Twin cities weekend

This past weekend I (Matthew) was in Minnesota visiting friends, family and a church in the Twin Cities area. It was a great opportunity to share more about our vision and excitement about going to Mexico and what we will be doing. Friday I shared a few meals with family and long-time friends. Then Saturday I got to visit a close friend of my deceased grandmother, who is a dear friend of our family. We had a nice time over coffee with banana bread and chocolate chip cookies. On a personal note, it was special to learn a story or two about my dad that I didn't know. For example, she shared that back when he was maybe seven years old and the family was visiting from Colombia, he was in her Sunday school class. They had all bought a Bible and gave it to him as a gift. She gave it to him and he said thank you for giving me the Bible. She said, "No, Jimmy, the Sunday school class gave it to you." To which he replied, "No you gave it to me!" Since she had been the one to physically hand it to him. She still got a kick out of that as she recounted the over 50 year old experience.



Saturday evening and Sunday morning were spent at Meadow Creek Church where they had a special focus on Missionaries. On Saturday there was a "Taste of the Nations" during which guests received a 'passport' and got that signed at any of twelve tables which had representative decorations, sample-size food and information about ministries in various parts of the world. People who were attending those tables had either lived there, visited there or currently were serving in those countries/regions.

Sunday between services, I had a booth for International Teams where I had our powerpoint going and the opportunity to hand out some of our information and share conversationally with a number of individuals and families. Hopefully some will decide to partner with us in prayer and financial support.

Ten year homecoming

Yes, I went to the Wheaton College 10 year reunion. I'm glad I did, but i don't know, it's just so different. We live in the Chicagoland area so have been on campus off and on in the last eight years. You have these four years of memories and then want to "relive" them with fellow alumni... and well, I'm an optimistic kind of guy, so I found joy in hearing people share what they're doing and how the last ten years have been, but maybe i'm also more of a realist and realize that the people i first met 14 years ago and graduated with 10 years ago are different people, have spouses, kids; though we share a common past as our journeys intersected in college, we have since taken different paths in life.

The events only last a few hours and we have maybe a few minutes of "doing the rounds" saying hello to everyone, "what have you been doing? where do you work? how did I know you? are you married? have kids?" Many people from our class were not there (maybe 100 of 500+ who graduated attended) and then people from other classes before and after us, and professors and administrators who have moved on, the absence of whom somehow robs the experience of its full impact. My feelings were both of gratitude at being able to see everyone and have a common weekend together with the sense that it was not all I'd want it to be. A good friend from class of 1996 once talked about an experience and wanting to capture it in a bottle so you could open it whenever and just reminisce and recreate the joys... it felt like I wanted all those four years to somehow come back and they did to a degree, but of course it's never entirely possible.

What was exciting was to hear of people that were still faithful to their God, their faith, pursuing excellence, integrity. And even the many absences were folks who are out all over the world investing their lives For Christ and His Kingdom (the college motto).