We have traveled up to Littleton Colorado to visit the 3 grandkids for a few days before participating in a mission conference with Metropolitan Baptist Church in Oklahoma City, OK.

However, here are my final and closing thoughts about our trip from July 6 - Sept 15, where we visited with many friends along the way . Where we shared a meal together, renewed our friendship and got caught up with life.

This is a copy of an email that I sent out to a few close friends. 

  II Copy and Paste here.II
 
I haven't updated my blog in several weeks/1.5 months. Thank you for praying for us. NOTE: this email was started a week ago and I am finally getting around to sending it to you.

We have been traveling - visiting friends, supporters, and several churches. Here is a summary. Our purpose was to reconnect with folks, present our work and gain new financial partners.

From July 6 - Sept 14
10,600 miles
40 beds
crossed through 26 states
countless tears as we heard peoples' stories and their struggles.

We are currently in Denver visiting the g'kids for several days, before we head to OKC to attend mission conference Sept 25-28, then we'll fly back to GUA .

We thoroughly loved reconnecting with old friends, making new friends and sharing about our Pastoral Care ministry in Guatemala with those we had coffee with. We reconnected with missionary kids that have returned to their college campus, had coffee with old high school friends, lunch with old colleagues from Bolivia days and dinner with long time prayer warriors for our ministry. We laughed. We smiled. We cried. We are blessed!

We are emotionally drained from the intense interactions as we intentionally met with old and new friends. We are physically exhausted as we have kept on a fast paced schedule with our RAV 4 to travel on to our next visit. But more so, we are even more emotionally exhausted and sad as we spoke with so many people who shared some of their deep hurts and challenges. People are dealing with - challenges with their adult children, addictions, disappointments with other missionaries, unexpected deaths, aging parents, job losses and misunderstandings. Our hearts are hurting and softened. We listened, we cried and we prayed with our friends. The overall "take-away" -

People are hurting. I mean, it was like a two by four hit us in the face as we saw the "brokenness of the world".  We live in a broken and sinful world.

We prayed for "divine appointments" and we saw that God provided over and over again . Even last week at Northwest Bible Church, we connected with a new appointee with Camino who is also a Dallas Theological Seminary student from Mexico heading for Spain. We met in line as we were getting our dinner there at church.   A divine appointment.  Another example, we were following the GPS, and made a wrong turn, which led us down Mitchell Road. When we saw the Mitchell Road School in Greenville, SC, which reminded us of Neil and Dianna Thomas (they lived and worked in Guatemala for several years) - we called them up and had a quick unexpected/unplanned visit with them. What a blessing! We could definitely see the hand of God as he directed our steps and confirmed our different meetings. Another divine appointment.  We shared Jesus with an elderly man sitting at the picnic table outside of Chic-fil-A in Lynchburg, Virginia. A divine appointment.  

Hugs,

Judy
PS All this to say, please pray for us as we are weary, discouraged - yet encouraged as we'll be participating in a new supporting church Mission conference next week.