Sunday, November 23, 2008

October Happenings

I haven't blogged in forever! Not because we haven't had much going on, really because I haven't been able to catch myself coming and going :-)

One of the most fun things that we did in October was the Simpson Park Camp youth retreat. It my first real test back from Guinea-Bissau to see if I can still make it in cold weather, and I am afraid to say that I cannot... I slept in the dorm with all of the other girls. As they were dreaming peacefully in their PJs I was fully cloth
ed, doubled socked, inside my sleeping bag, with a hat and a jacket... hehe but I did survive just fine. I was the youth speaker so I talked about my favorite Bible story - Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. We talked about having people to stand with and what things are worth standing for and standing against. I threw in a few embarrassing stories from Africa, and everyone had a good time.

Jason and I had so much fun on the trains in Europe that we thought we would give the American train system a try. Youth for Christ needed us for some training in Denver the Monday after the youth retreat, before the crack of dawn on Sunday we drove to Chicago and them hopped a train to Denver. There are a lot of things about train travel that are much nicer than plane travel. No security probes, no security lines, tons of baggage room so you don't have to check anything, footrests that make the seats into recliners, enough room between the seats to actually recline, and electrical outlets by the seats. Not bad...

After we steamed into Denver in style we stayed there for a week of meetings. Most of it was not exactly riveting stuff - how to file taxes overseas, who to call about different paperwork things, and stuff like that. We were interviewed by a panel about our calling into ministry and after a huge battery of personal, psychological, and marriage tests we spent a morning with two psychologists. The outcome of all of it was that YFC is crazy about us and we are totally accepted without reservations to be full-time missionaries! YAY!

We spent an afternoon in the mountains with our friends Jason and Erica and then they dropped us off at the train station to roll home. Unfortunately, the train that was supposed to arrive at 7 pm was 5 and a half hours behind schedule and was not expected until after midnight... When we asked how this happened we were informed that the signals on the track were out for 40 miles so the conductor had to get out and walk the train through each intersection... Yikes! Jason and Erica came back and picked us back up and we spent most of the evening in a little cafe. They left us around 11 pm and we were loaded on the train around 1, ready for some sleep :-) The building behind us in the picture is the Amtrak station and the neon on the station says "Union Station Travel by Train". So I was wondering where the train was and Jason was checking his watch.... Gotta love us.... hehe

I leave some other adventures for a later blog!