DOWN MEMORY LANE

My apologies for waiting so long to write again.  One would think that the most beautiful and wonderful summer of one's life would be worthy of a blog, but what do I do?  I enjoyed every minute of it.  Of course, there are a couple of other summers that come to mind as great memories -- the summer Darlene and i married, wow!  And the summer our daughter was born!!

But 2014 was great!  We finished up some work with MITS at the end of May -- the graduate profile was written, a new Team member hired, the orchard was bearing fruit, more land was added to our property and we had given 3 more plots to Team members.

We met the grandkids in London and flew to Greece for a holiday (oh, yeah, the parents were there too!).  What a great time -- Mars Hill, the Parthenon, the Pnyx (birthplace of democracy), Corinth, Starbucks, gyros on the go.  One of the grandkids loves everything Greek, so she explained to us who all the Greek gods and goddesses were and what they did.  She also has been praying for the children of Afghanistan every day for two years, and we discovered on our visit to the Church in Glyfada that they are serving Afghani refugees.  A great connection...

This summer was also our 50th anniversary; Darlene says she married at ten so she isn't really old.  We spent part of the summer visiting old friends and new, making contact and memories.  We had a  meal with Tim and Ann Lewis.  We visited Lubbock, Texas, and had lunch with Steve and Mildred Eckstein, whom we had not seen for 45 years. I taught with Steve 2.5 years at Eastern New Mexico U.  We went to Tennessee to see Otter Creek Church and have a Board meeting.  We went to Abilene and stayed with Mel and Jan Hailey and visited with Estelle Sinclair and others.  We visited with Tony and Janice Mauldin and Bill and Joanna Arnold and spent the 4th of July with my brother and his wife.

We intended the Greece trip to be our anniversary celebration.  But our daughter surprised us with a party, inviting people she found in Darlene's phone!  Sorry that some friends were not invited because they were only on my phone!!  75 people came - a former elder from Redwood City, CA, where we served the Redwood Church for 21 years.  New friends from Southlake Church.  Our joyful friend Chris Gingles from Healing Hands.  And my Aunt Imogene from Burkburnett, TX, who is so much like my mother that memories flood back just to see her.  And others whom we love.

Our 50 years has been a "wild date"
We will try for some more, as God wills.

Darlene made an online book of our 50 years together - in Abilene, in Portales, in Redwood City, at Pepperdine, in Nairobi, memories of sponsoring churches Redwood, Simi Valley, Golf Course Road and Otter Creek.  Travels in Greece, Scotland, Spain, Tanzania, Germany, France, Croatia, Italy, Singapore, Malaysia, Hawaii, Transwestern tour of the USA, and of course our beloved Kenya.

Our lives are rich, and happy,  and we have the best of friends.