Until We Meet Again...

Poem for Penny

Across the time,

Across the miles between you and I

There is rugged land

And endless sky

Time together rare

Treasured every moment we meet

Jewels each memory

Every time we greet

And oft I'll find

On the busiest day

My face tilting to the Heavens and I pray

For YOU, dear one -

Wherever you be

Each time I look to the sky and see,

A cloud fluff by it causes me

To think of the day we spent - so fun,

Our faces lifted to the sun

Ah, my friend, behind my eyes

I see you and me and sunlit skies,

Until we meet again,

Tomorrow or years from now

There will be no time - it seems somehow,

For the distance is short between two friends,

Its not on a clock that it depends,

Rather with age it grows rich and sweet,

Until then, until we meet...

by Barb Derksen

My friend Penny came to visit this past week. We go back many years. We used to be on a Music Worship team at a church together (though she had a voice, I did NOT!) Even back then we had a chemistry together and it was oft the Mr. had to separate us so we could get serious music practice underway for inevitably we girls would wind up giggling and snorting and getting everything off track.

Some things never change and when Penny visited this time it was no different. Mr. had to keep us on track because we kept ramping up - such fun!

Penny blessed our church with a concert while she was here and it was delightful to simply bask in the wonderful talent she's been gifted with. Here's a video of her singing one very sweet and fun songs! If you click on the middle control on the bottom of the YouTube player you will be able to view this video full-screen.

After the concert Penny came home with us and we had huge fun with the Mr. using all sorts of whacky sound samples to create silly songs together. Before we knew it we found it was after 1 a.m. - I can't remember when I was up this late!

Penny and I managed to sneak away from the world for a few precious hours in the morning and we shared EVERY scripture in the bible we could find about the word "cloud". Do you know it is mentioned 111 times in the bible? Thats not "clouds" - just the singular! We sat and faces tilted to the sky watched them drift by and chatted and caught up on the time since we last met. It was awesome.

We also got to see two of Penny's beautiful daughters as well - they've grown into beautiful young women in the meantime - I'd never have known them!

To read more about Penny's time here you can visit our Osoyoos Christian Centre Women's Online Blog by clicking HERE and you can also learn more about Penny by visiting her website by clicking HERE. There is also a yummy recipe for rich, decadent icing which I whipped up for cupcakes for the concert at the OCC blog - I've called it Penny's Rainbow Icing. You can make it ahead of time and the recipe doubles and triples up nicely for large functions. The recipe is available in a full Microsoft Word document, or ready to print using Scribd - just click the MORE feature on the Scribd window on the OCC blog and choose Print, if thats what you would like to do!

Thank you, Penny - for your visit, your music and the (sniff - yes, you've made me misty!) the cloud-shaped card! Until we meet again, dear friend.

*****

photo by Amalia Sommer

My friend Amalia took this photo of me one day recently while I was visiting her. I took one of her at the same time -

Amalia is SO handy with her camera. She took a course at the Learning Centre with my Mr. as her Instructor - and she's mastered every function on that little camera and hers - including the video, that's her video of Penny's performance above. Pretty good quality for a little camera.

I'm going to take some time off from my blog for the next 4 weeks. I need to rejuvenate - so I hope you all have a great July!