Pen Pals in Quarantine: How a Peachtree Corners family and an Australian family connected worlds apart

As the Coronavirus outbreak has seemingly closed the door to interpersonal interaction worldwide, it has left opportunity for new and old friends alike to connect through social media. One such example of online connection between friends is Jennifer Whiddon, Discipleship Assistant at Peachtree Corners Baptist Church (PCBC) and her Australian pen pal Sally Shaw who she has kept in touch with for over 40 years.

Their friendship began in the 1980s when Jennifer saw Sally’s mailing address in a newsletter for a band they both shared a common interest in and decided to write to Sally about the music. From there, the friendship blossomed.

“At that time, we’d talk about anything from boys, school and pop culture. That’s when she became more than just a pen pal to me, but really a very close friend,” Jennifer explained.
Jennifer went on to say that their friendship is unique because they could go weeks without writing, but when they’d hear from each other again, they could pick up right where they left off.

Growing up Together
As Jennifer and Sally began to mature, the pace of their conversations changed. Over the course of 10 years of friendship, they had gone from chatting about bands and boyfriends to work and kids. Luckily, as time progressed, new methods of communication became available. So the women began to use Facebook Messenger and started “pinging” each other and sending funny messages.

They even planned to meet up for the first time this spring in Melbourne, Australia, where Sally and her family live. The trip planning focused their conversations for many weeks as they worked out the details. Unfortunately, their plans would be interrupted with something unexpected: travel restrictions related to Coronavirus.

The pandemic and its effect on their individual families soon took hold of their daily talks. Jennifer said that, “We just decided to keep giving each other updates on how everything was going. The United States ended up being about two weeks ahead of Australia though, so when I started telling her about the shortages, she was really taken aback.”

They also discussed how the virus affected their work lives. As a discipleship assistant at PCBC, Jennifer made it her mission to stay connected to the church and used her time off to assist in her daughter’s digital learning assignments.

Meanwhile, Sally’s position as a first responder began to intensify. Sally told Jennifer about her difficult experiences as Head Nurse at a hospital in Melbourne.

“The nurses and doctors started to talk about what they would have to do in worst case scenarios, like if ventilators began running short. It was really heartbreaking to hear,” Jennifer said. “I just kept thinking about her having to deal with the stress of work and still having to be a mom and coming home and helping with homework or making dinner. It all just sounded impossible to me, but she’s doing it.”

The women have also discussed how their respective countries are responding to the crisis. In Australia, Jennifer said, “They have specific shopping hours for first responders and senior citizens so they can get what they need before the crowd rolls in. I thought that was really neat.”

They talked about the differences in their daughters’ schooling during the pandemic as well. Jennifer explained, “I told her about how we were doing school online and how we weren’t sure if we’d even be starting back normally in the fall. They’re doing things a little differently though. In Australia, school is going to start back up in June, and they’ll be staggering school days between students.”

A Legacy of Friendship
There is a bright spot in all the chaos. Amid all of this, a new friendship sparked between daughters Peggy and Maddie. Jennifer said she not only encouraged the correspondence between the girls, but insisted they do it the old-fashioned way.

“I thought it would be sweet if their friendship started out the way mine and Sally’s did, through letter writing. Once it started, though, my daughter Peggy realized how much she loves getting things in the mail, so that’s been really fun for her.”

The girls play video games with each other online to stay connected, and use their moms’ phones for weekly catch-up. They’ve also worked on planning activities for their trip once it’s safe to travel internationally again. In quarantine, the girls have been able to research fun activities to do in Melbourne, like visiting the local zoo.

All and all, Jennifer said the friendship between her, Sally and their daughters is so special because, “You can be continents away from someone, but still feel so connected to them because of the technology available to us today.”

She went on to say, “In times like these, when we feel so far apart, we can still make an effort to be close to someone through texting, calling or even Facetime, which is something special.”