Summer adventures, Part 1 - North East

You know what I really love? I love travelling around and seeing how God is working in different parts of the world. I've driven 4,000 miles in the past 4 weeks. In my van, of course. My wheelchair, Svante, is about to reach his 1100 mile marker though, so I think that's worth mentioning too. I've had a hard time knowing how much of this travelling I should report "vacation" or "business," because it all feels related to my responsibilities as a servant of Jesus, but to me, my work is fun and a dream come true.

Hannah and I took a trip to New England recently. We started by driving to New Jersey and visiting Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty - amazing places that I definitely wanted to see since I love and serve international refugees. It reminded me of two important things - that for a long time, America has been a place of hope and freedom and new life for people all over the world, and that as great as America is in that respect, my home is with Jesus and he is the truest source of hope and freedom and new life for anyone who turns to him.

From there, we went to New Hartford, Connecticut, to visit our friend Amy, who is home on furlough from ministry in Uganda. She's raising support and getting ready to go back out later this summer for another long stretch of service. Her dad is the pastor of a small church family that meets in an old historical building, and we got to worship with them on Mother's Day and share lunch with her family. It was a lot of fun, but also very good to hear from Amy about what is going on in Uganda and learn more about the needs there so we know better how to pray for her and support her. We got to talk through some things she's struggling with, I helped her come up with some fundraising ideas.

We left Connecticut and went on to Portland, Maine, which I think is the furthest northeast corner of the world I've been to so far. It was so refreshing to be by the ocean, and the seafood was incredible. But we went there primarily to visit a ministry called The Root Cellar. Located downtown, it offers a lot of different services to the people directly in that community. We got a tour of the facility, I got to visit the ESL program, and talked with a few of the staff members for a while. Again, it was good to hear how the ministry has grown out of the faithfulness and prayers of the workers, and to hear about ways we can pray for and support their work.

We drove back to Fort Wayne, ending the first part - the NE part - of this summer's adventures!