A taste of the familiar

I know there are many benefits to having this blog available, but two specifics showed up this past week. Firstly, it drove my older brother to read his Bible in vain search for Acts 29 (I told you it wasn't in there!), secondly, friends from back home read--either on the blog or facebook, but I'll take credit for it on the blog, that we did not have Smarties (except me of course), nor did we have Ice Tea mix of which my wife is an adoring fan. Many thanks to Robyn and Kevin Olfert along with Ron and Anne Derksen and last, but not least to Claire Olfert who gave Nate the highlight of the month--some new toys! This motley crew visited us for supper last week and we had a great evening eating outside (no snow!) and catching up. When you have been away from friends and family for a while, little things like Smarties and Ice Tea mix go a long way--huge thanks to the Derksen family for making this possible! The little lego man that came with the toy has been aptly named: "Ron". Our regular weeks of study are coming to a close this week as we look forward to seeing Randy and Kim Gerbrandt join us for a week before we head off to LA. After almost 8 weeks of living in solitude we will be living in community for about a month, with many different people, and different families and thus we enter the next chapter of the sabbatical: community.