Family (travel plans)

Every three years we make a trip back to the US to visit supporting congregations and family in a two-month long journey around the country. This is our “Home Assignment”. Our plans for this Home Assignment 2026, which will cover May and June, are solidified and partially paid. 

We are looking forward to seeing as many of you as we can. If you are in the area of where we will be, please let us know before hand so that we might be able to get together. This will be quite the trip, as usual, so we will not have a lot of wiggle room, but we always want to meet with as many as we can. 

In short, our schedule looks like this: Leave Belgium on April 28, arriving in Texas.Texas (churches) from April 28 - May 4

FLY May 5 to Indianapolis

    Indiana (family and church) from May 5-12

FLY May 13 to Los Angeles

    California (church and family) from May 13-24

FLY May 25 to Minneapolis

    Minnesota (church) from May 25 - June 1

DRIVE LOOP:

DRIVE June 2 to Sioux City, IA

DRIVE June 3 to Spearfish, SD

DRIVE June 5 to Billings, MT

    Montana (family) from June 5-8

DRIVE June 9 to Colorado Springs

    Colorado Springs (family) from June 9-11

DRIVE June 12 to Denver

    Denver (church and family) from June 12-14

DRIVE June 15 to Omaha, NE

    Omaha area (family) from June 15-17

DRIVE June 18 to Muscatine, IA

    Muscatine (church) from June 18-22

DRIVE June 23 to Minneapolis

FLY June 24 to New York City

New York City (family) from June 25-29

FLY June 30 to Brussels, arriving on July 1

(You can see this all visually on the map above)

It is always a challenge to fit the puzzle pieces of family and church together, making sure that we leave Sundays for meeting with church members and connecting in that meaningful way. We also want to meet all of our family members, including our granddaughter in Indiana. 

This is not possible without the help of so many people. Some people will be lending us their car for the time we are in their area. Others will be putting us up and feeding us in their home, sharing their families with us during our stay. Many have given sacrificially so that we can make this trip. Thank you all so much! We look forward to seeing you. 

Planning ahead

We try to get back to the US every three years to touch base with the congregations that support us and visit family. All of these spots are spread around the US, meaning quite a time of travel. It is always nice to see everyone again, as well as see plenty of the places we also call “home”. This is why we call it a Home Assignment. The last time we were on Home Assignment was in 2023, so next year, if all goes well, we will be visiting again. 

But this trip takes a good bit of planning and figuring. Which route should we take? How do we plan the various Sundays to work out with the congregations we want to share time with? How should we divide the driving and flying time? And there are always people that we would very much like to see who simply don’t fit on the route. Are there any ways to see them anyway? 

When the boys were still at home, we always had to plan this trip in the summer, during the school vacation. But now, when we could leave whenever we want, we still have to keep our plans for our ministry here in mind. In addition, we have a new granddaughter in the mix and we want to be there for her birthday, which is in the summer vacation months. So I have been figuring, planning, checking prices and generally trying to discover the best way to travel next year. 

We are looking forward to seeing church family in Long Beach, California; Woodbury, Minnesota; Muscatine, Iowa; and Abilene, Texas. But we also hope to see church family we have met in Denver, Colorado; Noblesville, Indiana; and Omaha, Nebraska. These are the places we hope to sp[end our Sundays, although it may not be possible to hit all of them on a Sunday. We only have 8-9 weeks of travel time. 

In this time we also hope to see family in California, Colorado, Nebraska, Montana, Indiana and New York. There is a little bit of overlap between family and churches, but not much. And, as mentioned, there are still others we would like to meet up with who live in places like Tennessee or Pennsylvania or Florida - far out of the route. So we would love your prayers as we plan this time - prayers that we can find some good deals, that we will be able to get things set up, and that our visit will be encouraging to those we meet. 

If you are in any of the places we are planning to visit (mentioned here), put us on your schedule and make plans to find some time to share with us so that we can encourage one another. If you are not on the route, maybe we can meet somewhere along the way (like driving through Iowa or Wisconsin, or Chicago). These Home Assignments are only possible because of the faithfulness of our supporting congregations, brothers and sisters willing to sacrifice so that we can make this trip. Thank you for these possibilities and all the memories from previous times. 

In the meantime, I am traveling every day this week down to camp and back. It is good to see people we don't see too often, meet new people who love the Lord, and share encouragement from God's word. I will be giving the teens a lesson every day, trying to help make the messages from the Minor Prophets something that they can understand and sow into their spiritual growth. 

We hope to see you there!

Putting together our travel plans for May-June is quite a puzzle, but fun at the same time. We will be in quite a few places and look forward to seeing as many groups as we can, considering the time. We already know that we will not get to see all of our family (Scott’s dad and older brother), but we have also had some fun surprises. 

Back when Scott first moved to Colorado with his family, his dad needed to travel back to the East to finish hos military requirements and retire (at about 40 years-old). This was the last time that Scott saw any of his family, who mostly live on the east coast. But now that Scott and Shirley will be landing in New York and driving up to Rochester, they saw that Newburgh, New York was along the way. Scott got contacted information and it turns out that they will be able to visit his aunt who still lives in the same house Scott visited back when he was a teenager. 

If you are anywhere near where we will be, we hope that you will get in touch with us before we leave (April 26) so that we can plan some way of getting together. Maybe we can meet somewhere in the middle. Maybe we can call. Maybe you are in the same city and we don’t have your contact information any more. Drop us a comment here if you don’t have our contact information. 

We are also looking forward to meeting all sorts of new people in the congregations that support us. It has been a long 4 years since we last back and a lot can change in 4 years. It has here in Maastricht and certainly will have done where you live. So when we get to your city, your congregation - don’t be shy. We want to meet you. We may not be able to get to know you well, but we want to know who you are and thank you for your working together with us in God’s kingdom. 

Here again are the cities and states we will be visiting. We will begin in New York (and also visiting in Connecticut). We then move on to Minneapolis-St. Paul and the Woodbury congregation. They will help us on the next long leg of our trip to Omaha, Nebraska; Muscatine, Iowa; Indianapolis, Indiana and even making a quick stop in Chicago before returning to Minnesota. 

After the Midwest loop, we will fly down to Texas and drive out to Abilene, hoping to do some visiting along the way. From Texas we fly to Colorado where we will visit up and down the Front Range in Colorado Springs and Denver. By this time we will have hit our oldest son, Stephan and daughter-in-love Natalie (in Indianapolis), Shirley’s family (in Nebraska) and most of Scott’s family (in Indy and Colorado). 

We finish the trip by flying first out to California to visit our sponsoring church in Long Beach and to see some more of Scott’s family in San Diego. From LA we fly to NYC to finish up by visiting with son Sean and daughter-in-love Jill. After 8 weeks of traveling we will get back to Belgium before the end of June and just in time to have a church get-together down at Ardennen Bijbelkamp on the Saturday after our arrival. 

Vacation or business?

That is what they ask you at the customs counter. That is what they ask in questionnaires about travel. That is what some people ask when you tell them you are a planning a trip. Most people are shocked to hear that we will be gone for 8 weeks. “That’s quite a long vacation!” And to be honest, this trip is a very interesting mix of emotions, activities and purposes. 

We used to call it “furlough”. That is what a soldier took when he would head home for a bit after being on tour. In Dutch, the word “verlof” comes from the same root, but means vacation. In more recent years we have titled our trip “Home Assignment”, but perhaps it is not any clearer in that sense. 

We work as evangelists in Belgium and the Netherlands. We are financially supported by various congregations and individuals throughout the United States (as well as a few in Europe). It has been our desire to get back to the US every three years to visit with these congregations - to talk about what we have been doing, hear about how God is blessing those congregations, and renew the bonds that tie us together. 

Since we only go every three years and travel is not cheap, we combine this trip with seeing our family. In the earlier years that meant Scott’s family and Shirley’s family. Now it includes seeing our sons and daughters-in-love (and their families). But the congregations we visit and the families are not in the same cities, or States. So it means a lot of traveling and a good bit of puzzling to work out when we go where and how long we can be anywhere. 

The last time we were on this trip was in 2019. Our planned return would have been in 2022, but travel restrictions made that difficult. Although we took a short health visit to Shirley’s family in November, we had to delay our trip until this year. But now the puzzle is coming together and we look forward to the amazing mix that is a Home Assignment this May-June. 

In 8 weeks we will travel to 16 different cities in 9 different States, worship with 9 different congregations and see a good portion of our supporters and family while doing it - though not all. We will get on an airplane 7 times, rent a car 3 times and will be blessed to borrow a car in 2 other areas (one for 23 days!) while we drive roughly 3000 miles. 

While we will stay in at least 4 hotels in this time, we will mostly be blessed to stay with family and friends along the way. We hope that if you are not along our route (and we know that many of you are not), perhaps we can call or email while we are in your area. We are so thankful for the relationships that we have because of being family in Christ. 

If you are in the area, please let us know so that we can see you and spend some time together, even if it is only a cup of coffee somewhere. That is what makes a trip like this so amazing and different. Is it a vacation? We get to see a lot of people that we haven’t seen in at least 4 years. We get to hug on family and enjoy wonderful meals and conversations with family in Christ. We even get to see some places in the US that other people will never get to see. We get to travel. 

This is what our schedule looks like: 

We will land in New York City on April 26 and drive the next day to upstate New York to visit Scott’s mom on her 85th birthday. The Saturday after will be a drive down to church family ion Connecticut (family from in the Netherlands who are living in the US!). We are looking forward to being able to worship with them on Sunday before flying out the next day to Minnesota. 

We will spend a week in Minnesota with our wonderful church family at Woodbury before driving out for a Midwest loop hitting Omaha, Nebraska (Shirley’s family), church family in Muscatine, Iowa, our son Stephan (and his wife Natalie) and Scott’s brother in Indianapolis, Indiana, good friends in Chicago and returning to Minneapolis. This section is mostly possible because of generous hearts in the church at Woodbury loaning us a car for the whole trip (as they have done in the past as well). We look forward to worshipping with the church in Minnesota, Iowa and Indiana. 

After the Midwest loop we will fly down to Texas on May 25 hoping to visit with several supporters and worship with the congregation where we began our life as a married couple, 11th and Willis in Abilene. On May 31 we will fly on to Denver where we will visit Scott’s family in Colorado Springs and church family in Denver, worshipping in both cities on the same Sunday. 

We fly to California on June 7 and spend time with our supporting congregation in Long Beach as well as visiting family in San Diego. This leg of the trip is again made much easier by the use of a car from members of the church in Long Beach (which they have done on many trips in the past). We are also put up in all of these cities by members of the congregations we are visiting. What an amazing love and giving that make this type of trip possible!

Our last leg will begin on June 14 when we fly back to New York City, this time to spend some time with our son Sean and his wife Jill. We will worship in Manhattan for our last Sunday in the US before flying back after a total of 8 weeks exactly. We arrive in Belgium before the end of the month ready to jump into activities in June and Bible camp weeks in July and August. 

Along this trip we will have had some good vacation time - mostly because so many of you want to insure that we have some time to rest, knowing what all the traveling can mean. We will also have opportunities to tell about our work, preach, teach and visit. This is work, but it is good. We are so thankful that God can and does use us wherever we are or go. We want to be an encouragement wherever we are. 

Vacation or business? Yes. We travel in May-June if the Lord wills and because His family makes it possible. We look forward to seeing as many of you as possible. Thank you for your help in making this possible!

Tales of Travels

In the coming days I will attempt to update you on our travels and visits why we are in the US. I am still learning how to use a smartphone and have never been good at selfies, so any pictures you see of us were probably taken by others. But we will try to share some pictures as well, so keep an eye on our photo site if you are interested in those. 

We start with “The Tale of the Hotel/Motel” 

Our trip began before we ever stepped foot on an airplane. First we had to get to the amazing flying machine. This is the tale of how that came to be and what ensued. 

Early in the morning we were already rushing about, scrambling and scurrying as one does at the last minute. The house had to be made ready to lay dormant for two whole months. 

Surprisingly, an amazing amount of work needs to be done for dormancy – perhaps a bear would know about things like that. Everything needed vacuumed (well, not everything, but you get the idea), foodstuffs had to be put away or eaten, dusting, wiping, scrubbing and bed-making-upping had to be finished. You see, the vacancy will only be partial. Halfway through our absence, the house will receive guists. At the end of our time away, just before we return, good friends will also enjoy the house. So everything had to be ready to use, but as empty as possible. 

By midday we were as ready as we were going to be, and anyway our ride to the train station had arrived. Yes, we were taking the train to the airport. Once at the station we figured out how best to motivate our bags along – this was something we would be doing a lot of, so we had to discover the best method. We had done well in keeping our bags to a minimum, though not a bare minimum – we were after all going to be gone for two months, beginning in the Spring and ending in the heat of summer. But balancing one little bag on a big bag and rolling the other two worked quite well. 

On the train we had to be careful tht the rolling bags didn’t run away, but we arrived at Schiphol with no real drama. It had been a pleasant if not quiet ride (we sat in the area meant for bicycles). At the airport we had arranged to have our hotel pick us up at the airport (yes, we were already doing a hotel and had not even flown one foot). Since our flight was very early, and we would have to be very very early to be on time, we had decided to spend the night in Zwanenburg. 

A city of swans – that is what one imagines. And once we found the water, we were not disappointed. Which was more than we could say about our hotel, which was actually a motel. Mind you, the town itself is very quaint and quiet. Our room at the hotel had to be accessed via an outside door, past other hotel guests enjoying the late evening sunlight and then opening our door into our room. But we had a room and we were thankful. 

Plus, we had swans, and shoarma, and seats. This was important after we had taken a short walk around Zwanenburg and then into Halfweg, walking halfway into Scott’s memory of when he used to bike past this area on his way to Dutch lessons in Amsterdam. Walking down memory lane is always energizing, but we hadn’t eaten since leaving home, so we were very pleased to find a shoarma restaurant open and serving. 

Back at the hotel we were frustrated to find the internet not working. Most of society today runs on the internet and we still had to check in to our flight. But that would have to wait for the next day, which was fast arriving and would come even faster for us. We awoke at 4:30 and got everything ready for the bus to the airport which would leave at 5:30 for our flight at 7:30. Sitting near the check-in desk meant that we had internet, so all was right with the world, just as the bus arrived, loaded our luggage and we departed in the cool morning sunrise of the Netherlands, on our way to America, via Great Britain. But that is another tale. 

Changes to our schedule!

We have made some slight changes to our schedule while in the US. The front end will switch Nebraska and Iowa around. I know - some of you probably would switch them around without knowing anyway. But for our good friends and family there it makes a difference.

And this will make it possible for us to offer a singing workshop at the Muscatine church of Christ - so if you are in the area, come on by Saturday, May 18 for some great congregational singing and learning how to sing together. Or learn about writing new songs. We will also be offering this workshop at Miller Street church of Christ in Wheatridge (Denver) on June 8.

The poster here has the new changes.

Will we see you?

From May 14 - July 9 we will be traveling in the US, visiting congregations and family. We would really like to see you if that is possible. Check out the places we will be and let us know if we can get together.

May 15 - 18 in Omaha, NE

May 18 - 23 in Muscatine, IA
We are looking at the possibility of a Singing Workshop at this stop.

May 23 - June 2 in Minneapolis (and area)

June 3 - 10 in Colorado, first in Colorado Springs and from the 7th in Denver.
The Miller Street congregation (in Wheatridge) is hosting a Singing Workshop with us on June 8!

June 11- 17 in Abilene, TX
We will be mobile, so let us know if we can get together. We stay the night of the 17th in Dallas if you would like to meet.

June 18 - 23 in Indianapolis, IN

June 23 - July 4 in Long Beach, CA and area

July 5 - 9 in New York City

We look forward to seeing old friends and building new relationships. We are so thankful that God is making this possible through your generosity!

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!

On Assignment - at home in Indiana

How often do you need to see people in order to retain a close relationship? This is something that has intrigued me almost my entire life. I grew up traveling all over. I had lived in six cities in three countries before the 6th grade. So family was always important, and making friends meant figuring it out quickly, or keeping things on the surface (I would not immediately call this superficial).

This continued when I went off to university, where I traveled all over the US, traveled to Europe and in the end spent two years in the Netherlands. My brothers and sisters also traveled. Three of my brothers were in the military and the other roamed off to Alaska. But we have always been able to re-connect. And we are still there for each other.

Our last leg of our Home Assignment brought us to Indianapolis where my ‘little’ brother, Mike and his family live. We keep and eye on how Mike and Amy and the four boys are doing through the wonder of modern communication – and I have always been very thankful for that. Since Indiana is not in the normal ‘loop’ of our travels on home assignment, the last time we visited was in 2007. Now we not only got to visit, we were blessed to spend Christmas together!

We arrived a day late so that Shirley could recover after the wedding. That left us two and a half days to enjoy the time together. And we were mixing several families as well. Marc and Wouter, who had traveled with Sean to New York city and then joined us for the wedding, were experiencing their first Christmas away from their rather large family back in Belgium. So it was good to share, to experience some local family traditions, and to just have fun.

And all along our travels we had expected snow but had seen barely a flake. Each time we left somewhere, they received a foot of snow after we left, but we were not burdened at all on our travels with snow-covered highways or backed-up traffic. Now, with a few days, we expereienced a blizzard, right in Indianapolis, for Christmas! And when it was time to leave, the roads were clear where we were headed.

Our last day was spent in Chicago with another blast from the past – Jimmy Schellekens is a young man that I knew when he was about 2 years-old in Schiedam. We spent time getting ready to leave, saw some of Chicago, had some great food (again) and even played a bit of football (the real kind). And we could relax the English or work on Dutch by speaking Dutch with Jimmy. We are so thankful that Jimmy and Amy were willing to share their apartment with us for that short visit on our way out.

After two months in the US we were now finally headed back … home. But we have been home all along the way, everywhere we stopped. You are why we can be home when we are with you. We are so thankful for the reality that wherever we are, if we are with God and his family, we are at home. Thank you!

Here is wher you can see pictures of our visit to Indiana and Illinois. 

On Assignment - at home in Ohio

Years ago, on one of our home assignments, sitting in the airport of some city in the United States, a man sitting next to us began talking to the boys (they were quite young at the time). Stephan turned to us and asked: “Do we know him too?” We had been meeting with and getting to know so many new people on our trip, and even family was new for Stephan and Sean. As far as Stephan was concerned, this too could be family.

That is one of the blessings of God’s family – that we can be at home in so many different places. And we have so enjoyed seeing so much family – blood relatives and spiritual family – on our travels. But as we drove away from Muscatine and through Indiana, we knew we were headed to Ohio, where we would be meeting another sort of family. We were soon to meet the in-laws and become the in-laws for the first time. Although we had talked with Natalie on Skype and had briefly talked to her parents as well, this was to be the time to meet the whole family. And what a blessing it was!

We were able to stay at Jay and Pauline’s while Sean, Wouter and Marc (when they arrived on the Thursday) stayed at Natalie’s grandparent’s house (John and Fran). We were taken up in the family – which meant being able to help out making cake pops, making our own coffee when needed, sharing the Christmas concert of Natalie’s youngest sister, Rachel, working toegtehr to get everything ready for the wedding – it was a real pleasure and a blessing to be together. We are so thankful for Natalie and her family – our family!

Our time in Ohio was filled with moments like this. Sean and his best friend, Wouer, and Wouter’s father, Marc, had spent five days in New York City before arriving for the wedding. Marc and Wouter had never been to the States before and were welcomed with open arms by so many people. They arrived in the middle of the preparations for the wedding, helped out moving chairs, cleaning up, blowing bubbles. They attended worship services with us on Sunday as well. They were surrounded by people all around welcoming them. John and Fran shared stories of Egypt with them, we played ping-pong in the garage with the gathered family, and made one huge family.

It was great for us to also be able to meet up with Scott’s Mom who has moved back to New York to be with Paul Drushler. This was the first time for us to meet Paul (and he us, of course). It was great for them to have made the trip to share this time with us and with Stephan and Natalie.

After the wedding we had planned on driving over to Indiana, but Shirley was hit by a bout of dizzyness and a migraine, so instead we spent some more family time. This was exactly what we all needed after such a wonderfully busy time – a day to wind down. A trip and walk to Maumee Bay on Lake Erie, the sun shining even as the cold wind blew, reinforced us as a new family, caring for one another. We are so thankful for the love that comes in God’s family. 

Check out the pictures from this leg of the trip!

Old memories and new

At Denver Airport
Originally uploaded by sraabs.

Things change. Kids grow up. Houses are sold. But memories remain and new memories are made. All of this is what Colorado was to us this past week.
We drove down to Colorado Springs to spend time with family there. In order to accomodate everyone we decided to meet at a restaurant - Fargo's pizza - a pizza place themed around the old west. Waiters walk around in period costume, piano's play while moose and deer heads gaze down on the pizza-eating patrons.
This place held all sorts of good memories from when we would come here for church youth activities. It's a good family place. And it was here that we got to meet our niece, Kimberly's husband, Derrick, and talk about their quickly changing life together (new baby on the way). We also had time with the other nieces and nephew, trying to get to know each other a little bit better.
While in 'the Springs' we drove around visiting old haunts. The Raab house on Illinois has been sold, but still looks the same. Elementary school, high school, where we rode the bikes down the hill, where the donkey used to be ... all sorts of memories. The streets have all changed. The city has grown tremendously. But it was fun to reminisce.
Up in Denver we met up with more family for a great evening of food and discussion. The next day we met up with old friends and church family (wonderful how that goes together!). We were also finally able to watch a play from Bret and Ron Carter! We have been wanting to hear and see one of these musicals for years and now finally had the chance.
As we headed out (meeting more friends at the airport) the view in this picture struck me. The kids playing still as time marches on and a hotel is built next to the airport. It's fun to mix old memories with new ones. We are so thankful for family and this opportunity to share this time.

On Home Assignment

California!
Originally uploaded by sraabs.

We are traveling through the United States, visiting family and church family who support us in the work God is accomplishing in Belgium and the Netherlands. This is a time of re-establishing relationships, spending time with family, reporting on what we have been doing in Belgium and the Netherlands, and encouraging and being encouraged in the love that God brings us in Jesus Christ. We travel a lot, spend plenty of time visiting, and mix a time of relaxation with times of energizing encounter.
We started this 'Home Assignment' different than previous years in California. Usually (we return on home assignment every three years) we start in Minnesota, swing through California and end up in Texas, hitting everything else in between. Since we are finishing this time in Ohio with Stephan's wedding, we turned things around, starting in California and working our way east. As we continue our travels, we will try to keep you updated on what is going on, through this blog and through the pictures we take. The pictures from California are now online. You can also always simply click on the photos on the right, here on the blog.
This time back in the US is only possible because so many of you have made it possible. Thank you! In California we were blessed by time with loving family, a Ladies Retreat for Shirley up in the mountains, being able to take part in your family activities (like a volleyball tournament), good food, good fellowship and wonderful examples of service. We are so thankful for God's wonderful people in so many places!