You haven’t heard from us since the month of May when we were packing up for the BIG move back to Louisiana for our year of itineration. We haven’t gone AWOL. Au contraire, we tied up all the loose ends concerning sub-leasing our rental house in Belgium, completed the administrative tasks required by our local government and banking institutions, said “Au revoir” (literally = “to the re-seeing”) to our wonderful friends all across Belgium, hugged as many necks of students and alumni as we possibly could, deposited our well-loved Westie into the care of a former landlady, made the bittersweet trek out to the Brussels National Airport and boarded the big plane for the home land. Whew! Are you tired yet? Wait, it gets better.
Touching back down in one’s own country of origin always brings back a flood of emotions and reminders of things familiar while at the same time an awareness of what has changed since the previous sojourn. True to form, this time was no different. And a host of new tasks awaited our arrival, family re-connections being the first and most important, followed closely by the urgency of finding a vehicle. Since our family of eight can no longer fit into a minivan, we find ourselves in a 12-passenger vehicle to travel the roads of Louisiana and other states. The first trek was up to Missouri for a Missionary Renewal conference. Callie, our oldest, worked in the nursery program earning much needed college money while her siblings got to enjoy connecting with Missionary Kids (MKs) from all over the world who are also stateside with their families for their itineration year.
Many family members and friends got in to the flow of helping find the necessities to furnish a house for a year and by mid-July we were relatively equipped with a home base. So while training was occurring back in Belgium with the various Students for Christ groups from across Europe, we hit the road the first week of August. So far our travels have seen us ministering in a Hispanic congregation, a young adult retreat, missions conventions, university meetings, and many church services. Interspersed in the mix was a short trip back to Belgium for Blair (and Claire) to perform the wedding of two SFC students in our leadership team.
Whew! I’m tired just writing about all this activity. Good thing we’ve got a Thanksgiving week of family R & R time scheduled…time to recoup, regroup, and reflect. In the mean time, please feel free to contact us if you would like to have us for a service. We also have information for direct online giving on our web site. We hope your Fall season is like a cool wind of autumn — refreshing you and bringing you much reason to be thankful!
Of course, every American kid has to have a lemonade stand experience to stir their entrepreneurial juices; Christopher & David were no exception during the hot and humid Louisiana summer.