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Now...

That is a load!

How do you spell, "Overloaded?"

This is a "Guatemalan Cattledrive":)

Karen's One Week Adventure

It is not very often that we have family members who come and visit us in our home.  I can understand.  Guatemala is not their home.  Our kids mainly grew up in Dallas or in Bolivia where we served with South America Mission.

Karen's teaching job had a one week break last week, and we arranged for her to fly here and spend a relaxing week at "home" with us.  Another objective besides her company, was to go to the Air Supply concert on Friday night.  It brought back memories of listening to music that we played in our 10 CD player in the Cowboy Blue Toyota HiLux back in Bolivia.

We drove down to Puerto Quetzal to watch the NCL SUN dock and reconnect with some recent friends we met back in December.

After the early morning drive down to the coast and meeting our friend, Juan, we then drove on up to Antigua for Karen to do some shopping.

Then the week was topped off by Glenn, Karen and myself going to the Air Supply concert.  

Karen grew up listening to this group in our HiLux truck CD player.

The concert was great.  We are so glad we took the time out of our schedule to enjoy some great music.  

Thank you, Karen, for coming "home" to visit us.  We enjoyed cooking together, watching old re-runs of Becker, watching Fixer Upper and eating meals out on our patio.  Thank you, Karen!  You make us proud.

If you are not familiar with Air Supply,

 then click on the link below for a YouTube of their music!

 Enjoy!

BlueBonnets - Crowning Glory of Texas

 My Beautiful Mother

unfiltered or edited

Letterboxing Adventures in April

Our letter-boxing adventures continue. 7 Letterboxes in 5 days.  Whoo Hoo!

1.  Just before the Red River on the Texas side, was a letterbox behind the Cracker Barrel in Gainesville, TX. 

 2.  Remembering Mama
This letterbox was located in a cemetery on the edge of Wichita, Kansas.  As Glenn and I were driving toward Kansas City, our long time friend, Virginia, and her sister, drove 45 minutes from their home to met with us in Wichita.  So, instead of choosing Starbucks or a local McDonald's, I gave Virginia the address of a small cemetery.  We met there and we showed Virginia and Evie how this letter box thing works.  I never thought I would schedule a meeting with a friend in a cemetery.

This particular Letter box was honoring a mother.  The hand carved stamp had a photo of a gal as if she were sitting on top of a car, dressed in the 50's style clothing.  Nicely done.

3.  Lego Letterbox
Just north of Kansas City, on our way to Des Moines, Iowa, we pulled over at the Rest Stop to find a letterbox.  I call this "in honor of our son, Gary".  Legos.  It was tucked away off a walking path over-looking a ravine.

4. Little Lincoln Log Cabin
This letter box was located in a rest-stop near Springfield, Il (land of Lincoln).  Uniquely hung on a tree branch in an evergreen tree on the right hand side as you drive into the rest area.  Great location.

5 and 6.  These letterboxes were done with Ken and Lori who we worked with as missionaries serving with SAMAIR in Bolivia in the late 1980's and 1990's.  Ken and Lori had flown in from Wyoming and were flying cross country. On Monday noon, they were heading over the Mississippi River planning to visit other former South America Mission-aries in Illinois - yet they had several hours to visit with us.  We drove directly to Creve Coeur Airport.  The 5th letterbox for us on this adventure was hidden near the Handicapped parking sign right by the small terminal.  That was a perfect spot.  Lori found the letterbox.  Sorry.  No photo.


After enjoying a hamburger at Five Guys, I looked on my iphone app to see if there was another letterbox in the general area.  Just 1/4 mile away in the parking lot of a hotel, we found our 6th letterbox.  We had Ken do the dirty work and retrieve the stamp and log book from the base of the parking lot light pole.  Way to go Ken!  I hope I've made a believer out of the McCunes.

x

Later we said our goodbyes, and they flew away!

7.  Stephen Colbert
Our final letter boxing adventure for this particular day was just before we crossed back over into Texas, South of Oklahoma, on US 75.  There is a town, called Colbert, and the letterbox is a carved image of the comedian, Stephen Colbert.  It was hidden in the local cemetery.  We followed the directions perfectly.  We learned a little more about this sleepy little town.  Stephen is not from this small town but had visited it.  As we were driving out, a parade of 20 or more cars rolled slowly into the cemetery for a burial.  This was fortunately at a different part of the cemetery.

Thank you, Glenn, for putting up with my propensity to make every journey creative and fun.

For additional information on letterboxing, check out the following links:

Letterboxing

6 Letterboxes in 1 Day

Letterboxing

Birds of a Feather

While staying with Mark and Nancy at their home in E. Moline, we particularly enjoyed watching the birds in their yard.

Even 3 Wild Turkeys came through and roamed their yard.

And then while visiting Scott and Carol, I got a picture of another cardinal.

“If you decide for God, living a life of God-worship, it follows that you don’t fuss about what’s on the table at mealtimes or whether the clothes in your closet are in fashion. There is far more to your life than the food you put in your stomach, more to your outer appearance than the clothes you hang on your body. Look at the birds, free and unfettered, not tied down to a job description, careless in the care of God. And you count far more to him than birds."  Matt 6:25... MSG

Friends En Route

On our driving trip north to E. Moline, we made several stops to see friends along the way.  Oops, I forgot to take a picture of our new friends at MBS along with Jan and David.  We connected with Virginia and her sister in Kansas.  We met them at a nearby cemetery where we proceeded to do a Letterbox.  I said "I'll bet you have never met your friend at a cemetery before." Glenn quickly responded, "Not yet!" :)

The following day, we had breakfast with our son, Gary.  Thank you, Gary, for driving over to visit with us. It was special to us because it had been since June, 2015 that we were together last.  10 months!  Sorry we missed seeing you, Madison.  Next time;).

;

Just being 2 hours from our dear, dear friends, Scott and Carol, we made it a point to drive by and enjoy a few hours of laughs, some good food and always sweet, sweet fellowship. Thank you for your friendship, example and for giving us a great B and B break!

Then, driving back towards Texas, we deliberately drove through St Louis so we could connect with long, long time friends, Ken and Lori.  We served in SAMAIR-Bolivia with the McCunes, way back in 1989-93 when we lived in Santa Cruz, Bolivia.  Yes, we laughed, cried, told old war stories, and were blessed to share some of our joys and challenges together.  They have kids our same age, as our Karen and their Katy were in the same class at SCCLC.  They were flying cross country and happened to be in Missouri!  I am so glad it worked out for us to re-connect with them.

Thank you, friends, for the impact you have on our lives and our ministry and on so many others.

Thank you for taking time out of your busy schedule to take a chance at the possibility of sharing some adventure in missionary togetherness. 

Thank you for lunch!

Weekend Mission Conference

Glenn and I were honored to participate in a mission conference at Wildwood Church in E. Moline, Illinois.

We spoke 5 different times.  In a small home group on Friday night, a Mission Fest dinner on Saturday night, Sunday morning during 2 worship services and then we ended up with an hour with the youth, sharing my "boarding pass" testimony.

We were

 blessed,

 honored,

 loved on,

 and encouraged 

 as we continue our ministry of Pastoral Care for the missionaries in Guatemala and around the world.

Thank you Wildwood!

Besides our flight up to Dallas from Guatemala, we drove 1, 942 miles round trip in 5 days for our journey to attend the mission conference.