Russ and I flew out to the Midwest the first weekend in October to attend the wedding of Austin, one of the gentlemen who worshipped with us from the Mountain Home AFB. We flew into O'Hare around 6:00pm and caught a quick bite to eat (Chicago-style pizza!) at the home of a college friend of mine, Joline. We enjoyed catching up on each other's lives which included meeting her husband, Steve, for the first time. From there, we drove into Indiana and stayed by my cousin Joel and Shelayne. Our timing wasn't great so we were not able to see Carly. After visiting with Shelayne for a few hours on Saturday morning, we changed into our wedding duds and drove to the wedding venue. Thankfully, we had worked out ahead of time the time zone difference in those short 45 miles (central vs eastern)!
Austin and Rebekah were married at Mill Creek Gardens, a bed and breakfast in Winamac, IN. The home was initially built by Ralph Braun, the founder of the motorized wheelchair lift for vans and buses. The home is entirely handicap accessible and even has a room for a warm pool. I especially loved the kitchen and wanted to transport it to my sister Lynn's house.
Anyway, Russ and I especially loved catching up with the other Air Force guys: Micah and his wife Chloe, and Raymond. Raymond is the only one still in the AF, currently stationed in Washington D.C. Micah and Chloe live in British Columbia with their three children, and Austin just moved to Alexandria, Virginia to begin a new job.
After the wedding, Russ and I drove to Grand Rapids and stayed with Ian and Lenelle. What a lovely evening of ministry encouragement we had with these seminary friends. We worshipped at the FRC the next morning and heard Ian preach from the beatitude "The meek shall inherit the earth." Harm, the Calvin College student who stayed with us for about six weeks this summer met us at church. We loved being able to catch up on his life since he has been back at school. Once we had visited with our old friends from the FRC, we headed to Paul and Laurina's farm for Sunday dinner. We had not seen them since her cancer diagnosis this past spring. We are thankful she is currently in remission and is tentatively making plans to return to Guatemala next spring for their annual mission trip.
We said good-bye to Paul and Laurina mid-afternoon and then drove to the Helen DeVos Children's Hospital in downtown Grand Rapids to see little Jade, the granddaughter of a wonderful couple in our church (and Anna's organ instructor). Jade was born at 22 weeks and 5 days, along with her twin sister Ava. Ava Grace was called home to be with the Lord a day after her birth, but little Jade is growing and progressing nine weeks later. Kurt and Rachel (the parents) are incredibly strong in their faith and it was a delight to visit with them and hear how the Lord is upholding them through this trial.
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| These are the size of baby Jade's diapers. She had just moved up from the nano preemie size to the micro-preemie. |
After we left sweet Jade and her parents we drove to Immanuel URC in Kalamazoo, MI for the evening service. Russ loved reconnecting with all the members he had the privilege of knowing while preaching for two years and interning for a summer while in seminary. From there we drove back to Chicago so we could fly home to Boise early Monday morning!
We loved our whirlwind trip, but still want to go back to connect with all those we did not have time to see--our old neighbors, the Michigan Bleekers, and Russ' sister Renee!
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