Busy weeks behind, busy week ahead
This is sort of a review of the last couple of weeks. The big news, of course, was Joy's baby being born on the 18th. For more pictures than you would probably care to see, go right to Joy and Mark's blog. Abbie assures me that Amilia is very cute and I will fall in love with her. Unfortunately, I will arrive too late to spoil her as Grandma has been working full time on that since a week ago last Thursday.
As I mentioned last time, I was away in Lisbon for a week. The day before I left, I was involved in two projects: a marriage, and a yard clean-up. (Note: the necessity of the latter had nothing to do with the celebration of the former.)
Carina and Matthew live in South Africa and they were married there in August at the Baptist Church where he is on the ministry team. Her family is from Madeira, however, and were not able to attend the wedding, so the couple asked me several months ago if I would be willing to do a wedding blessing here for the benefit of her family, none of whom are evangelicals. Matthew's parents (originally from England, but residing in S. Africa), I found out, are not born-again believers, either. So it was a chance to witness to both families.
Right after the wedding, a group of us went back to Yvonne's house to finish cleaning her yard. I took "before" pictures the previous Saturday, but I have not found a way to get them transferred from my cell phone to the computer. This picture was very close to the end of our task. The whole area was covered in grass and weeds over a meter high.
During my week's stay on the mainland, I was first at a retreat for professors of the Baptist Seminary followed by a retreat for Baptist pastors. These began Monday morning and lasted until noon Wednesday.
Wednesday night began a 3-night course (3 hours per night) on "the Character of a Servant-Leader". There were 25 or so who attended the course. Amilia was born while I was giving the second half of the class on Thursday night. It was about 11:15 p.m. in Lisbon when I got the phone call from Joy herself, saying that Amilia was born about an hour earlier.
My days on Thursday and Friday were further filled by meetings at the Embassy. By Saturday, I was pretty well exhausted. But it was a wonderful experience.
I've been back in Madeira since Sunday night, but haven't had much chance to relax. The Consul-General and a couple of others from the Embassy were here from Wednesday morning until Friday afternoon for a full schedule of events. At least I haven't spent a lot of time brooding over the fact that Abbie's 6000 miles away. Only a few more days to go: Thursday I fly to Heathrow for the night before going on to Dallas the following day.
As I mentioned last time, I was away in Lisbon for a week. The day before I left, I was involved in two projects: a marriage, and a yard clean-up. (Note: the necessity of the latter had nothing to do with the celebration of the former.)
Carina and Matthew live in South Africa and they were married there in August at the Baptist Church where he is on the ministry team. Her family is from Madeira, however, and were not able to attend the wedding, so the couple asked me several months ago if I would be willing to do a wedding blessing here for the benefit of her family, none of whom are evangelicals. Matthew's parents (originally from England, but residing in S. Africa), I found out, are not born-again believers, either. So it was a chance to witness to both families.
Right after the wedding, a group of us went back to Yvonne's house to finish cleaning her yard. I took "before" pictures the previous Saturday, but I have not found a way to get them transferred from my cell phone to the computer. This picture was very close to the end of our task. The whole area was covered in grass and weeds over a meter high.
During my week's stay on the mainland, I was first at a retreat for professors of the Baptist Seminary followed by a retreat for Baptist pastors. These began Monday morning and lasted until noon Wednesday.
Wednesday night began a 3-night course (3 hours per night) on "the Character of a Servant-Leader". There were 25 or so who attended the course. Amilia was born while I was giving the second half of the class on Thursday night. It was about 11:15 p.m. in Lisbon when I got the phone call from Joy herself, saying that Amilia was born about an hour earlier.
My days on Thursday and Friday were further filled by meetings at the Embassy. By Saturday, I was pretty well exhausted. But it was a wonderful experience.
I've been back in Madeira since Sunday night, but haven't had much chance to relax. The Consul-General and a couple of others from the Embassy were here from Wednesday morning until Friday afternoon for a full schedule of events. At least I haven't spent a lot of time brooding over the fact that Abbie's 6000 miles away. Only a few more days to go: Thursday I fly to Heathrow for the night before going on to Dallas the following day.
posted by EP | 10:09 PM | Permalink
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