How Sweet!

The Lord is so wonderfully sweet to me! I've been so homesick for my friends and family but especially for my special group of friends that me and the hunk o' honey loving call "The Little Old Lady Brigade". I have missed these ladies and so many times over the last few years I've even been reduced to tears of longing for those Tuesday morning bible study meetings and the monthly prayer meetings that we had. I've managed to stay in touch with all of these sweet women though and today I received one of the sweetest letters I've ever gotten in my life from my dear friends telling me that they miss me too.

For those of you who don't already know the Little Old Lady Brigade is the group of women from our old church back home ..... and no, they don't mind me calling them that name because they aren't ashamed of their age. In our old church there were only a few families who weren't in their "senior" years and I quickly found it to be a real blessing that the Lord worked it out that way. I was fortunate to benefit from the wisdom and experience of those sweet older ladies and still I often crave the fellowship that we all had together over God's word and in prayer. We got together one morning a week for bible study and fellowship and it was a true blessing to be able to just gather together that way and words just can't describe how much I miss having that time of fellowship in my life now. We also gathered one evening a month for a ladies prayer meeting that was all the ladies of the church, the ladies who wanted to and who lived closer together like me and Mrs. Willie would often grab a few minutes of time here and there to pray together as well. These meetings were not for socializing or visiting but were time set apart for the women to gather and study and pray. I learned so much during those times and during some of the most difficult times of my life it was those meetings and the support of those ladies that really made the difference in how I weathered the storms.

I have to say too that I never have met a group of people who were so willing to commit themselves to service! Every month the ladies took on a new service project. As we would near the holiday season the monthly projects were usually making gifts or quilts or packages to send to our missionary families. Other projects were love baskets to be taken to shut ins or the nursing home residents or to needy families. We often had work days at the church too and sometimes those would turn out to be the most fun days of all. I was always amazed at the amount of work the ladies were able to do and how much fun we had doing it together.

We had other things for the ladies too that the Little Old Lady Brigade got started like trading meals day. We would all cook and freeze three different meals and three different desserts and then get together and trade them. It was a really great way to share not only our favorite recipes but to make sure that there were always meals ready in the freezer for those days when time ran short. It was so simple to do and a lot of fun too. We had clothing swaps, book swaps, and even dishes swaps for the ladies to participate in too. There were crafting days, sewing days, cleaning days and trade a chore days (my favorite) for anyone who wanted to participate. Those ladies may have been farther on in years than I was but they had no tolerance for laziness or things that were frivolous wastes of time (I'll never forget the shopping lecture).

Well, that's enough rambling from me for now. I was just tickled to bits that the ladies thought of me and it made me miss them so much all over again!