I can't believe our last post was on the 8th of May. There's far too much to put all of it into this post so I'll briefly summarize and we'll add a few new posts soon to elaborate on some areas.
We left the Africa Mercy on June 9th and arrived at Dara's Mom's house north of Seattle one landrover ride through Freetown, one Sierra Leone water taxi, one Poda-Poda, three flights, one car ride, and 41 hours later.
Jet lag actually wasn't too bad and we were over it in a couple of days. A couple days after arrival Dara's Mom held a welocome dessert for us at her house with family an friends. It was great to ketchup (catch-up) with some wonderful folks we haven't seen in three years. We've also had wonderful opportunties to spend time with, obviously, Dara's mom as well as my parents and our brothers and sisters (except Dara's brother Dwayne who is in Florida and my brother Greg who I hope to kethup with this week).
On Father's Day, June 19th, we surprised the kids by loading them up in the van and telling them that we were going to California for a vacation. We hadn't had a family vacation in about 6 years. We hit Disneyland and Legoland. We struggled with the decision to go as a family that lives off of the financial support of others, especially as our giving is down and the economy is so bad. We prayed about it a lot and felt a clear 'go ahead' from God. I cannot begin to tell you how rejuvinating and special it was to have two weeks as a family away from the hustle and bustle of West Africa and the confines of the ship. To see the kids enjoy Disneyland and have such a stress free time was priceless. More on that later.
So, we're back now. We're looking forward to a week with not much planned and then things start to get busy again.
