(minus one not pictured)
Back in the days when the Bethel Valley Girls lived on Bethel Valley Lane, the Forest Villa Girls lived on Forest Villa Court. I lived in between, on a non-descript cul-de-sac. The thing we all had in common was that we attended Christian Women's Club together. I was invited to both Bethel Valley Lane and Forest Villa Court. My children were happiest going to Bethel Valley Lane because of their seven friends there--Elletu's three, Cool's two sons and j's two daughters--who were closer in age to them than the children of the Forest Villa Girls (FVGs). And there was that little playground on Bethel Valley Lane.
I mention the FVGs because they recently enjoyed a reunion. Of the four of them, only one has moved away, and she was recently in town from Idaho, hence the photo above at one of the homes on Forest Villa Court. Like the BVGs, the FVGs raised their children together, and now, all these years down the road, they are all still friends. Even one of them moving away did not break the bond that these women enjoy. Their bond is as strong as ours.
So how did the two groups connect? Well, I think it's because of ME! When my husband and I were newly married and looking for a church, we went to Sylvan Way Baptist Church in Bremerton. It was a drive, but this church was in the same Baptist Conference as Dunlap Baptist, my family's church in Seattle. (Have I mentioned that Jimi Hendrix' funeral was held here???) I felt comfortable going there, and we loved the church. We got to know another Port Orchard family there, and they lived on Forest Villa Court. Nice family, four young children, two sons and two daughters. They knew me through my first pregnancy with my daughter. I would often play the piano there. I remember playing on one hot summer Sunday evening late in my pregnancy, and my feet were so swollen I had to wear slippers (you know, thongs?) on stage. The church gave me a wonderful shower after my daughter was born.
This woman from Forest Villa Court was there at my shower, and she was also at my daughter's first birthday party. Somewhere along the way, in the nursery at church, my friend from Forest Villa Court told me their family and two other Port Orchard families attending Sylvan Way Baptist were transferring over to Harper Evangelical Free Church in Port Orchard to cut down on the long drive to church. She invited us to do the same, and since I was a nursing mom, the idea of going to church closer to home made sense. Also somewhere along the way I began going to Christian Women's Club on my own. I mentioned to my husband that I had read about it in the local paper, and I decided to get a babysitter and go. My husband called me from work that morning I was going to the monthly CWC luncheon and said the wife of one of his favorite co-workers was going to the same luncheon. It turned out this woman was a close neighbor of the family we knew on Forest Villa Court. So I looked for my friend when I was there and met the other women from their neighborhood, including the wife of my husband's co-worker. From then on I was invited over to their beautiful neighborhood for many visits. I always enjoyed my time with them.
About this time I had started going to the weekly CWC Friendship Bible Coffee, and one Tuesday a new young mom showed up. It was Cool, and we became friends. She invited me to her son's third birthday party, along with two of her neighbors. This was Elletu and j. The rest is history, only I wonder if they remember history, because I invited the three of them to the church we were attending, Harper Evangelical Free Church. That's how they got to that church. The four of us ended up there together, and we ended up at Christian Women's Club together. The BVGs went to Bible Study Fellowship in Bremerton back in those days. Years later I went to Bible Study Fellowship with two of the Forest Villa Girls in Gig Harbor, at the church that Cool and j ended up joining when they left Harper. Through Christian Women's Club, we four BVGs and our husbands were in a couples Bible study for some time, and also in that couples Bible study was a Forest Villa couple, my husband's co-worker and his wife. To this day that couple is part of our circle of friends, including the BVGs.
Just more of the little twists and turns of life, how lives get intertwined. Some friendships fall apart over time, some drift apart, but if you work at it, good friendships can stay intact over the course of decades, over the course of a lifetime, in spite of moves, just as it has been for the BVGs, and yes, the FVGs. As Michael W. Smith would say and sing: "Friends are friends forever, if the Lord's the Lord of them."
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