October 27 – “The residents of Bethlehem”

We continued our old home week experience yesterday after church.  Some very good friends of ours who now live in Bethlehem (Pennsylvania, not Israel) came by to visit.  We showed them the glories of a no-ambiance meal at none other than Shrimp and Stuff, of course.  Mark and Melissa recently bought a company that sells all kinds of stuff somehow related to sewing and quilting over the internet, so Chris has been ogling their website ever since.  I think they called it Home Sew.  Check out their website.  They were in Houston at the pre-convention distributer and supplier convention connected to the actual International Quilters Festival that is this coming weekend.  Whew.  That’s a mouthful. 

In the short time they have owned it, they have already turned the company into a family business, with two of their three children joining them in one capacity or another.  Allen has taken over updating their website and some of the marketing.  Ashley is in the process of organizing everything from the office to the warehouse.  Melissa pays the bills and Mark does the ordering and posts funny things to their FaceBook page.  OK.  I’ll admit that is probably somewhat of an over-simplification of their roles.  Allen and Melissa post to FaceBook as well.  I’m not sure which one of them sweeps the floor and cleans the bathrooms.  Maybe they’re holding that spot open in case Lindsey ever joins them in the company.  I don’t know, though.  Lindsey has a pretty good handle on the whole FaceBook posting thing.  She could probably teach them all a thing or two.  

We met the Dammeyers back in our Texas days at South Oaks Baptist Church.  Their son Allen and Nathan became literal lifelong buddies from the day they were born.  The two have alternated spending at least a week in each other’s homes over many spring breaks and summers.  When we moved to Denver we thought the two of them were going to have some serious withdrawal anxieties.  It was pretty hard on the boys, but as coincidence would have it, Mark’s job somehow got him transferred to the Denver area as well, and they took up right where they left off.  That gave us a chance to really get to know the daughters Ashley and Lindsey as well.  When they subsequently moved to Rhode Island, the boys had another anxiety episode, but that’s when their trade-off of vacation times began.  They have been good friends ever since.  Nathan even managed to spend some time with them when they were Floridians, something we were never able to pull off.  We did get to Rhode Island on a vacation once (I think) and when they lived in New Jersey I had the honor of officiating at Ashley’s wedding. 

So our visit was all-too short, but the food was great and the company was greater.  And now Chris has begun planning for another trip to that “alternate holy land,” Bethlehem, PA.  Maybe we’ll get a chance to drive to that booming metropolis just a few miles away … Nazareth, PA.  Hmm.  Where’s my map of Israel, er, Pennsylvania?

Matthew 2:6 says, “’But you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah; for out of you will come a ruler who will be the shepherd of my people Israel.’”

Father, thank you for good friends.  Bless them and their new business.  Amen.