I'm Back in Africa!

Just thought I would let you know that I arrived save and sound in Nairobi about 24 hours ago. All the luggage I had with me arrived as well.

It's good to be "home".

Ever feel like you are in a scene from a movie?

I have often thought that flying over the Atlantic on this all familiar flight to Amsterdam goes like a scene from the Truman Story. I know its a little stretch, but there are odd aspects of getting on a plane at 3:00 in the afternoon and 8 hours later its morning. It’s like the night got speeded up.

The same thing happens when Truman goes missing and his ‘maker’ is trying to find him. The commands everyone to take their ‘morning places’ and he turns the lights up on the world he’s created several hours early in an effort to find Truman. The sun rises quickly as it does from the plane window look east toward Europe.

I’m glad the rest of my story in completely different than Truman’s.

My Barnabas Team Threw Me a Good Bye Party

Team Members: Rachel and Daniel with a helping hand from Darlene

Dave, Faith and Jennifer catching up

Amanda, Tina and Kathy A trying some sweet treats

Is Roy putting some food in his pocket for later? Karla, look into that. Sue M and Kathie K enjoying the evening.

I have no idea what Julie and I were doing hand motions for.

The remnant clean-up crew. L to R back row: Kathy A, Rachel, Me; front row: Brian, Steve, Daniel. (I love the big smiles!)

Goodbye from the Combined Small Groups

So, sort of a large group, you might say. This was Bible study night but instead a cook-out at a park. I love this crowd. Here are just a few pics of the evening...

Saying Goodbye to my Teammates

This afternoon the staff at Daystar US wanted to have a little commissioning for me. Their way of going about it was to take me for lunch at Edina Grill.

It was a nice time of laughter and a sweet time of prayer. I will miss them. They are a great bunch!

Synopsis of a Life Story on a Single Page

My brother and I brought my sister’s ashes back to Minnesota. With them came her death certificate. I have never really read one before. It surprised me how much information is told about a person in a single sheet of paper.

It tells her whole name, date of birth and date of death. These are all things I would expect. But it also tells our deceased parents names and informs the reader that she was never in the armed forces and was never married. Her death certificate tells us the highest level of education she had and that she was in the art industry, additionally her profession was listed as artist. There are various other boxes filled in.

Of course we were interested to see exactly what the cause of death was:

Hyperkelemia 2/2 ARF

But there must be about ten or eleven things listed as contributing factors – all the way back to juvenile rheumatoid arthritis. So basically it has her medical history right there.

While this is a ton of information about Lee, it’s not really anywhere near the whole story.

Lee and Me at the tip of Washington

La Push in 1991. And both with a perm!