Home and Moving

We're home! You have to love the prairie-- the scenery that is mostly sky and the land that stretches out forever. Driving into Manitoba this time I was struck by the fact that we are home... maybe not for long, and certainly not totally. But for now, this is home. Our lives are settling here, our hearts are finding a place. God is good. You, our friends, have helped us to this place. We are graced, blessed.

Since we got home last week we've been serious about getting school done, Kevin's been working, Garry's been helping his dad on a deck, and we've been trying to catch up with some of the things that we left undone while we were on the road. It's been nice to see the sunshine and have some warmer temperatures... though I could do with a little more heat and more sun, from my perspective!

And now that we've gotten home, we're moving to a new house! It's only a few miles away, and we're trying to be organized about this move since we don't have to crate things up. So we're planning to move sort of by rooms and make sure everything is properly sorted before we take it anywhere (yeah, some things we just stuffed into boxes last year when we arrived and realized we wouldn't need them here after all!) I was thinking I could write a book on moving-- moving in 3 presentations-- changing houses, changing cities, and changing countries! And now, I supposed I should get to it!

Family times with Jonathan and Jenny...

What an amazing time we had with Jonathan & Jenny and their lovely kids. It was so good to see them again-- to play with the kids and hear their stories, to connect over coffee, to share meals, to walk together and simply BE together. A gift. A blessing!

And still, the time was too short, the days too few. As we were hugging the children goodbye and later Jonathan and Jenny I was nearly overcome from both the happy and the sad angles. So incredibly thankful that we were able to spend this time with them. So sad to realize how few our times are, sad to realize how few our opportunities are to be and grow together.

I wondered how God sees the blood lines, family lines. I wonder if in heaven we'll get a special opportunity to reconnect after spending so much of our lives apart. I wonder what it would be like to be neighbors. I wonder what kind of friends we would be if we'd lived close by all our lives.

In the end, there are no answers, at least not any that I've found. I must put my questions and sadness in the hands of a Father who is always good, always loving, always here. I must let go of what-ifs and wonderings and move on with the memories tucked securely in my heart and an eternal hope firmly planted, a faith that is often against my feelings.

Tennessee

The road goes on and on. The journey continues. The blessings pile up. The memories grow. What a privilege to do a bit traveling and connect with some of our friends and supporters. There is no way we could connect with everyone we would have liked to on this trip, but God has given us amazing opportunities to connect with many of you!

Our time in Ontario finished the way it began-- well! We heard passion for the world and passion for local kids. We heard about triumphs and challenges. We were amazed to see how similar our kids are to the kids of friends we haven't seen for many years. 

After Durham we stopped close to Hamilton and reconnected with a family that we met at a badminton tournament years ago. We enjoyed meeting more of the family and checking out Redeemer University. Kevin played some really fun badminton. We shared pizza at midnight. 

Then we headed south to Tennessee, stopping for a bit at Niagara Falls on the way. What beauty! What splendor! And to imagine that the God who crafted those falls chooses to make His home among us, to use us, to bless us. Wow!

We spent yesterday in Tennessee, reconnecting with friends from Garry's days at Moody Aviation. Once more, it's been amazing. God is writing amazing stories in the lives of our friends here! And it is good to recount the story He is writing in our lives as well. This morning we will meet more friends before heading south the my brother's place. Yes, a God journey, a part of the God story of our lives!

Ontario

We left home Wednesday morning and spent the evening with some friends from PNG. Actually, I hadn't met them before (why do I have to say that so often these days?!), but by the end of the evening I knew why Garry calls them friends. Their passion for God and following Him was amazing. Their fatigue after a long term was obvious. We talked about life overseas, coming back to North America, and realities of a field flight program. We discussed kids and how they grow up. Their hearts were soft and they blessed us. We talked about life overseas, coming to North America, and realities of a field flight program. We discussed kids and how they grow up. We connected, it was good, and now I also count them among my friends.

Thursday we left for Ontario, and drove through the night to arrive here this afternoon. It was a good trip, but not a fast one! Most of the time we were driving in the rain and/or fog. Thankfully there wasn't a lot of traffic. And despite slow progress, the trip was good. We talked, laughed, listened to music, and started an audio book. We drank our terere and stopped for burgers.

We were very happy to get out of the car when we arrived at our NTM headquarters in Ontario. Driving onto the property here brought back good memories of our year of training here as well as other visits. We saw just a few people this afternoon, and it was like we'd never left. We're part of something God is doing!

Home and off again!

Kevin and I got home very early Saturday morning (think 2 am early!) and we'll be off to our next adventure on Wednesday morning. It seems like a pretty quick turn around, but that might have something to do with being slightly sleep deprived, Kevin being sick with a nasty flu, and a somewhat long list of things that need done before we take off.

PNG beauty

While Kevin and I were gone Garry finished up the things that were on his to-do-before-the end-of-April list. He and Kaleb also cleaned up outside, enjoyed a few evenings with friends, and got a lot of things ready for our trip. In other words, while we were playing, they were working!

 Some of you may have noticed the page I put up about Jr Nationals-- I'll leave it there for another week or so in case anybody is interested, then I'll just delete it. To sum it up, we had a great week and Kevin got to quarter finals in U19 Boys singles. We also had some very cool opportunities to engage with people, opportunties to live honestly and plant seeds in the lives of people around us.

Yesterday two of our nieces arrived, and it was so much fun to enjoy dinner together and catch up a bit! Family is just that much  more special when you seldom see them. It was really fun to hear a bit about their lives and see how they've changed in the years since we've seen them. It does, however, make it that much harder to leave on Wednesday...