Vancouver

Greetings from Vancouver, Canada! We made it last night without any delay or strike! Yeah! We plan to do a little sightseeing before we board the ship. Have a good day, eh!

Alaska Bound

Tomorrow, Friday August 25th, I am heading for Alaska. Christi and I are excited! We will spend a night in Vancouver, Canada before boarding the Celebrity Summit for a 7 night northbound Alaskan cruise. We have plans to kayak near glaciers in Juneau and visit the Phelps. I know we're going to do a bunch of other stuff but I can't think of what all it is now. Christi has been the planner!

Stay tuned for some pics of beautiful Alaska!

About 'Re-entry'

Re-entry has been on my mind for some time. I purchased the book by Craig Storti titled, 'The Art of Coming Home'. I wanted to share this excerpt from the very last page. I hope it will be meaningful to anyone out there who is in the process of re-entry, or who might be in the future.

"The ultimate context for understanding and appreciating reentry has to be the overseas experience that precedes it, for this is what gives reentry its meaning. In this regard, we might remind ourselves that the word 'reentry' comes to us from the space program, where, next to ignition or blastoff, the reentry phase is the most dangerous and difficult part of a space mission. In between, of course, comes the grand adventure of space exploration. So it is for the sojourner, whose reentry may also be dangerous and difficult but who needs only recall the wonder and richness of the overseas experience to put everything in perspective. Who can imagine astronauts, their space capsule rocking violently at the peak of reentry, wishing they'd never gone to the moon?" (pg 187) (sorry husband, no Turabian)

Campus life

Grad school students in the off-season! Way to go guys!

Seriously though, it was sweeter than ever before to get back from Australia and catch up with our campus community. Living on campus has been such a wonderful blessing. I already feel nostalgic as I look back on the last three and a half years we have spent here. And I already feel deep emotions when I think of the day we will have to say goodbye to our neighbours and friends, professors and mentors and close this chapter of our life. Its one of those things you think will 'never happen' (at least I think)...

Just like I thought the day for highschool or college graduation would never come, or the wedding day, or the day for leaving Australia, Canada or Japan, I have often thought of our time in Memphis as 'without end'. Yet here I am, able to count on just two hands the number of months we have left here! Have we really been here this long???

So...before I cry all over the ibook...heres to a good, full, rich, sweet 10 months or so in the HOOD!

Lovin' Technology

Sorry for the lack of blog entries. We've been busy...


I don't know where Stephen gets the idea that we're Amish???
At least giving up cable (contract runs out in the fall, we hear) won't be quite so hard...

Oh and by the way, the husband and I have 'parted ways' in the blog-o-sphere. See 'husband' link for deeper thoughts....

Survey trip celebration

Within a week of landing back in the US of A, our Memphis lives were back in full session. Work, study, GA work, etc, etc. It was a welcome retreat to get together with our team mates and celebrate a successful survey trip. And it was especially good to see Nina, Brenna and Darian who had stayed with grandparents during the summer.

We really feel like our trip was a success. We survived after all! We endured the stress filled time of preparations, the long and tiresome journey, the jet lag and the demanding schedule. We were able to gather most of the information we intended to gather. Sure we came up with some more questions which are yet to be answered...but we wouldn't want to take the 'faith' aspect out of our journey, would we?!

We celebrated with song, affirmation, praise and prayer. And we're excited to share with you the good news that the Jon, Sara, Nina and Jack will join us in Wollongong! They have an exciting couple of years ahead of them with plans to take them from Memphis to Wollongong through China or Taiwan as English teachers.

We're so thankful to serve God together in Wollongong with these two families. May God use each of us to His glory!