Friday, May 26, 2006
Cherise Beekman's High School Graduation. Cherise was the Saluatorian for her class of 24 kids. She also sang in a trio as part of the program.
Gary Stewart and Gary Beekman. We named our Gary after Gary Beekman, Cherise's dad! I think our Gary got some his mischieveness from his name sake.

BOLIVIAN REUNION
Top row: Glenn, Gary (heading to CAG), Karen (heading to Moody), Laurie (former Art teacher at SCCLC - Santa Cruz, Bolivia and John (current DTS student).
Bottom row: Millie (former HS English teacher at SCCLC), LaVerne (Ellen's 5th grade teacher and Gary's 3rd grade teacher), Judy (me) and Virginia (former HS principal and teacher in Bolivia)

MORE PHOTOS FROM GRADUATION WEEK


Ed Cannon and Dr. Gene Getz Ed Cannon is one of the head hanchos at MBI. He always has a smile on his face. Gene is one of my favorite people. He and Glenn play rball from time to time here in Dallas. I enjoy Gene's godly wisdom. Everytime I see him, I always ask which scripture he has been working on. He is working on a Principles to Live By Bible.
Lou and Carol from Moody. Dr. Barberie was my Theology teacher back in the 70's. They will be going to Israel this year and traveling with the other 12 tribes of Israel buses with the Moody gang this next week. He is an excellent teacher.
Bob and Pam McCrae both teach at Moody. Pam and Glenn were in Ben Lippen boarding school together back in the 70's.

Sign outside the Arch way on campus

Glenn and I took up a suitcase full of 2006 Spanish World Cup tracts to give to students and faculty. Marcos and his friend loved it.

George Verwer and Tom Shaw at board meeting. George is the founder and former president of OM and also Moody grad. Tom is the former Alumni director and is currently the VP of Student Services. I've done several Alumni gatherings and College fairs with him recently
Board meetings and luncheons can be very relaxed!
Me, Lori I. and Annette Moy Lori is Michael's assistant up on the 9th floore. Annette is the Dean of Admissions. She is my cheerleader as Glenn and I take additional college courses to get our degree from Moody in a few years


George Sweeting and Ian Leitch. Dr. Sweeting was my president while as a student here from 1975 -1978

Ed Cannon grabbed Glenn's camera and took a quick shot. Normally, I do get a photo of Glenn. Here he is with our friend, Michael.

Dan and Laurie Anderson, CAM missionaries from Guatemala. Dan recieved his Masters degree today. The Andersons both meet at Moody back in the 90's and have served in Guatemala for many years. Now they are heading to Spain to work with Comibam.

Alumni office staff member, Nancy Hastings and 2 student workers, Danaka and Karen at graduation

MY FAVORITE ALUMNI BOARD MEMBERS

Our Alumni Board meetings started this evening. I just love being around such wonderful folks. Ian and Hugo are my favorite! Ian always makes fun of me by the way I say "M-i-c-h-a-e-l" in my LONG southern draw! I quite frequently forget that Ian is not from England, but rather Scotland. Hugo sits next to me in board meetings and between these 2 guys we have lots of laughs. He introduced me to Blogging.

Moody Alumni Board meetings and Graduation

Glenn and I flew up to Chicago for Board meetings. We had hoped to fly on the 777, but they changed out aircrafts and instead we flew up on a 767. As we were boarding, we couldn't believe our eyes. Captain Don Stackpole was "dead heading" on our plane up to Chicago and then he was flying a MD80 to Atlanta. Wow, we hadn't seen him in about 2 years. We first met Don Stackpole in Bolivia back in the early 90's. Don would fly to Bolivia. Go out and witness in the city parks, then sleep. Then we would either have him over for a meal or go out to dinner. Don would do this routine several 2 or 3 times a month. Don is a believer and loved being with our family. We were able to catch up on his family and stuff. Small world. I'm glad we were able to run into him.

Tomorrow, we'll be having our Alumni Board meetings, followed by graduation on Saturday. More late.

PICTURES OF OUR GUATEMALA TRIP





Photos from our recent trip to Guatemala

May 5

Our trip to Guatemala was SUCESSFUL. We got so much accomplished. Glenn was able to meet our new landlord and sign a rental contract. We were able to bring down 7 pieces of luggage. Purchase some used furnishings. We lack a few large items, such as refrigerator, dryer and bed. But I feel good that we already know where we are going to live.

On Glenn and Gary's return trip, they got "stuck" in Miami and spent the night in Terminal D. They were glad to get back to Dallas the next day.

Now we are on the "home stretch", as we pack our house, find renters and move down to Guatemala. Lots of stuff to do between now and June when we hope to move.

I'll hopefully will write from time to time in my BLOG...so don't forget to come back.

Gary at his new school CAG in Guatemala City, Guatemala

Unloading our 10 pieces of luaggage at DFW

SATURDAY

this morning, we were downtown at the CAM Fellowship anual meeting. Bill Lawrence, DTS prof was our guest speaker.

We had a delicious lunch out on the patio. It kinda reminded me of the nice dinner we had in Mexico at their conference. In the afternoon, the men and women broke up and we had Lynna Lawrence speak to the women of CAM. There was special music and we had 1/2 hour of prayer time.

Tonight, we are on our way over to Lorenzes where we are having Pizza. Hopefully, Gary will be there with Ben too.

We forgot our attachment for the camera, so I have not been able to download pictures onto my BLOG. But maybe Glenn can locate an attachment.

Anyway. I'll write again, when I get a chance.

GUATEMALA CITY

Last night, we arrived with into Guatemala City with 10 pieces of luggage. We had no hassels going through immigration. The only problem was leaving DFW. We had completely boarded the plane and then had to deplay and reboard onto another plane, just 2 gates away. As Glenn say "I would rather have equipment problems on the ground than in the air!" Unbelieveable, it is only a 2 1-2 hour flight from DFW to Guatemala. Kinda nice, instead of the normal 12 hours to 15 hours that we are use to flying.

We are staying at the Henriques home for the week. Very nice to call it home for a few days.

Friday - Sunday, we will be attending the annual CAM Fellowship conference. The guest speaker is Dr. Bill Lawrence from DTS and Northwest Bible Church. We are looking forward to this.

I will write more as I get a chance.

Going to Guatemala

On April 20 - 26, we'll be heading again down to Guatemala to participate in the Annual CAM Fellowship Conference. Dr. Bill Lawrence and his wife will be on the plane with us. We'll be taking Gary out of school for one day, as April 24-28, he'll be on Spring Break.

It looks like we'll be checking in with the maximum amount of free luggage to bring with us. The purpose will be to empty the suitcases and fill them with Merritt's stuff and bring that back with us. Creative goods exchange, huh?

I'll write more when we're down there.

Volcano Lake near Granada, Nicaragua

Monday, we drove out to the shores of Lake Nicaragua near the colonial town of Granada. We contracted with a fisherman to boat us out to an nearby island restaurant for lunch. It was in faith that he would return at 1:15pm after dropping us off on this 1 1/2 acre island restaurant.

All along the shore line are these tropical islands that are only big enough for a large tree, a hut, boat dock and out house. There are over 365 tiny islands along this shore line that have nice homes in the range of nice to modest all the way to a "lean to". One small island had a 6 room school house. Imagine taking a boat to school instead of a yellow school bus?

Next we drove back toward Managua, stopping off a crater lake (Laguno de Apoya). Crystal Clear Blue deep water. We stopped at a resort and took a tour of the facilities. Very nice.

MARY

Mary, a volunteer medical missionary with Christ for the City here in Managua, Nicaragua joined us for lunch on Sunday. She is a friend of Ellen. Pictured here is Ellen with Mary.

Member Care ministry with the Reids

Ok, on Saturday, while at the beach, I was visiting with Mary. She is a missionary with Christ for the City organization here in Managua. She heads up medical teams from the USA that come here to do medical work. As I was visiting her, she asked, "well, what do you and Glenn do?" I then mentioned we do Member Care. I then said "ok, here is an example. Back in November, Glenn drove down to Houston to meet up with CAM missionary Paul Reid from Nicaragua, who had medical appointments to discuss his parkinsen's disease. I think Glenn made arrangments for him to see the doctor and also had contacts for him to get a car to make it to each of those appointments. Anyhow, now that we are in Nicaragua, we're here to just see how the Reids are doing." I continued to mentioned that is just a small example of what we do - member care or pastoral care.

Mary exclaimed, "Hey, I'm a physical therapist and have done some study work in the area of Parkinsens and its effects on the individual and on the family". At that time, Glenn walked up and joined the conversation. Wow, we were so touched to see how, just making a conversation and talking about this one example, that the Lord lead us to Mary. Mary said she would be willing to work with Paul and offer any medical suggestions and information that would be helpful.

So, Glenn's brain starts to kick in. He is thinking, how am I going to get these 2 families together. On Sunday morning, we called both Mary and the Reids to see if they could join us for lunch. So, yesterday over some delicious Nicaragua food, we visited with both the Reids and Mary. Paul Reid retold his story of how the Parkinsen disease was detected and his pathway since that time. He told of his struggles and his difficulties he face daily. Paul described how at times it is challenging to walk and the way his feet moved. Mary suggested that he literally stop and start over in his "walk". Mary and Paul talked at length in his struggles.

I pray that this contact with Mary will be helpful to Paul in the days and weeks ahead. I think that this friendship will be very valuable in helping Paul through his Parkinsen's disease.

Wow, isn't it neat to see how people come across our lives?

DAY at the BEACH

Saturday, we picked Gary up from the Managua airport at high noon. He had no problems coming through customs. We were outside the security window waving at him as he picked up the 2 pieces of checked luggage. The checked luggage was mostly "goodies" that Grandmommy picked up for Ellen. Stuff like Golden Grahams, marshmellows, chocolate chips and candy so Ellen can make "Indoor S'mores".

As we drove back to Ellen's apartment, Gary kepted us entertained with his traveling adventure stories of getting on the airplane in Dallas and his fast connection in Miami. He was pretty tired since he didn't get too much sleep on Friday night.

After reheating our pizza, we were all loaded up in the van to head to the Pacific Ocean. Just 45 minutes away. Glenn offered to drive and I was the co-pilot. The rest of the van was full of teachers from NCA.

We arrived at a private beach and marched towards some grass huts so can could throw our towels and stuff down. The sand was thick DARK black sand. Quite different than the Cancun beaches. Gary played frisbe football with the teachers. Glenn and I strolled along the beach. We picked up shells and noticed lots of living sand dollars. Or would it be sand cordovas (Nicaraguan currency)?

Visit to active Volcano

Friday, Glenn and I boarded the multicolored school bus with the 11th and 12th graders from NCA for their field trip. A day on an active volcano, called Messiah. There are 3 volcanoes in this general area. The volcanos are located 45 minute drive from the capitol city of Managua. As we entered the National park, we drove another 20 minutes to the parking lot on the side of the active volcanoe. We saw old lava flows from previous eruptions all along the mountain side.

When we got off the bus, we walked to the side of the volcano and could see some steam rise up. Fortunately, the wind was blowing the right direction and we didn't smell the sulfur fumes too badly. Then we walked another 3/4 km to a cave. Armed with yellow hard hats and all, we treked down to the cave that is created by a volcanic eruption and flow in the late 1800s. It was quite dark and our footing was a challenge. Our guide had a dimly lite flashlight which made it even more challenging. I kept wispering in my heart, "thy word is a Lamp unto my Feet and and Light unto my path".

At one point, we all turned off the flashnights. It was pitched BLACK. Then silence. We listened to the noise of the volcano. This was very erie. I enjoyed the cave adventure, but it was a challenge for a 49 year old women. Steep walk to the cave entrance and then a challenging climb through the rocks and into the cave.

This is something I can definately cross off on my 1,000 "Things to do before I die" List.

Visit with Ellen at NCA

On Thursday, we were able to visit Ellen at her school. We arrived there just in time to eat lunch with her and some fellow teachers. I enjoyed meeting each teacher and hearing about their back ground and how they learned about NCA. Ellen had to teach one class in the afternoon, so Glenn and I got to the computer lab to check email and stuff like that.

Later in the afternoon, we drove 1/2 km up to Ellen's apartment that she shares with 2 other teachers. The electricity was not working, so it was quite HOT. We did try to rest in and amongst all the times we were talking and checking up on stuff with Ellen.

Thursday night, we had dinner with Paul and Lucia Reid. They're CAM missionaries here. It was fun to hear their journey. Paul graduated from PBU, and then DTS. He knows some mutual friends like the Bakers, Pauls, Royer and others. He also attended Spanish Reinhardt back in the 80's. They had invited some froms (Steve and L.) to have dinner with us also. Steve married a gal from Santa Cruz. So, it was fun to recount some old places, food, and friends there. L. made sopa de mani (Peanut soup) DELICIOUS. And then Lucia made typical Nicaraguan food. I especially loved sitting on the front porch in their rocking chair and chatting.

The Reids have 3 beautiful girls (2 in HS and 1 in Elementary). They plan on furlough this upcoming summer. We talked about Paul's health and how sometimes he has good days and sometimes he is just worn out. Back in November, Glenn drove down to Houston to help Paul with some medical doctors concerning his parkinson's disease.

Passport arrives in the Nick of time

We had our bags all packed and in the car. FEDEX delivered Glenn's renewed passport at 9:35am, and we left immediately for DFW. We made the 11:15am flight to Miami, with connection on into Managua, Nicaragua.

Ellen met us at the airport and drove us directly to the Parker's house. We'll be staying with the Parkers while we visit CAM missionaries here. The Parkers work with Awana here in Nicaragua and have really gotten the ministry off the ground. As we talked last night, we realized that we had very simular backgrounds and knew many of the same people. Linda attended BMA camp in Ringgold, La for many years. She attended Southeastern Bible College, so we started out throwing some names around. Since Bill and Linda lived in Honduras before coming to Nicaragua, they knew soem CAM missionaries too, like Harold and Carol Krause, the Livingstons and other (these folks I knew when I was on PMT) back in 1977. They attended language school with Paul Johnson, Rod Fry, Yinglings and others from CAMex field. So, it was good to see the connection.

Linda told me that while they were in Language school, they she ran into Sharon Woychuck, whose father started BMA. Sharon and her husband are in Spain and she thinks with TEAM. Small world, big family connection. Linda even knows Bruce Kneige (who is a missionary in Bolivia).

Today, we visited Ellen at school. We're in the computer lab while she has one more class. Then later tonight we'll be having dinner with the Reids. I'll try to write more.

Well, if Glenn gets his passport today in the mail, we'll be flying out this afternoon (2/22) or tomorrow (2/23) to visit Ellen. Our emotions have been changing hourly, as we sense that the passport will be arriving only to call the Passport office to hear that the printing of the new passport missed the FedEx deadline by 30 minutes. So, now it looks like we'll be leaving on Thursday. We'll let you know when we get there. We're looking forward to see Ellen again. The only thing stable in all this "up in the air" stuff, is that Gary will definately be flyingn on Saturday, Feb 25 and returning the following Saturday.

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