Christmas in June!!

On Friday, Kevin drove Sofia and Selah to Michigan to celebrate his father's 80th birthday with the rest of his family. Keri, Isaiah and I had a very relaxing evening together. However, Isaiah realized that gramma was leaving soon and became very unsettled during the night. I took care of him from 1:30 am until 3:00 am. When he finally fell asleep, I went back to bed until 6:30 am. Keri drove me to the Milwaukee airport which is about 30 minutes north of Grayslake, and I flew to Detroit. I always feel like I'm back in Japan once I arrive there because everything is in English and Japanese. I heard a final call for Narita Airport in Tokyo and it felt strange not to be boarding. At the same time I was glad to be going home to Oklahoma. Also, while waiting to board my plane, my cell phone rang. It was my brother, David and his wife, Meche. David will be coming to the Pow Wow at this end of this month. (We all complained about David's beard, and he shaved it. Now he looks 20 pounds lighter and 20 years younger! Look at Galen's pics.) God has answered so many prayers! Keri and Isaiah are healthy, and David has been released. Roger sent Mom an airline ticket to California, so Bill and I will drive her to the airport on Tuesday. It feels like Christmas!

I arrived home Saturday evening completely exhausted. Bless Bill's heart, he had cleaned the house from top to bottom. He had also mowed and trimmed the back and front yards. He had watered all of the plants for two weeks and picked our first tomatoes. He did all of this while working full-time at the school and teaching on-line in the evening. In addition, he has begun mentoring other on-line teachers at the request of GCU. He seemed very glad to have me home to take over some of the duties!

Sunday, there were 15 in my Bible Study Class, including a new student from China who had never been to church. He told me that he didn't understand all of the English, but felt something in his heart. Of course, I know that it is the Spirit. The lesson focused on how the world views the things of God. They think it is foolishness, and depend on their own intellect to have all of the answers. Paul has a lot to say about that in I Corinthians. It is very sad to see people harden their hearts towards spiritual things. They miss out on so much because they ignore a complete dimension of their lives. I listened to Laura Bush again last night on the Huckabee Show. She again talked about how she had wandered away from God when she killed her friend in a traffic accident at age 17. When asked how she found her way back to God, she said that over the years she had other prayers answered that were important to her. She said it didn't happen in a flash, it was journey of faith. She also said that she had learned to view that event through mature eyes. There are things far worse than death for the believer.