first week on the road

June 17, 2013

first week on the road

Well we're on a whirlwind tour of the west coast. We started off visiting some very old friends in Vancouver, stayed a night with a great young family in Corvalis, and camped at Lake Shasta. We spent the rest of the week at Koinonia Conference Grounds. All I can say is that I wish we had at least one more week at there - seriously, I have not had a more relaxing time in forever. Koinonia's director Dave and his wonderful wife Kim (who heads up the women's ministry at Twin Lakes Church in Aptos) are just about the best hosts ever. They love Ciyanjano almost more than anyone else I know. They're headed to Zambia at the end of next week to run a short term team and then they'll be in our house at Ciyanjano through August, helping oversee the ministry and also getting a feel for what camping ministry looks like in Zambia so we can improve and think through the future growth of the ministry. Back in America they live outside of Watsonville in the Santa Cruz Mountains. They have the most quiet and restful cabin in the Redwoods about a mile up from camp. No cell reception, lots of tall trees, deer, wild turkeys, and the deepest coziest bed in America. They invited a bunch of great folks over one night so that we could catch up with a number of ladies (and their husbands) who had come over to Zambia with Kim to do ministry with the pastor's wives from ACTION Pastors' College. It was a wonderful reunion. We grilled a ton of food, showed off our kids and shared about the ministry in Zambia. It was so good to see those folks and my only regret is that we didn't get to spend a bunch of additional time with all of them individually. While there we also swam in the ocean in Capitola, at Sea Cliff Beach, and at New Brighton Beach, ate the most fabulous and insane sushi (the best was the "Eternal Sunshine), spent a day at camp, met miniature donkeys, played with the MOPS moms from Twin Lakes, and went to the Monterey Bay Aquarium. We shared about Ciyanjano three time in three days and we still felt like we were on vacation. This week we're on to San Martin, Brentwood, Tehachapi, Zion, Page and Eloy AZ, El Paso and then TEXAS!