Soccer, sort-of

Characters:
Marne--my closest St Louis friend.  Has lived here for 8 years, having moved from Birmingham.  Married to John Halsey; mother of Halsey, Virginia Lee, McIver, and Slade.  Told us about playing soccer with Central.

Vicki--the director of my Classical Conversations group that meets at Jubilee Church.  Married to Rick.  Mother of Sarah, William, and Henry.  Members of South City Pres. She's never met Marne or Marne's friends.  Didn't know they did Central soccer before today.

Mallie--Marne introduced us at a swim meet this summer.  They are old friends from Bham.  Here for here husband's transplant surgeon fellowship, or something like that. 

Ginny--good friend of Mallie's, friend of Marne's, from Nashville.  Moved here a year ago for her husband's job.

Christy and Michael Brandenstein--our soccer coach and his wife.  He's the pastor at South City Pres and her counseling office is at Jubilee Church.  Originally from Nashville.

Scene 1:  texting on the phone, last week
Marne texts me and says Mallie's friend Ginny will be at soccer practice on Monday and that they want us to meet.

Scene 2:  Cricket Field, Forest Park.  Soccer Practice #1, today
I meet Coach B. and his wife Christy.  Christy and I hit it off and I end up volunteering to coordinate snacks and get all the moms to sign the waiver right then at practice.  Christy has a child practicing with my girls and a Kindergartner practicing on the other half of the field, so she heads that way.  My ulterior motive for doing the waiver is to find and meet Ginny, but I never did meet her before practice was over.

Scene 3:  on the phone with Brian, after practice
Brian right away puts together the South City Pres connection and asks me if I asked the coach if he knew Rick and Vicki.  Nope, I hadn't asked.  Maybe I'll remember next time. 

Scene 4:  checking email at home, tonight
Vicki had emailed to ask if I have a child playing soccer with Central, perhaps in Kindergarten.  She had met someone who was looking for a homeschool mom of four, whose name is R Brown (Rachel or Rebecca, she couldn't remember). *which, btw, really makes me laugh out loud that that's the description of me.*

Funny connections:  Vicki and Marne have never met or really heard much of each other, but have a random connection now through me and this girl Ginny.

Vicki and Christy are most likely friends...we shall see.

I wonder if Ginny and Christy friends, maybe having known each other from Nashville?

Our CC meets at Jubilee Church, where Christy's counseling office is.

Vicki and Ginny happen to meet at soccer today, but I can't figure out how.  Sarah is 10, obviously not in Kindergarten, but the child Vicki mentioned who is playing soccer.

All this in probably two hours total of God-ordained meetings.  And it feels good to see networks of relationships come into place.  Makes STL feel more like home.  Like when the mom I became friends with at swimteam waved to me at 7am the other Saturday morning from way across the street and shouted, "hey!"  Hadn't seen her in weeks, but we know where each other lives.  And the other week when B had the two littles out at the park, they ran into another mom from the "other swimteam," and she spoke to Brian because she recognized the kids.  Awesome.  Then there's David, Sol's dad, the practicing Jew.  He and Brian talked tonight in the driveway about Hebrew the language because David can read it but not translate it, and it's what B's learning now.  That also means B can talk to Sol about how hard it is to learn the alphabet, etc.  Cool.

Lots of relationships.  Lots of people.  Lots of prayers being offered up and answered around here.  God is so good all the time.  I'm considering changing the title of the blog.