at IHOP. They are the ones who listen to me scream when I am frustrated with the system. They are the warm souls who give me that knowing glance when one of us has put in a 15 hour day just to have some pastor rip you out because we ran out of eggs. They are the wise ones who know


not to push me when I say I just can't be around new people today. They are the sensitive ones who know how to push me when I'm putting up one of those lame excuses. They know me in and out and over again. They are as much my family as if my mom had birthed each one of them (although I think she's glad she didn't).

And they are moving on.

We all are. I am moving in two months. But right now, I am still here and they are not. New people have come to take over their jobs. New people with new skills, new talents, new gifts. Wonderful, sweet, hard-working, smart, funny, new people.
But I don't want to get to know the new people. I want my family back. I want them back now. And I don't want things to change anymore.

Tomorrow we're taking a PDA staff trip to Ship Island for some quality beach bonding time. It's going to be super fun and I will have lots of time to get to know all of our new summer staff. I'm sure I'll love it. But for tonight, I just want to whine.
I miss my peeps.....