A DAD'S JOURNAL
 

Countdown Week 2-  August 15 Week

This week, the trip became more real to me.  During the past five weeks I have been taking my five weeks of annual vacation.  My leave of absence from General Mills began this week meaning that the money faucet has now turned off.  I found I had to make a mental adjustment for this even though it has been planned for years.  It is now real. 

These last two weeks are planned to finish off preparing our home for the Pearsons and preparing the curriculum for our schooling.   

It has been inspiring to me how God has worked out so many details for this trip.  A big one has been what to do with our home.  The Pearsons are one of the missionary families who our church supports and they will live in our home during their year of home assignment.  They work for Wycliffe in bible translation.  For eighteen years they have lived in Papua New Guinea.  They went into a tribal area that had only a spoken language.  They built relationships, learned the language and then developed a way to write the language with the goal of translating the New Testament into that new language for the people.  What a sacrifice to be part of helping spread God’s Word to the ends of the earth! 

Our plan for curriculum has been to make sure that we keep on pace with the Math and Language curriculum that the kids would be doing at Chapel Hill Academy.  We will try to make sure there aren’t any big gaps in science and history, but more of that curriculum will be based on what we are seeing!  The administration has been great in supporting this dream so that we can return after the adventure.  The teachers have also been so helpful in our planning!  Also, the National Park System has a program called the Junior Rangers, where the kids earn badges at each park after studying some aspect of science or history related to the park we will be visiting. 

Even though we really couldn’t afford the time, we decided to take the RV down to Wells on Saturday and Sunday for a short visit to the farm and to Brenda’s hometown’s annual “Kernel Days” farm festival.  One of Brenda’s brothers, Don has continued with the family farming operation and we love going down to visit them and enjoy the open space.  Brenda’s mom lives in town and other brothers and sisters came down also, so it was a nice farewell gathering. 

The festival includes a parade through town.  Brenda and I feel like we’re getting old and sentimental as the band and veteran’s honor guard brought tears to our eyes.  We often take our country for granted.  I’m sure this trip will help us appreciate it even more.