Beautiful Friends and Pesto

This post has needed to happen for some time.

We have a few friends at fellowship and they have made life better. I teach late Friday night, then early Saturday morning, and then again late Saturday night. This makes me relieved and newly thankful for the 'day of rest'. But coming to fellowship and seeing these friends is better than relief; they make my heart glad.

I don't know why I am surprised by how cool these friends have turned out to be. I mean, we asked HIM to provide some solid friends for us here, but as we've become accustomed to doing in this country, we kept our expectations low.

But here we are in Vietnam with a collection of different people who were all brought here for different reasons. And of course they're awesome! They are women of faith, beautiful sisters, living lives of true adventure. And I'm so glad I have the pleasure to know them.


This is Janell. I think I've said it before but she has been a wonderful friend to us from the start, going out of her way to be our friend. When we didn't know anyone, she reached out to us and made us feel welcome. Hospitality is definitely one of her gifts.

From what I have observed, she seems to be very up-front about what she thinks, and I love that. She's a great communicator. And I knew she was funny, but I only recently discovered that she is hilarious. She also happens to be really beautiful.

This is Jannene. She is from Australia/South Africa/here and there. I don't know her as well as I think I do, but I just feel like we've been friends longer. She's funny and sarcastic and as laid back as they come (maybe due to her origin). She's contemplative and a great listener. Everyone needs to have a friend like Jannene (but now she's our friend, so get your own). We MIGHT have heard a teensy, tiny tip of the iceberg of cool stories from her life.

On the right is Andrea Hamilton (http://www.andreahamiltononline.com/). She's in HCMC for a few months kind of on tour, singing and playing guitar. She is very open about her life and how it is a testimony to the One she serves. Plus she's really cool; I like her. Janell also welcomed her warmly to the city. On the left is Kate, a friend of Janell's from work who was visiting for a couple of days. I didn't talk to her very much, but she seemed pretty cool. On the right is Erica. This is her "not smiling for the picture," because she knows I like to take candids. She has a 6th sense about the camera though and can sense when one is focusing on her. So she smiles.
This is Aletta. You've met her before on my birthday. She is Janell's roommate (sorry to label you Aletta, but I met Janell first) from Holland and she teaches at a Dutch school in the city. She's bubbly and fun, and I can imagine her reaction to me calling her "bubbly." I LOVE her accent. She has a great sense of humor, and I love it when she tells stories, but even if she was bad at telling stories, I would listen just to hear her talk. She has also been so kind to us and has invited us to hang out multiple times. We also discovered that we were both pretty into the Backstreet Boys around the same time.
Janell, Jannene, and Andrea put together a wonderful meal for all of us. It was pasta with pesto and lots of roasted vegetables. Brownies for dessert. It was excellent. I did zero to help and it's not the first time I've been served a delicious meal at their house. The day is coming when I will be able to cook for them. I love Vietnamese food and haven't really craved American food so much. At least I didn't think so, but this was a wonderful change. BESIDES the fact that it tasted wonderful, I was able to eat the noodles without leaning over my food from a chair too high above the table, without sweating, and without manuevering with chopsticks.
Mmmm... Looks good, doesn't it Erica? (We'll find out if she reads my blog)