Thanksgiving Weekend

Happy Thanksgiving! I trust you were able to enjoy a great Thanksgiving weekend and contemplate the wonderful things in life to be thankful for. I was especially thinking about God's amazing love for us, and also the blessings of friendships and having a wonderful family.

I had to work both Wednesday and Thursday nights, so my Thanksgiving weekend started on Friday morning when I drove to Burnsville right after work. Brent met me there and we had a great weekend full of food, family, and fun!

On Friday night we were excited to welcome my 2nd cousin, Sara, for dinner. We had the full Thanksgiving meal with all the trimmings, and as you can see, there were lots of delicious dishes!



Since there was so much food, we repeated the meal on Saturday night when my cousin, Tim, was with us! :)



Before Saturday's meal, though, my boyfriend and my cousin helped my dad put up Christmas lights. What great guys! And it meant that my mom had lights on her house before December 23rd! If you've ever spent time with me at the house I owned in Fergus, you might remember that I'm a big fan of Christmas lights. I mean, who doesn't like Christmas lights up year round? They're so pretty!

As you can see, we had a lot of fun in the process!







The end result on the house was beautiful!



I'm so thankful Brent was able to come from Appleton, and you can see we had a great weekend laughing together!

Parisian Doors

I love the doors of Paris! When I live there someday, I'll pick my flat based greatly on the door that I'd use each day to enter and leave.

While we were still on the bus, I snapped a few pictures of doors, and it became my theme for the day as we walked around!

An American in Paris!

At the end of our trip, we had just under 24 hours in Paris. It was an amazing time! We stayed at this old convent-turned-hotel/hostel that's near Notre Dame. After a short bus tour in the morning where we saw all the "big" stuff, we all split up to do what we wanted for the day. A group of seven of us decided that we wanted to see "local" Paris, and walked all around the larger neighborhood surrounding our hotel. It was a PERFECT day!!

Traveling through Africa

Here's a slide show to let you see a little of what it was like to travel through Africa. We landed in N'Djamena, Chad and then drove to Garoua, Cameroon. I'm not sure the distance, but it took maybe 8+ hours. One of my teammates could probably help me out with that accuracy!

Team Cameroon

Team Cameroon had a lot of fun together! We were a great mix of personalities, ages, life experiences. I don't remember a single time where it seemed like someone was annoyed with someone else, and I find that just a blessing from God since we spent so much time together! Here you can see pictures of our team.

I'm so thankful for the amazing people I got to spend time with while serving the Lord in Africa! Thank you, Lord, for the lifelong friendships made!

African Kids

The African kids we came in contact with were a highlight of the trip for me. Here's a slideshow that shows a little of what we encountered. They were at every turn, running to our vehicles the moment we arrived anywhere. I have a few favorites, but don't tell the rest of them that! Trisch and I kept trying to figure out which ones we could take home with us, but unfortunately we weren't able to do that in the end... We didn't think squeezing into our suitcases would be the most comfortable for them! -- Tell me, though, wouldn't you have had the same reaction?

Welcome Center in N'Djamena

Our team flew in and out of N'Djamena, Chad. This wasn't our original plan, but the first airline stopped working so I'm glad we chose the safer route! The huge blessing in this is that we got to see our missionaries in N'Djamena! There is a Welcome Center that has been built in the last few years, and since my uncle had quite a bit to do with the project, it was especially fun to see in person the thing I had only seen in pictures before!

The best part, though, was reconnecting with old friends!! There are three families living at the Welcome Center right now, and they all happen to be friends of mine. I've decided to make one slide show of just our time there, since families of these missionaries are checking here for pictures of their loved ones. I specifically didn't use any last names in my captions since I realized that I didn't ask them for permission -but I know they want their families to see these fun pictures.

Some of these pictures are from our first night in Africa, and the rest are from our last afternoon there. N'Djamena is located right on the border of Chad and Cameroon, so that last day we planned extra time in case the border crossing took longer, but if I remember right it was only about two hours. This meant we had some fun relaxation time before a wonderful dinner before our night flight back to Paris!

Lefse Fest 2008

Thanks to each of you checking back for Africa pictures! I think I'm about ready to post a few. I appreciate your patience! Monday was spent with Brent, on Tuesday I was hit hard with jet-lag, and today was Lefse Fest 2008. If you're in the area, my mom has 38, well, maybe 34..., pieces of lefse that are pretty tasty. :) If you're heading here for Thanksgiving, you'll be in luck!

The struggle for me has been deciding how to post my Africa pictures. I have a couple of hundred shots, and while I won't share every single one with you, I wanted to share as much as possible. I've decided on grouping them into themes, and sharing them via slide shows. It's not the most ideal way as the pictures are usually a bit smaller for you to see, but then I figured when I was done I'll probably pull a few of my favorites for a separate post all together.

So, I've been spending time uploading to slide.com, and I think I'm about ready to share a few. Check back later tonight still, and otherwise there should be more tomorrow. Thanks for sticking with me!

I'm Home!

Hello from Minnesota! I wanted to post a quick note to let you all know that I arrived safely back at home again. Team Cameroon 2008 was able to catch the regular flight from Paris to Seattle with no troubles and actually empty seats around us, and then I had two additional flights to get all the way home, but landed last night just before midnight.

My parents were waiting for me at the bottom of the escalator to baggage claim, and it turns out they had a surprise waiting for me.... Brent! I had so badly wanted to see him, but didn't think it would work until Thanksgiving weekend when he'll be here with my family. Little did I know that he's been planning for weeks that he'd take today off and be able to greet me off the plane and spend the day with me today. What a thoughtful guy!

So, I was going to post this a little earlier today, but... well... I'm sure you understand! :) I needed to tell him stories and show him pictures first. Now I'll spend the evening showing my family the pictures and telling stories, and I'm sure there's some laundry that needs to get done. There's a bit of African sand on everything in my suitcase!

I'll leave you with these two pictures, and the promise to post a bunch more. I have hundreds of photos (not the thousands like some thought I might!) to sort through, and can't wait to share them with you.

The kids were amazing, and my favorite part of the trip. They would run to our vehicles in any neighborhood we entered and especially loved having their pictures taken. I just love their faces!

Here's my one shot of our whole group. I can't wait until we all share our pictures and I can get a few more. This was taken just before leaving Africa, and is at the Welcome Center in N'Djamena, Chad.

Don't worry, there's lots more to come! I'm a little overwhelmed at the moment, trying to think of how to process all that happened, and then figure out ways to tell you about it, but I'm looking forward to that as well.

THANK YOU so much for your prayers!! There's no way we all could've gone without them, and there were definite times I knew people were praying for us right then. THANK YOU to Brent for being such a great shadow-blogger for me while I was gone, and for handling all sorts of details I'm sure I don't even fully understand yet. WELCOME to the new readers we've picked up because of this trip -I'm so glad you've joined in on the fun! I'm excited to have you stick around!

To Seattle then ... Home! - Day 13

Ephesians 4:11-16 (New International Version)

It was he who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers, to prepare God's people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.

Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of men in their deceitful scheming. Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into him who is the Head, that is, Christ. From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.

• Pray for continued travel mercies.
• Pray for us as we return home, that we will be able to process all that God has done, that we will be able to express to our family, friends, and church what the Lord has done, and that we will be changed by this experience.
• Pray for a heart of thankfulness and gratitude.