Band Of Brothers

Tonight at 7:30 pm, six or seven guys will meet in the upstairs of the Dutch Village Inn to talk about community and money, both topics from Donald Miller's book, Blue Like Jazz. After the meeting we will head to andrews house more than likely and drink coffee and smoke pipes/ cigars. We will have a lot of deep conversation or maybe not... who knows... we usually do... but the thing is, we are what we say we are... a Band Of Brothers... what happens there stays there... and this is my every Tuesday night... i love it and would consider it my church for the week... i get more out of it than i ever did at my last church... and we always say that what we do is what church was in Jesus' times... just a meeting... a Bible study... a Band Of Brothers... here you go Sam... something read while you wait for us and drink your coffee... lol... see you in a bit...

Evan

Tonight on November 6th I said goodbye to a friend of mine named Evan... he is in the NAVY and has already completed boot camp and A- School with flying colors... he came home on leave for 2 weeks and we have hung out just about every chance we have had... you see, Evan is like my brother... i am glad to be able to say that he is one of my best friends... I honestly love him like a brother... it's tough knowing that he is going to be gone for a year to Bahrain in the middle east... ya he'll get leave and all but i am moving to Minneapolis in about 6 months... what then?. And in all cases with the military in our extremely unstable world today, he is going to be in danger alot of the time... My friend Sam wrote a blog recently about the fact that Evan's chances of dying "trump all of ours by 1000%."... that hit home when i read it last night while Evan was sitting by me updating his myspace... i hate to say it but tonight very well could be the last time i ever see Evan... i know it's a morbid depressing thought but what if?... so this leaves me thinking what would life be like without one of the best friends i have ever had or anyone could have for that matter... SAD... tonight as i left his house, pulled out of his driveway and drove home i prayed for him... but i found myself praying very selfishly that God would protect Evan so i wouldn't lose my close friend... suddenly i looked at it from Evan's parents' point of view... What will tomorrow be like watching the little boy who grew up in their house for all of these years go put himself in the line of fire for our freedom?... SAD... Much more sad than i could ever know... the truth is anything could happen... as i wrote this i found myself crying much of the time... i am going to miss Evan alot and i hope to be in contact with him... So i guess thats all i have to say is that i am going to miss him... and i will probably find myself continuing to pray selfishly that God will protect my good friend... but i will also pray that He will protect Craig and Margaret's son and a protector of our country and more importantly our country's freedom... i said goodbye to a friend, a brother, part of my family... and its hard... but this happened and presented me with something to write about... something to spill onto a cyber scrap of paper for thousands to read if they please... here you go Sam... something new to read...

-Bradford-