Traveling Wednesday… the Journey Begins

This is a “Traveling Wednesday” because we are actually traveling today, and a wee ways into tomorrow. Mark, Asher and I are on our way to Scotland for a few days before the journey to South Africa begins. Having a round trip ticket looks better to the US government (since Mark is in the middle of the spousal visa process) and it was cheaper to get a one way from Edinburgh than from North Carolina. (AND we get to say hello and goodbye to our dear friends in Edinburgh again!) We take off tomorrow afternoon and arrive in Scotland Thursday morning. If you fancy praying for us, feel free to pray that Asher will be happy and peaceful, we won’t have any delays and things will go smoothly, our stuff will arrive safely, we’ll get upgraded to better seats and have lots of room, and that there will be warm weather in Scotland when we arrive! =) (No reason not to ask, hey?)

We’ll leave Scotland September 7th, arrive in Johannesburg September 8th, and fly to Cape Town September 9th. Perhaps let’s add in one more prayer — that Asher’s teeth, who are long overdue, won’t decide now’s the time to make their grand appearance. Praise the Lord who is with us in every circumstance and holds all things together…airplanes, suitcases…and even teeth!

xCC

Traveling Tuesdays… or Travelling?

I’ve decided to bring a new wee feature to the blog, for your viewership enjoyment, which will be Traveling Tuesdays. My dear friend Rob likes to spell travelling with two l’s, which is totally okay, according to my Mac Dictionary, and sort of makes sense, because the two-l spelling is chiefly British, and so is he, in a Zimbabwean sort of way. This isn’t really a problem unless he sets up your wireless router for you, and tells you ‘travelling’ is the password, without spelling it. I’m sure you can figure out where the trouble comes in.

Since we’re doing a good bit of ‘travelling’ these days, and Mark and I have both had some good opportunities to travel in the past, I thought you might enjoy a few snapshots from here and there. I was thinking of letting you guess where each one is from, but that seems a bit trite. Feel free to give feedback. I’ll try to include a story with each pic if it has a good one.

Without further ado, let the Travelling Tuesdays…begin.

This is possibly one of my most favourite travel shots ever.

Hopefully, you can guess the location. The backstory: Mark and I were closing accounts in Edinburgh before our move to South Africa, and discovered we had enough miles on our Airmiles card to head to either Dublin or Paris. It was either use ’em or lose ’em and we couldn’t use them towards our upcoming flights to America or South Africa, so we said, well thanks very much, I guess we’ll make the most of ’em!  We were able to go over our second anniversary, and the trip was amazing, wonderful, and super special. How many kids can say they made it to the top of the Eiffel Tower before their first birthday? 🙂

xCC

Life is Short. God is Good.

The primary supervisor for my PhD at the University of Edinburgh, Professor Marcella Althaus-Reid, passed away last week. Argentinian, she was an incredibly spirited, passionate person. She was dedicated to academia and cared deeply for her students. Although our differences in Theology were deep and wide, I think we met in the middle because of our faith in the Lord.

Dr. Althaus-Reid fell ill again in 2007 and was away from the University on an extended absence. During that time we were out of contact, and I never got to share with her the great news about Asher’s birth, or photos of him. Long before I was pregnant, she once told me, “You will never regret to put your family first.” [I hope you can hear the lovely latino accent there.] I hope to hold on to that wise advice for the rest of my days.

I include below a picture of Asher that I wish I’d been able to share with her. Thank the Lord for opportunities to interact with people who are radically different from you, but who share a common bond in love for the Lord Jesus. Seize the opportunities such relationships bring to grow, to learn and to challenge yourself to really think about why you believe what you believe. You might see Jesus’ love in places you never expected.

xCC