Home Assignment 2016

Click on the picture to see our route

Our tickets are purchased and our plans are firming up for our Home Assignment this year! It has been 3 1/2 years since we last saw most of you and we are looking forward to sharing news and getting to know more of you. We would appreciate your prayers for the planning of this trip as well as during our travels. We very much want to be an encouragement wherever we go.

Our trip will run from May 17 to July 18, since we are able to travel outside of school holidays now. This way we are also hoping to be able to see some of you who we have missed in years past. Here is a run-down of where and when we wil be. The red lines are Scott and Shirley, the blue line is Sean with Wouter and Marc and the purple is all of us together.
May 17-25 in the Minneapolis area (nr. 1 on the map). We fly in on the 17th and drive out on the 26th. We will be visiting our Woodbury family during this time and look forward to seeing the changes that have taken place there since our last visit.
On the 26th of May we will drive down to Muscatine, Iowa (nr. 2) where we will stay through Monday, the 30th with our Muscatine church family.  From there we will drive across Iowa on May 31 to Omaha, Nebraska (nr. 3) to visit Shirley's family, where we will stay until June 3. For the first time we will not drive down to Colorado, but will instead bring the rental car back to Minneapolis on June 4 and fly down to Denver.
Our next leg of the trip will be June 4-12. In Denver and Colorado Springs (nr. 4) we will visit Scott's family as well as church family in the area. New family members to meet, a chance to speak a little Dutch with the Rog family if possible and meeting up with Scott's Mom who will come in from New York if possible.
We will fly out of Denver on June 13 and head to the Texas leg of the trip (nr. 5), spending time in Abilene with our 11th and Willis family as well as time with church family in the Dallas area from June 14-22. In the past, this has been our last stop before heading back home. This time it will be in the middle of our travels.
On June 23 we will fly out to Indianapolis (nr. 6) where we will be until July 5. The first part of this Indiana leg Shirley and Scott will have time with Stephan and Natalie and the White family as well as being able to hook up with Scott's family and church family from Minnesota who have moved. On June 30 Sean will arrive with his friend, Wouter, and Wouter's dad, Marc (blue line). They also joined us on our last trip to be present at Stephan and Natalie's wedding. This time it is middle of the summer instead of a snowstorm ar Christmas. This time we will celebrate the 4th of July with family.
July 5 we all fly out together (purple line) to the last leg of the trip in California (nr. 7). In Long Beach we will be able to spend time with our Long Beach church family as well as visit some of Scott's family in San Diego.
This will probably be the last time that Sean travels with us on a Home Assignment. He will be finishing his studies this year and moving into his career choices. So this year we will take a short road trip together. Another friend from Belgium will join us on the 11th and from July 12-17 we will drive around California, seeing what there is to see.
We all fly out on July 18 and return to Europe on the 19th, ready to jump right into our full summer schedule of Bible camp. But we will have seen all of you and have been refreshed by the fellowship we share, the family that we are. This has only been possible because of the generosity of our church families - our brothers and sisters who continue to encourage us and are co-workers with us in what God is doing here in Belgium and the Netherlands. We look forward to seeing you face to face again!