A complete evening

To help the parents in attendance, Heather took the kids aside and gave them their own little Afria Night, complete with coloring book passports and "Look who's a missionary!" video.

Sharing from the heart

Alex shared about the cultural impressions she got when visiting Tanzania. She also explained how financial support can make a huge difference in the church they support. I focused my message on the growth of Christianity around the world and the remaining challenges we face in missions.

More pictures from the weekend

With over 50 friends and family in attendance, we had a great time talking beforehand. Our display table and books gave people a chance to learn about Africa on their own. We did notice a high number of purple shirts that evening. Is there something about Africa that makes people think purple? Hmmm.....

Africa Night

Sunday night we had a huge event at the church I grew up in. Although we've been speaking all over the county (about a dozen churches in the past 3 months), we still have friend and family who haven't been able to hear our presentation. We wanted to create an event where they could come, and we could treat them to some African delicacies. The Witts, whose daughter has visited Tanzania, are instrumental in supporting a congregation in Africa, and they teamed up with us to put on AFRICA NIGHT. Here are some photos from the night. Randy and I are cooking up some stew and soup. My mom is getting ready to serve the desserts.

Worry-ful or Wonderful?

I spent sleepless nights back in Africa wondering about what we’d do during our home assignment in America. Would we get jobs? Would our support drop? Where would we live? What would we drive? All kinds of questions surfaced as we headed into the great big unknown.

Now that we’re here, there’s still a twinge of anxiety about what will come next, what have we already accomplished. But it’s mostly settled.

While we’ve had very few substitute teaching jobs, we’ve found that our “non-9-to-5” hours are packed. Every evening involves Bible studies and small groups, which we both participate in and lead at times. We do get a few speaking engagements during the weekdays (me at a Christian school’s chapel and both of us at a mid-week women’s ministry), but most of our engagements happen Sunday morning. Some weeks we’re at two churches in one morning, either attending or preaching. I have been writing stories for the county newspaper every Friday night (5pm to 1am) about local football games. Those are our hard and fast commitments.

Another aspect of our “work” here is simply setting up meetings and speaking engagements. Since I haven’t lived in PA since 1996 (which was also before I was a Christian), all of these contacts I’m making are brand new. It’s been an amazing experience meeting dozens of new pastors and church leaders, but it’s also been a surprising amount of time involved organizing and preparing.

We’ve both been getting some computer training, which will hopefully save us time in the future. We’ve been spending as much time as possible with our family, trying to make up for four years of lost time. We’ve been enjoying Micah’s soccer games two nights a week. Good stuff all.

I’ve been writing regularly. In fact, I just got word last week that my new book will be published by Father’s Press. You can read about the topic of Winter Spring Summer Fall: Living and Lasting as a Missionary by clicking here.

I was worried that I’d fall apart without a strict bell schedule to arrange my days around, but God has been very good. He’s allowing us to minister to others and to be ministered to. He’s blessed us with a wonderful half-family (the rest is waiting their turn in San Diego) and every moment with them has been great. Our schedule is different, full, and blessed. And for that, I’m grateful. Not worried.

As they say in Africa, hakuna matata. I haven’t forgotten.