the gift of gab

After Indiana, I drove to Grand Rapids to spend a little time with Rick and Tracey – future co-workers. Rick is a pilot for FMZ and is working on getting mechanics license. They’ll be heading back to Zambia about 2 weeks after I get there. They are either moving to Macha or Mukinge, but aren’t exactly sure which one yet.
Rick’s birthday was on Thursday. Three other guys in his class have birthdays around the same time. So some of the wives planned a birthday party at a park for all four of them. All of the class participants are interested in mission aviation. I tried more recruiting, but to no avail. Most of them are already making plans to work with various mission aviation groups.
I got to pepper Rick and Tracey with questions about life in Zambia and specific questions about Flying Missions and its workings. It’s a beautiful thing to have access to that kind of information right now. I am looking forward to working with both of them.

Yesterday I drove to Plainfield, just outside of Indianapolis to see my friend Nellie and her family. I met her and her husband in Alaska in the fall of 1998. When I knew here then, she was pregnant with their first child. My brother and I stopped by to see her seven years when I was moving from North Carolina to Arizona. At that time she was pregnant with her second child. Now she’s pregnant with her third! Darrell says that I only come around when there’s another kid in the works. It really is just coincidental!!
I got to hang out with her boys who are now nine and six and a half. They are great little people!! It was very fun to get to know them. Of course, it was good to get to talk with Nellie again as well. Back when we both lived in Kotzebue, she was always my voice of reason. It’s something I’ve appreciated for many years. She’s always been a straight shooter.
Since Darrell is a pilot, I tried to some major recruiting for Flying Mission. It would be so cool to have this family in Africa with us. And I know they would be a grand success. Maybe we can all pray for God to call them there.

The visit with Joel and Phoebe was delightful. On Saturday evening Phoebe and I played a rousing game of Scrabble. She was kicking my tail for most of it. But at the very end she drew a “Z” that she wasn’t able to play. So I ended up beating her by 5 points!
It was wonderful to catch up with them and go to church with them. One of the interesting things I’ve been noticing as I travel the country is the regional differences that are still very much alive. In church, one of the leaders said something about enjoying your “meat and potatoes” at lunch. I kind of figured it was just a cute little saying. After church we visited some friends of theirs: Dick and MaryJean made a marvelous lunch. Scrumptious meat and potatoes!! Who knew!?
Right after lunch I was able to do my presentation. It turns out that Dick had a screen and an amp with microphone so everyone was able to see and hear just fine! How wonderful.

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So I got up at 5:45 so that I wouldn’t have to rush around before breakfast at 6:30 and departure at 7:00 am. I checked my e-mail, checked the weather to make sure we were out of the tornadoes and started moseying toward the shower. That’s when Audra called.
“How are you doing? Are you up?”
“Oh, yeah, sure. Just heading to the shower.”

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Well, I ended up staying in Colorado for 3 more weeks than I had originally planned. I decided at the last minute to take another class called PILAT. (It stands for Programs In Language Acquisition Theories.) I am so glad I decided to stay! In PILAT I learned how to become an effective language learner.
We focused on two major areas: the first was on phonetics. In English we have 44 sounds that we use. However, there are thousands of sounds that people use throughout the world. So we practiced a number of those sounds – both how to hear them and how to make them. Imagine a group of adults sitting in a room practicing:
click here to see my group practicing voiceless fricative Ls: http://youtube.com/watch?v=Z4bhyDSiJSs
The video below is of our instructor, Dwight G, and another group of students. However, the exercises are the same as the ones we did.

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Today was the first day of what I have now dubbed “The Perimeter Tour.” It’s really a support raising/good-bye tour. From Colorado, I’m heading north to Minnesota, across the top of the US, down the Eastern Seaboard, and back across the South to get back to Tucson. I’m looking at nearly five weeks and 8,000 miles by the time I get back to Arizona around the 1st of July.
Another family who also attended PILAT and SPLICE is driving to Minnesota as well. So we decided to caravan, at least until southern MN. It’s nice to have their 9-year-old son in the car with me. He’s quite an amiable little guy and I’ve enjoyed our conversations.
Right now, we’re in North Platte, Nebraska. According to Google Maps, it should have taken us about 4 hours to get here. It took nearly 7. The biggest issue for us was the huge number of tornadoes running through Colorado and Nebraska. Thankfully, we didn’t run into any of them directly. But we did decide to stop driving sooner than any of us had planned.
We’re planning on leaving at 7:00 tomorrow morning and it looks like it should take about eight and a half hours to get to my next stop in Winnebago, MN. I’m assuming that with gas, food, and potty breaks, it may actually take 10 to 11 hours.
Here’s hoping for a tornado free day!

SPLICE was an amazing experience!
Initially, I thought it was just about avoiding stepping on toes when I get oversees. Turns out, it’s much more than that. It really was much more about self-awareness. We discussed so many different topics with heavy focus on stress and conflict resolution. We also talked about keeping Rest and Sabbath, saying healthy goodbyes, and making smooth(er) transitions.
When I first got to SPLICE, we were told that by the end of the three weeks we would all have bonded very deeply and would be crying when we all left. Being the skeptic that I am, I totally scoffed at that.
We dug deep. We picked at scabs of hurts long buried. We allowed God’s grace to wash over us and begin healing. Throughout the process, I learned so much about myself and consequently even more about God and His grace and mercy!
By the end of the three weeks, we had bonded so deeply that we all cried when it was time to say goodbye.
I am thankful for my time here. Over time, i will sort out some more of the emotions that I feel about it, and I will post them here. But for now, this is it.