What better place for Ella to run her very first 5k than at one of our very favorite places – Walt Disney World! Not only that, she got to run it with Pete for the National Down Syndrome Society. We want to give a really big THANK YOU to everyone who donated to Sammy’s Superheroes for the race. Go #TeamNDSS!
Pete and I had the most spectacular adventure in October! (Happy to finally be sharing it with you!) We traveled together – yes, just the two of us – to East Asia. Pete was invited by the to teach with the Comprehensive Advanced Life Support (CALS) program in Bangkok for the United Nations International Organization for Migration. He had previously taught the course many times throughout Minnesota and Kenya, as well as for the U.S. State Department in San Francisco a few years ago. This course in Bangkok offered instruction to doctors and nurses from Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia, Nepal, Sri Lanka, and El Salvador. We considered taking the kids along, too, but they’d miss school and the massive time change would be hard on them for such a short trip. So our dear friend, Lisa, stayed with Ella and Sam, and the two of us flew to the other side of the globe.
We decided to give the kids one big Christmas gift this year. It wasn’t hard to choose what it would be, but it was hard to keep it a secret until Christmas morning! Pete was working over Christmas, so we planned to Skype in the morning while the kids opened their stockings. The fact that the Christmas parade from Disney World happened to be on at that same time was a lovely coincidence.
As missionaries on Special Assignment with World Gospel Mission, Pete and I have been able to step into a mobilizing role along with some of the other things we continue to do with the organization. Mobilizing means we get to walk alongside people who are thinking about going into missions in some way. You guys, we LOVE getting to do this! We’ve always been superfans of encouraging others to follow a call to the mission field, and getting to do it as our role with WGM is pretty amazing.
August has been pretty quiet for us so far, which we don’t mind a bit after all the adventures we’ve had in the last few months. One such adventure began when we were in Indiana last month. As I mentioned in our road trip post, we borrowed our old Jeep from Luke & Hannah to make the trip to WGM HQ. We drove the Jeep all over the country in all the years we owned it, so it did have a few miles on it. 213,000 to be exact. She’s always run like a champ, though. Until the day she didn’t. The day after we got to HQ, we were driving through town and realized she was running super hot. Pete dropped Ella & me off at the movie theater and took Sam with him to the shop to get her checked out. Alas, they nearly made it. She started smoking and they called a tow truck. A week later, we got the final news. The Jeep was finished. While she was taken to the scrap yard, we looked for another way back to Duluth.
Just a week after arriving back in the States, we repacked our bags and hit the road for Indiana. World Gospel Mission headquarters is located an hour north of Indianapolis and hold regular debriefing and training sessions for missionaries returning to the US. We don’t yet have a car, so we borrowed our old Jeep from our dear friends who bought it from us before we moved. Driving enabled us to see friends along the way, including Grandma and Grandpa Olsen! And Auntie Kristin, too! I have some really great photos from our visit with them, but they are in the cloud and I can’t seem to get them out. That mysterious cloud, I tell you. I’ll figure it out eventually and share the pictures when I do.
