The Not So Scary Boys

Tonight was friend night at Awana for Ian. We have a hard time finding friends for Ian to invite. Every time we invite a new friend, they end up joining Awana, meaning we have lost them as a guest forever! I'm happy that they like Awana and that they want to go, but it can make life challenging on the friend seeking department.
Part of the problem is that we live so far away from where we go to Awana, about 45- 50 min. I don't really feel comfortable inviting kids in our little town that we have just met to go that far away from their parents. Plus, I'm sure their parents would be a little leery about that, too.
So I racked my brain trying to think who we could invite to Awana. I came up with a slightly unusual choice. My friend Kim's two boys. The reason I say unusual is that the last few times we were at their house, Ian had a definite thing about those boys. He wouldn't play with them, he wouldn't listen to them if they wanted to play and he hid from them. I asked him if they had been mean to him, but they hadn't, he just didn't know them well enough to feel comfortable around them. This afternoon he thought that he might have felt uncomfortable because they had grown so much since he last remembered playing with them.
Ian was at least comfortable with inviting them (after a little coaxing), and so this evening we went to their house and picked them up to go to Awana. We took them to Pizza Hut for dinner, which all three boys loved, and then we took them to Awana.
Silly Ian. He has gotten over his thing about those boys. On the way home he told me he missed them! I guess they weren't so scary after all.