What is friendship?

You asked me to think of a memory about Jonathan to write about. When I let myself really think about Jonathan, memories overflow. I have known Jonathan since we were both toddlers. I was friends with him for an entire decade. When I think about the friendship we had with each other, I think we had friendship in that occurred phases.So I guess my blog entries will be glimpses into those phases of our friendship.

When Kirsten left for the summer to be a counselor at girl scout camp, I was left with no best friend for 3 whole months. When I was missing someone important in my daily life, that's when Jonathan seemed to step in. I had never really had a guy friend before and he was so fun to be around. I remember going to hang out at Mazzios on Sunday nights, going to Golf World, shooting pool at Steven's house, and TCBY. He loved to set the alarm off on my convertible (I think for the sole purpose of watching me yell about it). He had that pager which I thought was so high tech that got stolen. In each other, we had finally found the friend who hated youth choir enough to skip out. TCBY was our escape destination. I wish I could remember those TCBY conversations. At youth camp, he was the one sitting next to me when a certain someone farted during the prayer at the Lord's Supper service. We laughed FOREVER!

It's strange the things that I do remember from that summer. I remember he told me that I had pretty eyes. It was just a compliment. There was nothing more to it. I was such an awkard ninth grader soon to be sophomore that had really never had a guy friend say anything nice about me and that made an impact. That was a big part of my friendship with Jonathan, when he was around he boosted my confidence. I know he did that for Matt. That's why Jonathan could convince you to be fearless and take a risk because he ingnited something within you that pushed you to do and be more. - Amy Ervin

Electronic Bibles

So this week after Bible study the group was sitting around talking about different translations/versions of the Bible. Merlin, the guy who leads the study, was explaining about the ESword program that he uses. It is an online version of the Bible with multiple translations and languages and all that stuff. Anyway, it reminded me of the trip we took to hear Kay Arthur at her conference center one spring break. It was a group of us from Colonial Heights. I think I was 9th grade so Jonathan would have been 8th grade. Anyway, it was just a week or two after Jonathan's birthday and he had gotten one of those electronic Bibles. It was maroon and he was quite proud of it. So we are in our first session with Kay and she tells us to all take out our Bibles. Well Jonathan is on the front row and he pulls out his electronic thing and Kay totally called him out. It was hilarious. She stops in the middle of her teaching and tells him to put away he game and take out his Bible and Jonathan is all trying to explain that it is a Bible, but she was really not interested in listening to him. She went on and on about bringing your Bible and not playing games and all this stuff. Jonathan was finally able to tell her that it was a Bible and she was amazed. I remember she came down off the stage to look at it!!! :)

WWJD

I remember when he picked me up from MC when I was a car rider, and I thought I was so cool, because my big brother was picking me up in his z71! That was when WWJD bracelets were really big, also known as We Want Jonathan Devore by all the teenage girls at church! - Lydia

Follow that Bird!

So you are probably all wondering what in the world does a Big Bird movie have to do with Jonathan! Well this was the very first movie that Jonathan and I saw in the theatre. It was the summer of 1985. Jonathan was 5 years old and I was six. We were in Minnesota for a family reunion. I distinctly remember being thrilled about going to the movies for the very first time. I remember my aunt and uncle and several cousins went with us. The movie was picked because it was a Sesame Street film and certainly would not contain anything to scar us children. Oops. Jonathan and I both were pretty upset that Big Bird was in trouble. I distinctly remember some tears being shed.This is the same trip to Minnesota. We are sitting at the feet of Paul Bunyan at Paul Bunyan Land with our cousin, Nicole. Every trip to Minnesota included a visit to the Paul Bunyan Land theme park!