[Ben E Lou]

Mainly due to the nature of my former job, there are hundreds of people with whom I had relatively short (some as short as one month working in close physical and spiritual proximity at a camp,) but close/intense relationships. I mean, the first new ministry I was in charge of starting was in 1989, and I moved from that town in 1991. but in those two years, our small (max 6 person) leadership team met, prayed, ate, and served together every week. Plus we were all in college so we hung out together a ton as well. We've kept in touch through various channels since then, but the last time I've seen *any* of them face to face was my wedding...in 1998. It's an absolute joy, though, to keep up with their lives and to have an easy platform for longer private message chains that I would burn out on trying to type on a phone for a text message.

And then of course all the former high school kids. I care and want to know what's going on with, well, all of them. Just checked: my list is a little over 2700 people. I'm guessing there are maybe 20 that I've never met in person, most of those FOFCers. My favorite never-met-in-person one was a guy that one of my closest friends knew in college. My friend would tell me story after story about various escapades he had with Colin. Apparently, my friend also told Colin story after story about his escapades with me as well. It's been less than a year or so that Colin and I both responded to a message chain on our mutual friend's timeline and were both like "WHOA!!!!! WAIT A FREAKING MINUTE!!! DUDE, I KNOW YOUR NAME AND EVERYTHING YOU DID IN HIGH SCHOOL/COLLEGE!!!"