You know that phrase, 'you passed the point of no return'. Well I just can't seem to get it out of my head lately. I've been doing lots of stuff relating to member care for missionary families. Long term planning is alway an issue when you've got kids in school in a foreign country. But mix up the issues involved in pioneering a new team and ministry with the complications of having 4 kids in a complicated school system, add in local church ministry and long term planning becomes quite a challenge--did I mention aging parents?
In a couple of months our church will have to choose elders and Wayne will probably be one of them. We were discussing the future of our church with a couple this week whose comments were something like this, 'you're missionaries here, you could leave anytime, do you really want to commit to eldership?' Oh LOL, jep, just leave anytime! Just pull those 4 kids out of their british education and transplant them to America! The programs that the girls are in leaves no room for a change of school, let alone town or country in the next 4 years!
Shouldn't ministry, calling, the thread of how the Lord has lead us the last 20 years have more bearing than an educational system? Yes, and it does, it's just that some days it feels like we are now here for the schools.
It's these kind of random thoughts that I'd imagined having time to put on a blog page. I hope it is more than just blah, blah, blah for those of you reading!
So 'the point of no return' it's that sense that you already passed it and there's no going back. I don't want to go back, I love what we are doing but maybe I've kept too much security in knowing there was a back door somewhere. There aren't any escape routes right now. We're here, right where God wants us--and these 4 kids, that God gave us.
The girls are at youth group, while Wayne and the boys watch the quarter final of the Rugby world cup. Life is full, God is good.
Kim's musings on life & faith
Sunday, October 7
Wednesday, October 3
Pictures from Czech
This is Erika standing in front of the hospital that she was born in. It looks the same as it did on that snowy night in March 14 years ago!
This is me going into a little grocery shop that I used to buy food in when we lived in Czech. It looked exactly the same inside! I used to park the stroller outside with Erika in it while Jessica and I went inside to buy food.
And this is the apartment building that we lived in. It also looks exactly the same--actually it looked worse. 10 years has taken it's toll. But we could see that a modernization project was underway and that it probably won't look like this for much longer. We were in the ground floor apartment to the left of the entrance.
Czech Visit
I promised I'd write about our family trip back to the Czech Republic after the summer conference. We'll, it's October but it's still worth writing about!
So we were at the conference in the south of Poland. We set off with 3 other families to spend a few days at the Josiah Venture hotel, Malenovice. When we arrived at the Cesky Tesin border crossing we were a caravan of 4 vehicles. It was so wild--one of the borders that we had crossed so frequently while living in Czech. The same border that we had crossed many times during our bible smuggling days.
All the security ingrained in us kicked in. The buildings and the little booths that they took our passports into were the same--but everything was so different. Because we were 3 American families and one Australian family with a German thrown in there we weren't just waved through like the European Union citizens. We had to sit and wait for about 15 minutes. Wayne kept saying, 'just don't say the M word.'(smuggling) It was so cool and weird at the same time. We told the kids how sometimes we would wait at this border for 2 hours or more. They were trying to take it in but I'm not sure if they could understand it all.
We then spent 3 nights in the mountains at the beautiful hotel with our friends Jim & Lina Miller, Paul & Reinhild Sydnor, and new friends Brian & Christine Cotrell. Beautiful weather, lots of long talks over coffee, no cooking and children playing card games till all hours of the night.
One day we drove into Havirov, the town we used to live in and where Erika was born. Jessica remembered things and so did Erika, which is really amazing since they were 5 & 3 when we left. We knocked on one door of old friends and spent an hour speaking Czech as best we could.
Erika said, 'Wow, this really is a nice place to live.' Wayne said, 'I really can still speak Czech, we could live here again.' Another highlight was eating all the Czech foods that we miss, like deep fried cheese with tarter sauce.
It was only 3 days vacation but it was an amazing trip that no one in our family will forget. We were also blessed to have a meal with our former teammates Ken & Andrea Pitch while their kids taught our kids some violent card games! And just a couple hours before we had to leave we were able to have lunch with Dave & Connie our former team leaders. It was great to see the hotel and new offices for the team and hear what God is doing. Those were formative years for us when we were on the JV team and it was great to remember where we've been, see friends and praise God for his faithfulness.
So we were at the conference in the south of Poland. We set off with 3 other families to spend a few days at the Josiah Venture hotel, Malenovice. When we arrived at the Cesky Tesin border crossing we were a caravan of 4 vehicles. It was so wild--one of the borders that we had crossed so frequently while living in Czech. The same border that we had crossed many times during our bible smuggling days.
All the security ingrained in us kicked in. The buildings and the little booths that they took our passports into were the same--but everything was so different. Because we were 3 American families and one Australian family with a German thrown in there we weren't just waved through like the European Union citizens. We had to sit and wait for about 15 minutes. Wayne kept saying, 'just don't say the M word.'(smuggling) It was so cool and weird at the same time. We told the kids how sometimes we would wait at this border for 2 hours or more. They were trying to take it in but I'm not sure if they could understand it all.
We then spent 3 nights in the mountains at the beautiful hotel with our friends Jim & Lina Miller, Paul & Reinhild Sydnor, and new friends Brian & Christine Cotrell. Beautiful weather, lots of long talks over coffee, no cooking and children playing card games till all hours of the night.
One day we drove into Havirov, the town we used to live in and where Erika was born. Jessica remembered things and so did Erika, which is really amazing since they were 5 & 3 when we left. We knocked on one door of old friends and spent an hour speaking Czech as best we could.
Erika said, 'Wow, this really is a nice place to live.' Wayne said, 'I really can still speak Czech, we could live here again.' Another highlight was eating all the Czech foods that we miss, like deep fried cheese with tarter sauce.
It was only 3 days vacation but it was an amazing trip that no one in our family will forget. We were also blessed to have a meal with our former teammates Ken & Andrea Pitch while their kids taught our kids some violent card games! And just a couple hours before we had to leave we were able to have lunch with Dave & Connie our former team leaders. It was great to see the hotel and new offices for the team and hear what God is doing. Those were formative years for us when we were on the JV team and it was great to remember where we've been, see friends and praise God for his faithfulness.
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