A Great Couple of Weeks (mostly)

Special friends, special times, special places--all add up to a great couple of weeks, if you don't count filling even more boxes. But, we chose this position, so we won't complain (where anybody can hear us). We spent the weekend of the Fourth of July in Washington with Cristina and Dick and Sylvia Rortvedt. Family all, they provided great company, great food, and fireworks over the Washington Monument for us and several thousand of our closest friends on the lawn in front of the Netherlands Carillon.
We got to go to Power in the Spirit, the Virginia Synod's retreat focusing on worship and telling the story, and got to spend quality time with Diane Jacobson, who's directing the ELCA's Book of Faith initiative. She came to see us, oh, and to be the Bible study leader at PITS. Good to see her and take in all she had to say, good to get the great food at Roanoke College, and wonderful to see all of our good friends from around the synod. Diane got a little pot in Salem. Hope she shared with Paul and the other workers in Grand Marais. Sigh. We missed y'all!
Sunday Pastor Jean Bozeman, Assistant to the Bishop of the Virginia Synod, and Pastor Chris Farrow, who shepherds our home parish, commissioned us, and the people of St. Paul's put on a wowser of a potluck. We were treated in style, let me tell you! And Sunday evening we spent with our children, Cristina and Anna here and Joe and Erika on Skype. A bit of advice--it's better to have 2+2 or so rather than 4+2 on each computer.

The hardest thing, besides being so far away (geographically) from all here in the US of A, will be living up to all of the love we're being shown. But I guess we're going because of the unconditional love we've been given, so maybe it will all work out after all....