At IC 2022, during Chofesh, I was running around BBYO Boulevard with my friends and bumped into a group of kids from Madrid in BBYO Spain. We introduced ourselves, exchanged Instagram handles and continued our regular activities. On the last night of IC, we met one of the girls, Michelle, again, spent some time at the concert with her, and then quickly said goodbye as it was time to go back to our respective rooms, assuming that we would never interact again. 

Over the summer, I met Michelle again on a trip to Israel that we both coincidentally happened to be on. We were in the same dorm and instantly recalled that we met one another at IC. After that moment, we became inseparable best friends, spending the entire summer together and reminiscing over our short time together at IC. BBYO was always a topic of conversation for us because it is a connecting force that unites people from all over the globe. Whenever we did not know what to talk about, one of us would share a chapter experience that we had, and it would spiral into hours of sharing our BBYO memories.

After our six weeks together in Israel, Michelle and I had to go our separate ways. While this was a heartbreaking fate, given that we live over seven hours apart by plane, we were excited to reunite at IC 2023. 

Although we both have busy schedules and a five-hour time difference, Michelle and I keep in touch. We text almost every day and frequently use Whatsapp to facetime each other. Every few days, we text each other with the number of days until we get to see each other again, with more excitement each time the number gets lower. It is almost impossible to believe that we started at two hundred days, now we are nearly one hundred days away, and soon enough, we will be together again at IC. 

Staying in touch with international BBYO friends is very difficult but, overall, extremely worth it. Everybody has their own BBYO journey, but one of the most important parts of mine is having year-long connections with people from around the International Order. Having friends you only get to see once a year at IC makes IC even more special and shows how valuable BBYO is to teens.