After 25 Years....

I didn't have any sisters, but somehow I never thought of it as a minus. Maybe because that while each of my 8 brothers were very special to me, I also had lots of girlfriends all through life. I brought a good nurse friend, Myrtle, home from school one summer and later she married my brother Ray. Many of these girlfriends and I have kept in touch through the years.

Like this morning when the phone rang early and a voice speaking in Japanese asked for me. When that was cleared, she said, still in Japanese, "This is Junker." I blurted out, "Pat! Where are you?" She told me that she was in Tokyo--from Michigan--and has just a couple of free hours this afternoon and wants to "see your face and take some pictures."

Pat ad I go back 54 years to when we were both new missionaries studying Japanese in the mountains of a resort area called Karuizawa. We, along with Anna, Bessie, Rainy and Mabel, lived in a big house, which still looks beautiful today, for a year. We studied at least 8 hours a day, helped at meetings, rode our bikes all over the mountains and laughed a lot. Like the day, shortly after we got there, when Mt. Asama erupted. As we girls stood outside on the second floor patio trying to figure out what the smoke and noise were about, some Japanese were down below, looking up at us, trying to tell or ask us something. We all stood there mute until Pat, the daring one, said just 4 of the few words she knew in Japanese to them: "Wakarimasen, keredomo, tabun shirimasen." (We don't know what you're asking, but we probably don't know the answer anyway!) We've never let her live that one down!

So this afternoon we'll see each other's faces and take some pictures...and have some coffee! After 25 years!