We had planned a get together for some time.
A Norwegian friend L from my past — someone I’d known since college days, which goes back decades — expressed interest in meeting the Ukrainian couple I have been sponsoring since September 2023 (about 3.5 months).
L has a platonic female friend, also L, a woman close to 40, active in Norwegian events. She happens to be devout.
She also expressed a desire to meet the Ukrainians.
I agreed to bring them to the Protestant church about an hour north of where I live with my refugee guests.
I set the GPS on my cellphone and got behind the wheel.
The GPS is a marvelous invention.
Only occasionally leading me astray, I have relied on it to get to places with which I am unfamiliar or inadequately acquainted.
About an hour later we reached the church.
This particular church has some interesting history.
Close to the waterfront of a major port, Norwegian women would welcome their men home from sea.
Husbands, sons, boyfriends.
Men who had been at sea and were happy to be home again for a time on terra firma.
What better place to commemorate their return than a church?
It was almost akin to a synagogue being erected at the spot of the Prodigal Son’s return.
