The Journey Begins

Some of you who live in Bellingham, might be wondering where the heck we have disappeared to.  Our moving to Burundi to serve as missionaries, involves several preliminary steps.  And the first step involves a month long training in Colorado Springs at Mission Training International.  So, last Saturday, we packed up the minivan, loaded up the kids, put a “for sale” sign outside our house and started driving, and driving, and driving.  We drove through Bozeman, MT stopping to visit some old friends, then spent half a day driving through Yellowstone Park, where Ella’s hat was blown by the wind right into a boiling hot springs (despite the children’s pleadings, I decided not to wade in to fetch it).  Then we drove through the rest of Wyoming, then through Nebraska and ended up (for now) in Lincoln, where we stopped to visit Steph’s parents and her sister’s family.  Thursday night Steph and I then flew to San Francisco, where we had an appointment at the French consulate to apply for our visas for language school, then flew back to Lincoln Saturday morning.  We will stay here through the weekend, then Monday morning, we will load up the car again and drive 8 hours to Colorado Springs.  

So far, the kids have done a great job, and we all feel like we have gotten to see a lot of this beautiful country … maybe too much.  And for those of you who think that Lincoln has nothing going on, the night before we arrived, Justin Bieber performed at their local arena.  That’s right people ….. Justin Bieber.  

We have been told that being a missionary means your lives will be filled with transitions.  In fact that is one of the topics I believe will be addressed at this training in Colorado, dealing with these frequent transitions (both for us and our kids).  There will be many hellos and there will be many good-byes.  This will undoubtedly bring much joy but also much sadness.  But in the end, we believe it will be worth the price.  But more than that, we believe we have been called into this by a good God who cares about us, and who cares deeply about the people we have been called to serve, the people of Burundi.  

A snapshot of our lives over the past week

Leavenworth, WA

The famous carousel in Missoula, MT

Yellowstone

 The French consulate appointment really took it out of me

The joy of cousins!