Short update :)

Greetings faithful readers!

This has been a busy week! I spent a good part of the week helping some missionaries who are preparing to head out to the Middle East. They moved out on Saturday and are putting their house up for rent, so I spent the week cleaning house, watching kids, weeding gardens for them. What a privilege to get to know these missionaries before they leave for the Middle East!

The rest of the week I spent helping the Pastor's family. They have four kids... one biological and three adopted. It has been a privilege to be a part of the daily family life of this family. I have also been learning some handy tricks and new recipes for allergy friendly cooking. :) The family eats gluten and dairy free which has been really good for me. I definitely can tell a difference with the dairy , and we'll see about the gluten. I know it takes longer to really tell about whether or not gluten effects you. Meanwhile, I'm getting a good, clean start.

This week I'll  be watching the kids for a few days while the pastor and his wife go on a little get-a-way. I have a few fun activities planned for the kiddos... should be fun!

It looks like I'll be coming back to Indiana a few days earlier than I had planned. The semi that I was going to send my stuff out to Washington has very limited room on this trip, and so I need to investigate an alternate plan. It looks like shipping by train is the cheapest, but I'll have to figure out how to get the timing right so that I'm on the other side to collect it when it gets there.

Thank you for your continued prayers!

On the Road

I've just spent a good week with my parents and "little" bro (6' 3'' tall! Crazy kid. Who told him he could get this tall????)  We've  done some shopping, looked at phones, gone to Bible studies, planned the road trip to Washington, played some Mario Cart Wii, and enjoyed the beautiful sunshine and satisfying rain. It has been time well-spent. 

Everything is so green after the nourishing sunshine and satisfying rain!

Tomorrow I head back to Indiana for two days. 

I need to pack up the little odds and ends that are left... you know those little things that don't fit logically into any box as you pack? Maybe a box's worth of stuff that I'll probably want when I start unpacking at the other end of the country but won't remember where I packed it because it isn't a very categorical object. I'm just glad I'm not a knick-knacky person. I wouldn't even begin to know how to pack all those little things! To each his own!

Then I'll need to slap some identifying labels on the boxes. Since my things are traveling via semi and I may very well be absent at either the pick up or the drop off point, we thought it would be a good idea to make it easy to see which boxes were mine.

Didn't my dad do a nice job? He loves making labels :)

Since the majority of my stuff is school stuff, dad even made little "school" labels to put on the boxes that need to be taken to the school. When the labels are all on the boxes I'll be moving all of the boxes to one point in the house so the rest of the house is completely empty and ready to be cleaned. 

Then comes Sunday. My last time to worship with my brothers and sisters at Grace Fellowship Church before Washington. All the remaining Sundays and Wednesdays I'll be out of town. And that afternoon I'll be visiting with a couple different families and starting the goodbyes.

Someone please remind me not to wear mascara on Sunday. 

Thank you in advance.

And then come Monday! Off to Ohio I go! I've packed up the clothes for traveling and Calvin's (ahem. That is my car's name. haha!) trunk has been transformed into a dresser and closet of sorts. Thank you Calvin, for being so flexible! 

The shoeboxes are working quite well as my substitute for dresser drawers! :)
Shirts in suitcase and shorts/pants in backpack.

So begins the next five and a half weeks of traveling! 

I covet your prayers for safety as I travel:

-for contentment with where God has me and what God has me doing. I know that I will probably tire of living out of a suitcase very quickly.

-that I would use the time during these next few weeks wisely 

-that I would seek to glorify God in all I do and seek to see His glory in all the new things I see and experience.