Travel

We are doing A LOT of traveling these days. Since graduating from New Tribes Missionary Training we have been in the "partnership development" phase of our ministry. What that really means is that we drive all over the north, south, east, and west telling people about living in a tribe..."yes, I will be homeschooling...no, I will not have air conditioning...yes, I know we are crazy, psychotic, need mental evaluations right away..." and trying to find people who are willing to give us money so that we can go, eat, live, etc.

We drive a lot. People call and ask if we can come. And we go. No matter where it is. It usually isn't that bad. Our kids our surprisingly very good travelers, which makes it a lot easier on us, but once they get to a new place they feel that have to see the entire premises in .5 seconds...so they run. Up and down hallways, aisles, pews. I end up chasing them while JM sets up. At the end, I am exhausted and JM has done everything himself, and would have probably been better off if we had stayed home. Yesterday, we actually got the opportunity to travel without the children. To us, that sounded like heaven. Angels sang. We heard trumpets. I thought, "wow, I can actually help my husband!" Well...we started off the trip by driving 5 miles away from my mom's house and realizing that we forgot our cell phone, which we had to have, so we turned around and went back. Next, our GPS took us through the back woods of Alabama where we got behind not 1 but 3 huge tractors going -6 miles an hour. Next came the Biblical flood. We finally arrived at Southside Baptist Church in Dothan, Al after 3 hours. We had a great time at the church and I got to run our info table and felt very useful. I liked my job. I am the table person. I can contribute! Then we left and decided to stop and eat at a restaurant without the kids. Angels sang once again. Until half way through our meal we get a call saying we left our table and all our materials at the church!! FAILURE! Ugh! So, maybe I am not the best "table person". Maybe I do better just keeping up with our kids. I mean, I have NEVER left them at a church! So anyway, we drive about 10 miles back to the church, apologize profusely for the people who had to return to unlock the place for us and drive two and a half hours back to my mom's, rolling in at midnight and thinking about how much we missed our girls! It was all in a days work!

It got me thinking, though, about traveling in my future. It will look a little different. It may be in the little plane above... or in this helicopter...
OR in this
Maybe last night's travel wasn't so bad...