Exactly one month in

  Every other time I’ve traveled abroad I was always counting down to the day in which I would be back in Charlotte, back with Christine, back to the kids at the church, back with friends and family…  It’s been such a strange and yet freeing feeling to not have a “return date.”   I guess this is what it truly feels like to leave one community and join another.

  Early this morning before heading off for church, I was listening to a podcast from Renovatus, our Charlotte church.  While I still feel very connected to our amazing home church, friends and family, our roots here are spreading and sinking in deeper and deeper.  We’ve had such an incredible month of serving and getting to know the amazing Chileans and yet at the same time, we’ve been served and loved in so many ways that we could never imagine by our new community.

  Almost a week ago, Monday night, we went downtown to help out with a homeless ministry that our church heads up.  It’s a ministry very similar to what Mat, Katie, Patrick, Courtney, the Boydstun family and I, along with so many others did for years in downtown Charlotte.  I had my predispositions and thought that it would be nice to just “check it out.”  At the end, Christine and I were the ones being served in such a fresh way, but I’ll let her tell that story later on.

  This past Friday, Doug/Diego and Shelly Kallestad were given (by their kids) a “weekend off” to celebrate their 29^th Anniversary.   If you only knew how incredibly busy and servant minded Diego and Shelly are, then you could grasp how much they deserve this.  And what did they do with this opportunity? 

  Well, they got some well-deserved R & R and yet blessed us at the same time.  They let us watch the house, which gave Christine and I the unique experience of our first ever vacation that we walked to.  We absolutely love the family we’re living with, but it was incredibly refreshing to spend some quality time alone with Christine.

  Obviously I realize and look forward to the day we will have a “return date” to see our loved ones back in the States, but until then I’ll just keep on counting up.