Safely Home

We arrived home safely on Saturday morning (Philippine time) after 30 hours of traveling. We spent a few hours with Matt at the airport in Vancouver during our long layover there. Our trip was fine (uneventful). It's really good to be back!

We have felt very welcomed, both in church yesterday and at IGSL today as people greeted us with, "Wow! You're here, I missed you sooooo much!" (It's nice to feel loved.) Our only problem so far is no internet at home (broken modem) and none at IGSL either (offline)! So I am blogging (for the first time) from an internet cafe. Sorry, no photos this time!

Thanks for keeping us in your prayers.

One Thousand Gifts (again)!

This is gift number #909 -- our family of five! If you are a reader of my blog, you have been aware that for the past year I have been working on "One Thousand Gifts," a list of gifts that God has given me. This past week with our children has definitely added many more good gifts to the list. Some are big, like "realizing what a great son-in-law I have" and some are small, like "watching my kids cook supper together" . . . but they were all precious gifts I'm grateful for.

My Old Kentucky Home

I promised some photos from Kentucky, so here they are at last! We were here for just 12 days, but we visited lots of friends and family, and put many miles on the car. No photo journal of Kentucky is complete without horse photos, so I will start with that!

.

The thing I like best about Kentucky is the green trees and rolling hills. As we drove along the highways, we were always surrounded by green, green, green. I love it!

.

We spent time with my sister Mary and her husband, as well as her children and grandchildren.

.

Mary has a new granddaughter named Hannah, who was adopted by my nephew and his wife. She came from China just six weeks ago. Here is Mary with Hannah.

.

My favorite photo of my brother-in-law shows him in his comfortable gardening chair.

.

We also visited my brother John, a retired sheriff who still lives in our home town of Owensboro. He is a great cook and landscaper, and enjoys his moments of fame announcing football games for the high school we went to. (American football season has already started, and my brothers are pretty fanatic about it.)

A highlight of this trip to my hometown was a visit with my former sister-in-law Fumie from Japan. She and my eldest brother were married when I was just 12 years old, and I credit her with the beginnings of my love for Asia. Sadly, she and my brother divorced, and I had not seen Fumie for 20 years. I was so happy that I found her on this trip. It was an answered prayer and a very sweet reunion, and I am delighted that we are connected again..

Our last few days were spent with my brother Joe and his family in Lexington. Joe is a judge and his wife Jeanne is a nurse. They have three kids, aged 32,22 and 12. The oldest is already married. David, age 12 keeps busy playing (you guessed it!) FOOTBALL. Harley the beagle hound is the latest addition to their family.

We enjoyed our brief days in Kentucky with family and dear friends, and are looking forward to the next stop . . . seeing our kids in Texas.