Family Fun

We have really been enjoying a path just a few minutes from our house here. It is a Fort-to-Fort trail running along the Fraser River from Ft. Langley to another fort that is closer to Vancouver. We haven't made it that far yet. :) This area is just beautiful. And we are learning that you have to take advantage of every sunny day because there aren't that many!

The Fraser River

Mt Baker, to the South. You can only see it on very clear days!

Jeana and Micaiah taking a little break.

Little legs get so tired! Micaiah enjoys breaks where she gets to ride on Daddy's shoulders. :)

-JLR

Home

For what thanks can we render to God for you in return for all the joy with which we rejoice before our God on your account, as we night and day keep praying most earnestly that we may see your face, and may complete what is lacking in your faith? 1 Thessalonians 3:9-10

This verse stuck out to me in this mornings sermon. We love our new church. The Word is preached faithfully. The worship is powerful. The people are great. But it's not quite home yet.

As I was listening to the sermon, I remembered several times specifically that I have prayed earnestly for God to take me back to one place or another. Each of those places was "home" for a time. I feel like I have good fellowship wherever I am-- it is something we are very intentional about for obvious reasons. But the concept of "home" is still rather elusive for me. Where am I most longing to return to? What is "home" for me in my heart? Where should I tell people I am from? Where is my earthly home? Tanzania? Missouri? Nowhere? I'd love to say that my answer is as holy as Micaiah's... "my home is in God." Maybe that's true to some extent in the absence of more tangible alternatives, but I still long for a home here on this earth. I know we've used the word "nomadic" to describe ourselves, but I think today I was just feeling the depth of that more than other days.

God makes a home for the lonely. Psalm 68:6a

-JLR

Sabbatical

As you may (or may not) have noticed, this blog has been severely ignored for the past 10 months. For lack of a better term or excuse, we're calling it our sabbatical.

Lots of things happened in those 10 months. We said goodbye to all of our friends, colleagues, and Tanzanian friends in our little town of Musoma, Tanzania. We packed up all of our earthly belongings (again...) and put them into storage. We traveled to the UK for a holiday in Groomsport, Northern Ireland with our friend Katie over Easter, then on to Horsley's Green, England for a three-week academic writing course for Tim. Then it was back to the US. We arrived in St Louis on May 8 and spent the next 3.5 months traveling, speaking, and sharing with our team. Then it was packing (again...) everything we owned into the back of our little CR-V and trucking it West across the US. We are now in Langley, BC, just North of the US-Canada border on the Pacific coast.

It's beautiful here. I was thinking about the beauty of fall today while we were on our family bike ride (you just can't waste a sunny Saturday around here!) along Fraser River... oh, how I had missed autumn! The colors, the chill in the air, the crunch of leaves underfoot... this is a good place to be.

There will be more to come-- I hope!-- but for now just a note to stay tuned. :)

-JLR

Nativity Play

On Dec 20 we hosted our first annual (hopefully!) "Cookies and Carols" Christmas party. Amy (one of the moms) organized a special nativity play for the kiddos... they're all pretty young, so there weren't many lines! It was ADORABLE and the kids all did a great job. Micaiah got to be a shepherd along with her friend Brie.
This is the rest of the cast, or most of it anyway. We had angels, Mary, Joseph, shepherds, wisemen, inn keeper, stable animals and an excellent performance by the donkey (not pictured-- it was one of the Dads!).
It was lots of fun and we're hoping to get the video soon!

-JLR

Pictures

I've been contemplating what I wanted to write here for... well, it's been months now, I think! To be honest, both Tim and I have been using Facebook much more and Blogger much less. Not that it will necessarily stay that way, but for now that's how it's going. Anyway, I thought the easiest way to catch everyone back up would be with some current pictures. Enjoy!

This is our old house-- #23-- which we moved out of on Dec 8. Our landlord needs to use this house for 2 nuns beginning in January. We only moved across the driveway into our friends' house, so while it was hard to say goodbye to #23, it could have been worse!


Micaiah's been learning how to pitch, catch, and hit a baseball. She's got a good teacher even if he doesn't remember to keep her hair out of her face. :)


Playing the Viking Game at our monthly missionary fellowship... so much fun!


-JLR