April 2005 Adventures

We begin April continuing our travels.  Our first stop for the month was to visit our daughter, Rhian at her home in Austin, TX.  Here she is with her boyfriend, James Gracey.  They are both avid bikers, and they are on their way for a daily 60 mile bike ride! 

We left Rhian & James and headed to Pensacola, FL.  We haven’t been in this part of the state of Florida since Hurricane Ivan had hit the area on 9/16/2004.  What devastation we saw! 

We visited one of our supporting churches, St. Mark UMC in Pensacola, FL.  As you can see from the photo, their steeple was blown off from the hurricane.

From Florida, we headed back to Atlanta, but for just 1 night at our home.  We spent the next night with Ed’s brother & his wife, Cliff & Barbara.  They live on Lake Sinclair in Milledgeville, GA; so it was a short drive from our home in Lawrenceville.  We traveled a total of 3,690 miles during this 3 week tour!  What a blessing that God has provided good asphalt for the roads in the USA.

We were able to be in Lawrenceville for a week, which enabled us to get some things accomplished:  a/c checked out, cancel cable TV, cancel Internet to the house, etc.  This also gave us time to help our other daughter, Kara, move into a new apartment.  She has graciously helped us out by being the caretaker of our home in Lawrenceville for the past 4 years.  However, her drive to work has increased to 1 ½ hours – that means 3 hours a day in a car in Atlanta traffic!  She is now only about 15-30 minutes from her office.  Now what to do with all that extra time?  On the left is Kara at her new apartment with her boyfriend, Mark Raspotnik.

During our 4 month visit in the states, we traveled over 6,000 miles by car, and had 1 trip to VA by plane.  That’s more than 50 miles a day!

We left for Paraguay on April 19^th, arriving April 20^th.  Nothing has changed!  We got off the airplane and drove to our home in Santani.  Everything at our home was fine, praise the Lord!  It has been so strange to return after 4 months and just immediately get back into the swing of things so thoroughly that it seems we never left!

We were home for 3 nights before heading back to Asuncion!  Our trip to Asuncion was for the wedding of another MSUM missionary, Christian Dickson.  He married a wonderful Paraguayan, Angelica.  She has a daughter, Camilla.  The happy family has headed back to the states, where they will make their home in Alpharetta, GA.  After a year of itineration, they will return to Paraguay to continue the ministry he has begun.  We will miss them during this year as they both added so much to our team.  If you would like for them to visit your church or group, please contact us and we will get you in touch with them.

After the wedding, we came back to Santani, but for just 2 nights.  During this brief visit home, we drove up to Yrybucua to see the new church at Oga Laga.  We hope to have a dedication service soon for this beautiful new church.  We returned to Asuncion, again, but this time for a meeting with Pastor Pablo & his wife Claudette.  It was good to have a chance to talk with them about what we will be doing for our next 5 year term in Paraguay. 

Besides drilling water wells, we are going to help the National Church in obtaining operating funds for 2 of our Methodist schools.  We hope to have a brochure ready soon that will give information about the schools and their needs.

We ended April with our monthly Pastors Meeting.  It was great to visit with all the pastors, and all the missionaries.  Here is a photo of all the pastors and missionaries.

More next month…