My Lovely Sons

    I just asked Simon what I should write about and he said, ‘my lovely sons’. So here goes. I have two lovely sons, born 12 minutes apart. Huge babies, adorable toddlers and lovely young men now in their early twenties.

Simon was living and working in London when the virus lockdown began to shape our daily lives. He was ill with a fever just days before the lockdown started and had to self isolate in his room. We had been trying to figure out different means of getting him home but then when the travel restrictions came in all the options disappeared. He was out of reach. We didn’t hug him until August having not seen him since January. 

In early December he took advantage of a travel window to come see us, knowing he would have to work over Christmas. But suddenly new guidelines came into force. He was furloughed from his job so he didn’t return. And then Wales went into what we’re calling the 3^rd lockdown. So we are enjoying having him camping in the guest room, coping with the the small bag of things he brought for his 4 day visit. 

Simon has become my weekly shopping buddy as we go to collect the grocery order from the supermarket. It’s usually the only time in the week I get in the car and it’s nice to have this time to chat with him. He’s alway up for a conversation about theology or music or why we should get a cat. He’s got a real servants heart and helps with the cooking and walking the dog. And he plays the piano. It’s so nice to have live music reverberating through the house. 

Eliot plays the piano too but he’s working full time and usually only plays late at night after work. Eliot’s been living at home about 18 months now. Last February, after getting his driving license, he got a new job delivering pizza. Who would have thought that this would be such a blessing? It’s regular work and has helped him become an excellent driver. Pizza, well food, is considered essential. So he has been working consistently through the whole covid crisis. He’s also been doing online courses.  And he’s been adventurous in the kitchen. We’ve had sourdough bread, stollen, brownies, mince pies, to name a just a few. Eliot’s also been helpful around the house and walks the dog. The dog sleeps in his room and he’s carried the burden of being woken up when our ageing pooch has been sick. 

Over the last few years we’ve rarely had both ‘boys’ home at the same time for more than a few days. So to have them both here for 7 weeks now is a real treat. They’ve been playing chess, and Nintendo together. They’ve been sharing funny videos with each other and squealing with laughter. We’ve all watched numerous films over the Christmas break and enjoyed Simon’s recommendations which included The Mandalorian.

The lockdown isn’t easy for any of us but one of the joys has been having my lovely boys around the house. I miss the opportunities to see their sisters terribly. But having the boys here encourages me. This pandemic has meant limited time with the people I love. But this 3^rd lockdown season has meant more time with my lovely sons. For this I’m thankful.

Let your work be shown to your servants,

    and your glorious power to their children.

 

Let the favour of the Lord our God be upon us,

    and establish the work of our hands upon us;

    yes, establish the work of our hands!

Psalm 90:16,17

And do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery,

 but be filled with the Spirit, 

addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, 

singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart, 

giving thanks always 

and for everything to God the Father 

in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, 

submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ. 

Ephesians 5:18-21

Friday night and Jessica has come home for the weekend. Seems like we've crossed into another season of life just because she now has a real job. Its a job that makes her independant, but also needing us in new ways.

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.