Sabbatical and family

These past six weeks of the sabbatical have been focused on family. We've spent the month of June as well as the first part of July with family in the Chicago area. The picture of our granddaughters, Kyla (right) and Kiara (left) was taken on the banks of the Mississippi river in Dubuque, IA about two weeks ago. Kris, our oldest son, and the two girls came over from Boston to spend two weeks with us along with my (Keith's) parents and siblings in Dubuque. Hanjo remained in Boston during that time to prepare for a major exam she will be taking at the end of this month (we will be going to Boston on the 16th of July for nearly three weeks, so we look forward to spending time with the whole family). Although we would love to spend more time with family, it has been so good to have some time with all members of our immediate family (parents and siblings) during the past six weeks. This afternoon we travel to Ohio to see Judy's youngest sister, her husband, and another one of Judy's sisters and her husband who are traveling back from their family vacation. It's been so good to reconnect with family members these days!

Sabbatical continues.

How boring of a title - "sabbatical continues." Yet, as we move through our sabbatical, with minimal contact with the team back in Costa Rica (yes, I have had some contact on a few issues), we need to remember that this time is designed to be rejuvenating, relaxing, refreshing, and a few other "re's" that will enable us to return ready to get back into the harness and work with the team. There have been a few things we have done that were not part of a sabbatical activity. For example, we participated in a missions conference recently at the Glenview EFC in Chicago. Next week we will be driving up to Chicago for a family wedding and then will head down to San Jose, Costa Rica for faculty meetings (training) and a greatly anticipated team spiritual retreat with Jim and Leta Van Meter of Paraclete Ministries. So, the sabbatical continues and we're thankful for this period of "not-too-many-exciting" activities.

The sabbatical begins!

Judy and I have been in the US for two weeks now and are getting settled in for what we hope will be a wonderful time to refresh, re-energize, study, and prepare for our return after Labor Day. Our itinerary is still being developed but we anticipate some travel, much time in libraries, time away from the office in Costa Rica, and a break from my ProMETA emails (one of our staff members is monitoring and filtering all my EFCA emails and forwarding only those I must receive (like sales announcements - just kidding!) . As you may have noticed by our lack of entries in this blog for nearly three months, the schedule has been incredibly full, but these next few months should be incredibly refreshing. Would certainly appreciate your prayers.

Notice the picture (how can you miss it!). I thought I'd include this picture as an example of how important it is to make sure you are standing in the right spot in terms of the background! It reminds me of one of those costumes worn by the Carnival dancers in Rio de Janeiro! Judy is beautiful, but my headgear is something else!

I hope writing once every two months on this blog is not a chronic disease! Well, a New Year's resolution for next year will be to do the blog thing at least once a month. But, the lack of writing is not due to lack of things to write about! There's a lot...for example, this week I "enjoyed" some time in the hospital for what was to be an angiogram (as a follow- up to my annual physical exam) and turned out to include an angioplasty. These last few days have been spent resting at home and enjoying the Christmas season.

Since the robbery, insurance covered some of the loss and donations from individuals came close to cover the rest. The greatest losses were the personal items such as keepsake jewelry.

November was a rush of activities with a team spiritual retreat, a Church Planting Coach clinic, a Willow Creek Leadership Summit, and various meetings and planning sessions as we look to next year in ProMETA. And, it looks like we are going to have our largest enrollment ever in terms of students beginning a new quarter. God is so good!

Robbery, Strategy, Networking

Well, as you can see, the last entry was nearly two months ago. But, so much has been going on that I keep delaying uploading a post. We will be getting a prayer letter out the beginning of November but thought I'd just post a few things here.
On the 27th of September we were broken into here in Costa Rica. (Notice the new "razor wire" protection on the wall we recently installed!) Although the losses were not heavy, certainly not as bad as our colleagues in Peru who also lost musical instruments and passports, knowing that someone broke into our house while we were at church is rather unsettling. The hardest losses were the laptops.
The week before the robbery we spent five days in strategic planning meetings for ProMETA. Ted Kautzmann, ProMETA's academic dean flew down from Minnesota and the three of us who live in Costa Rica went over an agenda that, even with five days set aside for strategic planning, we still did not finish! Not sure what that means!
The week of October 12th, Ted and I met in Puebla, MEX for two reasons. We needed to meet with the vice-rector and the academic dean of a major university and we attended a four day conference on "spiritual formation in Christian universities and seminaries" for seminary and university presidents and academic deans. Other than catching a stomach virus (fortunately not the H1N1 type!), it was a great time. Now to recover!

Back in CR after two long months!

The summer was a metaphorical whirlwind of activities. We kept trying to get our summer prayer letter out between trips and as of today, it is still only half finished! Judy and I left Costa Rica together on June 24th and returned a week ago today. In between those dates we traveled from Miami to Chicago and then Keith went back to Costa Rica for nearly a week and then to Venezuela for nearly two weeks returning to Chicago to rejoin Judy and then go to a family reunion in Dubuque, IA for three days. That was followed by meetings in San Antonio, TX and then on to Florida where Alexandra and Gregory were (finally!) married. The picture to the right was taken a couple days before the wedding. Both are still in school and felt like it was time to tie the knot - they've known each other since the late 90's. Now Judy and I are back in San Jose, CR and are glad to be able to schedule a routine. Once again we realize the incredible value of prayer and how praying for one another is such a key to carrying out God's desires. We hope to have our next prayer letter out soon before the end of the week!

We begin two months of travels

These next two months, Judy and I will be doing a great deal of traveling. We will be visiting nearly a half dozen supporting churches while mixing in a four day trip back to Costa Rica for a very important meeting and then two weeks in Venezuela. So, this summer will be quite busy. We also plan to be at an Anderson family reunion the last week end of July prior to leaving for meetings in San Antonio, TX. Then, the summer will be capped with the wedding of our youngest son, Gregory, to his sweetheart of the last eight years, Alexandra. August 22nd is the big day. We return to CR on the 24th.