planes, trains, and automobiles

We just returned from our mid-west tour on Saturday and it was a great trip. We flew into Madison and visited friends and their church missions team and then drove to O'Hare. From there we took the train downtown and hung out for a few hours until we boarded the Megabus for St. Louis. There we stayed with friends and connected with most of our donors in St. Louis. We did a presentation at Church on Sunday and I got to do a reading during the service and pray. After St. Louis we headed to Kansas City to see two families there and then flew back to Hartford after 10 days of travel. It was a full, but great time as we were able to strengthen relationships, update others on life here, and be encouraged by others. It was good to take a step back from the various details which can be overwhelming and look at the big picture of what God has been up to the past 11months we've been in CT. Thanks for all of you who made time to hang out with us and we wish we had a few more days so we could see everyone, but sadly that wasn't possible.

concert central and goodbye

This past week Hillary and I went to a free outdoor concert in Ridgefield Park, which is ~an hour southwest of us. It was a beautiful night with clear skies, no humidity, and temps in the low 70's. (Summer in Ct is amazing) We got there early, had a picnic dinner, and had seats about 20ft from the stage. We saw the band Over the Rhine and they put on a spectacular show. The excellent weather, stunning performance, and quality of music all came together as an wonderful experience.

The downer for the week was the departure of close friends who we serve with at church. Mark is taking a job with a church in SC and it is all very exciting, except for their moving away. Over the past year we've been able to share a lot of life and were looking forward to more of the same. But the coming and going is part of life and something to mourn and celebrate. We're thakful and somewhat sad. Now the adventure continues of opening our lives to new and different people.

Last but not least, we'll be out of town in WI, MO, and KS next week so I won't be blogging.

Mt. Washington

This past week 5 guys from church (2 teens, three adults) went up to the White Mountain National Forest in New Hampshire. It was a beautiful drive with very little traffice and excellent scenery. As we were about to cross from Vermont to NH we realized we were only a half hour from Quebec. That's pretty cool eh? Hillary needs to get her passport, but we would like to head up into Canada next year.

Here are the low points:

-rain fly on Jarrett's tent did not perform well, leading to a wet sleeping bag

-two of those coming arrived late (next morning) because of low gas/getting a little lost, I woke up a few times to shine my flash light out of the tent to see if they were there and saw nothing. I kept telling myself they were sleeping out somewhere, which was true

Here are the high points:

-the White Mountains are beautiful

-it was an intense hike and 4 out of the 5 made it to the summitt

-we only got rained on during the hike down

-everyone had fun and no one was hurt (except for the sore muscles)