Songbird from RevGalBlogPals has this week’s Friday Five:

I just had the opportunity to spend a few days with ring member St. Casserole. I still remember the first blogpost of hers I read, both its detail and its whimsy, but at the time I had no thought we would ever meet and become friends “in real life,” as they say. Still, I encountered something in her turn of phrase that made me come back again and again, and eventually led to both a trip to her part of the world to volunteer after Hurricane Katrina and to the founding of RevGalBlogPals.

In this week some of us are preaching about a woman who encounters Jesus at the well, please name five encounters in your life leading to unexpected results. They might include learning a new skill, making a friend, falling in love, discerning a call or anything around or far off from those ideas.

This was a fun reflection!

1. How I met their father…

At a friend’s wedding, I was the soloist and he was one of the groomsman. We started talking at the rehearsal dinner… and the rest is history.

2. We were in an adult Sunday School class together…

Dana and I both accepted God’s call on our lives. We went to seminary together, with her transferring to a local institution so that she could be a Methodist elder, while I went my Bapti-costal way. We became prayer partners, friends and sisters in ministry. And our husbands are both “pastors’ wives”.  Pretty cool.

3. Finding the Revgals…

I googled “women in ministry” and found a lot of… ahem… “discouragement.” Then I stumbled onto Cathy’s, Terri’s, Mindy’s, St. Casserole’s (and her cats), and MaryBeth’s blogs… (and MANY, many others…)  and the rest is cyber-history. 🙂

4. Meeting my Spiritual Director…

I needed one more unit to get my “required minimum” number of CPE (Clinical Pastoral Education) units. Through a strange series of events, I ended up at the NIH Clinical Center. Over the course of my internship, I met all kinds of wonderful folks, but one of them was a mutual acquaintance to my Spiritual Director, Dian.

5. Too many more to list…

I traveled to West Africa as a missionary where I learned how to make curry, made friends in Germany and France and discovered a common love of escargot, learned how to knit and crochet, served on Emmaus, Chrysalis and Kairos teams, wandered a beach, learned how to polka, served on two different church staff teams… All of these experiences brought me into friendships with unlikely friends. And it’s all good.