The Juergens family hosted a dinner party tonight for Joni’s parents and her two sisters who were visiting from out of town. Denise and I and Jan and Alan Rutkowski were invited. Denise and I because Denise visited New York with Joni and her sisters last year and Alan and Jan because Alan went to Marquette University with Joni’s sister Laurie and Alan, Jan and Laurie had become good friends during that time but had not seen each other in over 20 years.
While we were visiting with each other before dinner, we noticed a couple looking for something in the field next to the elementary school behind the Juergens' house. Wondering what they were looking for and thinking they could use some assistance, Joni and a couple of us went out on her deck and asked the couple if they had lost something. The women responded that she had lost her ring in the grass but was about to give up looking for it. Joni offered to help and the woman and her husband declined, but we insisted. So we all went out the field to help search for her ring.
The woman and her husband were from the Oshkosh area and had been attending their granddaughters’ soccer game. The woman stated her hands had gotten very cold and her ring must have slipped off her finger and fell into the grass. When we asked what kind of ring we were looking for and the woman indicated it was a gold band with five diamonds.
Some of us formed a line and began crawling on our hands and knees to search in the grass for the ring, while others spread out around us and also searched in the grass. After I’d say about ten minutes, Joni’s sister Laurie jumped up and shouted she had found the ring. And sure enough there it was….the woman’s missing ring. The woman was obviously very happy and thanked Laurie and all of us for finding her ring.
Someone suggested a picture. The woman’s husband tried to take a picture of Laurie and his wife with his phone. But the memory card on his phone was full and he could not take any additional pictures. So I pulled out my phone and took a picture of Laurie and the woman and then the entire group (minus me and the woman's husband).
We invited the couple to join us for dinner. They declined and the woman’s husband made a joke about buying us all dinner, but at McDonalds since there was so many of us. We headed back to the Juergens' house to enjoy a great night together and the couple headed off to their car presumably to return home.
God was definitely on the loose among us tonight.
