So, anyway, I was on the defensive, and was trying to sort everything and everyone out in my heart. And I determined that the truth of the matter regarding the housechurch branch was that I would be comfortable being in a smaller, more intimate setting with any one in the bigger housechurch, EXCEPT for ... you got it--Jason Shade. He just talked too much and seemed grumpy all of the time! His cousin Rachel calls it a man period. (Sorry, Jason, but that's how I saw it!). And it turns out that once again the Hand of God moved on my behalf: not only was Jason in my housechurch (yeah), but NO ONE ELSE was! In other words, the main part of the new Garber HC was me, Jason, Matt, and Christina. Talk about matchmaking! It was like the most basic Christian double-dating--let's talk about spiritual issues with a married couple! Haha. That's actually kind of funny.

Seriously though, for the better part of a year or longer, it was mostly just the four of us (there

was another guy who would come, but his attendance was more irregular until later). The Garbers and the one person with whom I didn't want to be in housechurch! God definitely has a sense of humor. One of two things was bound to happen: either the foursome idea wouldn't work and Jason and I would hate each other because I would be so annoyed by him, or we would end up where we are now: getting married in 3 months and 9 days (who's counting?). And around the same time, I started working on ILoveAltoona with Jason. In fact, I remember the first time he trained me on html code: we had Mama Randazzo's pizza at his apartment with his sister Erin chaperoning. ;-)

So, it was there in the midst of HC and ILA that Jason and I grew to be closer friends. I started looking at him as a quirky brother that I like to spend time with, at the very least because he's always got something to say. There would be Sundays at church where the Garbers weren't