The Bishop’s Blog

Well, we are back from our travels.  Back at home.  Back in my own bed.  Recovering from jet lag and fatigue and exhaustion. 

What a wonderfully amazing trip!!!  I am grateful to The Rev. Mike Schuenemeyer, Executive for Health and Wholeness Advocacy, Wider Church Ministries, UCC for extending the original invite to be a part of the delegation for this trip.  I am grateful to Pam and Jay for also being willing to go on such an adventure.  We had a most wonderful time together.  I am also grateful to my Amistad UCC congregation for their willingness to carry on in my absence so faithfully.

I do realize as we’ve begun to talk about our trip that I’m not quite back, some of my parts are still over there.  Re-orienting myself back to the ordinary has been a bit difficult.  Pam and I were speaking about this to one another the other day.  I also have not had the opportunity to rest fully since our return.  We came back to collect  some belongings and Alisia and Makenzie and headed to STL for my Mom’s wedding which I co-officiated.  It was a wonderful weekend of activities, spending time with family and such. 

So I look forward to a few days of rest and relaxation, giving me time to do further reflection and thinking.  I am thinking about though, the importance of this trip in our lives right now.  Why were we allowed to go now?  To what end and purpose will it have on our lives and the people we touch?  This felt like an important and meaningful trip.  So, how will its importance and meaning be manifested?

I’m certainly glad to be back home.  I’m glad to get back to work.  I’m glad for our time together over in the middle east.  And I will continue to pray for peace and reconciliation for the conflicting parties in the part of the world.

Ashe’,

+JS

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 29th, 2007 at 4:31 am and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.