Joyful Journey

Saying good-bye is definitely not my forte. Never has been, most likely never will. Unfortunately, I've had to do a lot of that recently. Two weeks ago, it was good-bye to Kate & Sarah. This week was Gillian and Daniel. Last night Kasey, Alea and Daniel. Today I took Janice and Kurt to the airport, as they too return to the states. Almost every day this week we will be seeing someone to whom we need to say good-bye. Anyone who has moved has had to deal with this. As friends here have acknowledged the fact that we are most likely excited about moving back home, which we are, we have acknowledged that it is not without mixed emotions. We have made many dear friends. Some we met early on. Some we only knew for a few months. But their friendship enriched our lives so that we are no longer the same people we were when we arrived. There is something very special about friendships made in a country where you are a foreigner and a stranger. Friendships between you and ...

That's how one of my daughter-in-laws signed an e-mail that she sent to me the other day. It was a bit of a surprise to read the number. 32 days. Wow. I should have realized that was the number we were looking at and yet it seems so short. 32 days is not very long to sort through our things (this stays in the apartment, this is to be packed, this goes with us on the plane, this goes to a friend, "what about this???",....) figure out how to use up tomato paste, pasta, rice, BBQ sauce, pesto and Thai sauce sitting in the pantry take care of all the paperwork that needs to be done for us to leave spend time with friends finish up organizing the church library here visit all the rest of the places on "the list" hike the rest of the Alps (okay these last two are impossible, but it's always fun to dream!) I find that when I have a "big event" coming up, I am very careful in my use of my time. If it's 2 weeks before something a major event, I hav...

One of the blogs which I try to read on a daily basis is WorldMag.com. Living in the states, we have subscribed to World Magazine for quite some time. I don't always agree with everything they write, but I have greatly appreciated their Christian worldview commentary on current events. We began reading the magazine after reading their weekly kids magazine "God's World News" written for differing age levels. It became a weekly part of our school reading program. But eventually the boys graduated to the adult magazine and we subscribed to the weekly magazine for many years. I have often found myself challenged by Andree Seu's writing. A quote from one of her recent posts has continued to challenge me. "All the real action in the Christian life takes place on the cellular level of this moment’s obedience to this moment’s call." Andrée Seu , July 24 Do you ever struggle with immediate disobedience? Boy, I do. I wish I could say afte...