Finding friends

Emilene and Oscar front row to Fr. Tony's right

I meant to post this a few days ago but never caught my breath until just now. I have a small but faithful group of folks who choose to follow this blog. One of my followers early on was a wonderful lady from Capetown, South Africa. Her name is Emilene. She was in Santiago to meet her husband, Oscar, who had just completed his first camino. They both attended the the English language 10:30 am mass, and Emilene recognized Robin from a post on Johnniewalkersantiago's Facebook page. So after the mass was over they both started chatting and then Robin recognized Emilene's name as follower on this blog. Robin then said she thought she was following a blog, agoodwalkunspoiled, and lo and behold Emilene started making the connection. Robin pointed to a man just outside the chapel (me) greeting arriving pilgrims and said to her it is his blog. That is my husband, John. It was one of those wonderful serendipitous moments where one can only surmise that it was time for us to meet. Mass was about to start and they had things to do, and were leaving that day to return home. So we just soaked up the joy of such a wonderful chance encounter. Eventually we had to go our separate ways, as is usually the case. I went through the gate into the chapel as Emilene and Oscar made their way out of the cathedral and into the radiant sunlight of a clear Santiago summer's morning. Beautiful people met on the road to Santiago.

Emilene and Oscar