Suitcases

It seems that a part of a missionary's identity is tied to suitcases.  Suitcases mean travel, planes, airports, delays, packing, unpacking, leaving family, seeing old friends and making new ones, meetings, changing climates - the list could go on! 

 

RMI staff have been traveling quite a bit these days.

 

Dan's suitcases (along with him) went to:

Haiti in September.

Lafayette, LA in October to see Trinity Bible Church as well as another trip to Haiti.

Chicago, IL to visit The Orchard Evangelical Free Church and Village Church of Bartlett.  Then to the northeast to speak at Calvary Baptist Church in Pemberton, NJ and  to visit with Great Valley Presbyterian in Philadelphia, PA -- all in November.  (There was snow!!)

Lakeline and NewChurch Georgetown in Austin, TX will see him in December.  Several new churches in that area and the Waco, TX area will be visited as well.

 

Rob's suitcases (accompanied by him) went to:

Haiti in September.

Chicago, IL to visit The Orchard Evangelical Free Church and his supporters in that area.  He took his whole family, so there were quite a number of suitcases.

 

Billy & Debbie Moses' suitcases, although recently unpacked, went with them to the RMI office for a week in October.  They were there for QuickBooks training and administrative meetings.

 

Pray the RMI staff as they go about the everyday business of operating RMI.  Pray for them as they travel, that God will bless their meetings and the contacts they make, that the trips will be successful and profitable. 

Nov. 4 was a very LONG day for poll workers!

I know because I was one of them!  It started with being at our precinct at 5:30 a.m.  From that moment on it was intense activity.  We had to have everything ready for the doors to open at 7.  There were 45 minutes to 1 hour waits at our precinct, which wasn't too bad from what I was told!  Since Florida had it's little "hanging chad" incident a few years ago, they wanted everything to go smoothly.  All of us workers learned very exacting procedures that would create a paper trail if it was ever needed.  I ended up having one of the jobs that was the most labor intensive, but at least it was a sitting down job.  My legs and feet have gotten so bad, that I couldn't have taken standing on my feet all day.  My co-worker and I worked all day with very few breaks.  Wow, what a job.  By 5:00 we were finding it hard to smile and be cheery to every single person (and certain other poll workers who had difficult personalities).  But in general, we found most voters pleasant and quite eager to vote.  It was interesting to see the cross section of society that came in....little old ladies, big burly biker dudes, blue collar workers, lawyer-type business men and women, medical professionals, teachers, new citizens, and I think we even saw "Joe the plumber"!  It was cool to welcome first time voters, most of them "newly minted adults".  The first voter in line was there at 5:45 a.m., a young man who was a first time voter.  He wanted to make sure he got to vote, to be the first one and have his vote count.  Did they all know what a privilege it is to be in a country where they could easily, freely and privately vote?  I hope so.

 

Oh - and one new voter was our daughter, Dawn!  She DOES know what it means.  Really cool.

 

Yes, it was a long day and I'm glad that I was a part of it.  Just wish it'd gone differently for the candidates, but that is another subject for another time.