Papa Enjoys Wilmington, Takes on Eastern Europe Next

It has been great here in Wilmington these last couple of months. I got to see some of Myles first laughs. Ryan even managed to capture these over my shoulder and Nicole put them on Facebook. Let's see, there we are, matching smiles. There I am teaching Myles to stick out and wiggle his tongue. And, tummy time. Thanks, Ryan and Nicole, I'll remember them for a long time.

So, besides visiting family, what have I been doing? Well there is hiking, of course, and since I live near the historic Wilmington downtown, it has been fun exploring the area on foot. And, Jeremy and I are planning a backpacking trip to the Appalacians for next week. We've done a few projects and a little gardening. But most of my time here has been spent doing things I never expected to experience in retirement.

Yeppers, that's me in a meeting. There has been plenty of that, along with another activity I hadn't though much about recently....study!

You see, I volunteered to go to Ukraine to teach Bible at a Youth Camp for two weeks this summer. It really is quite exciting...these are the former Communist youth camps, that are now private and looking for a way to instill Christian values. So, they asked an organization called Eastern European Missions for help. They, in turn, asked for volunteers. Here am I. I feel a bit like Moses...I know this is way outside my capabilities, so I thought of every excuse I could to get out of it. Yet, here am I. So, I'll just have to lean heavily on God and my brothers and sisters to try to get it done. Our camp, Baby Eagle, is near Donetsk, near the bottom right corner of the map above. I leave June 6th.

Then, after the work is done, I'm planning to visit Kiev, Krakow, Prague and Vienna on my return. It should be an interesting month. I'll try to make a report in about 6 weeks. Until then, I doubt I'll have the opportunity to post. So, until next time, God be with each of you.