What a Journey!

Wow! We are home from traveling for six weeks! I have mentioned that we were on sabbatical, but I wanted to wait until we were home to post more about it. Daniel is a pastor at our church and they bless the pastors with a sabbatical after they have been serving for seven years. We had a week off for every year, so seven weeks, and we added two vacation weeks, making nine weeks we will have been gone from our church. The purpose of the sabbatical is to have time for more intensive study, rest, and family time. Daniel is using this time as transition from family ministry to a church planting. He has read tons of books on preaching, church planting, books for his doctorate degree, and theology. The rest has come from not having the demands of day to day ministry obligations. Great moments of family time would include teaching the kids to play chess (they are way smarter than I am now), traveling, and seeing fun places and family. I have posted some pics from our various destinations, but you can check Daniel's post for a few more.

Our Sabbatical by the numbers:

9 weeks
7 weeks sabbatical
2 vacation weeks
56 days
150 pages written for doctorate degree (all Daniel) :)
16 states
over 6,000 miles of car travel and one very useful portable DVD player
5 suit cases, 3 back packs, 2 boxes of books, one lap top case, one stroller, one cooler, 3 car seats
...all without a car top carrier!
10 different places stayed at
48 of 56 days spent in PGN
1 kick out of PGN
19 family members seen
numerous visits to friends
8 churches visited
5 pastors met with

It has been a great journey and time for our family! We miss our church family and are looking forward to being reunited! Here's what the trip looked like: