MG reached across my plate. “Excuse me” she said with a smile. To be fair, the picnic table was rather narrow, and we were 5 bodies crowded onto the bench, so it was all rather tight and snug. Just the way I’d envisioned it. She ladled another spoonful of pasta salad onto her plate, digging deep for the extra cucumbers. “Pass the chips,” NL smiled from the opposite end. “Katrina, by any chance did you perhaps bring napkins, maybe?” MR mused, glancing up and down the full table in search of them. I tossed her the paper towel roll, and she caught it deftly, despite being blinded by the sun as our entire side of the table was. But no one complained about that. It was literally the first sunny day in a week, and I was so grateful it allowed us to keep alive the tradition of driving up the mountain, Hochblauen, for our year’s last Small Group.
This school year, we had studied the book of Luke using gospel journals. It was fun to see the girls mark up their favorite verses and ask some hard questions about others. “Why was Mary allowed to ask the angel obvious questions, but not Zechariah? I wonder what Jesus found funny and sad? Why is Elijah mentioned so often in Luke 9? Would Jesus really pronounce woes on entire cities for a lack of peace?” The discussions had been beautiful and deep, and I myself had been challenged by their questions and observations over and over again.
As HK, AY, and I bounded up the stairs of the tower on Hochblauen to take some pictures, we marveled at the gorgeous view God had created. The blue and green layers of the Black Forest, the hazy Rhine valley to our west and the outline of the city of Basel to our south. The girls crowded along the railing, gazing out toward the sun, still high in the June sky at 8:30pm. The way they wrapped their arms around each other and laughed out loud warmed my heart. It’s not a given that eight random girls put together for a weekly Bible study would actually like each other, yet that’s the gift I’ve been given. What a lovely Junior year with them!
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