The Georges in Peru

Sometimes visiting with supporters can be very interesting.  One of the pastors at my home church, who makes special effort to make sure missionaries are supported on the field and did our marriage counseling, discovered he and Allen had a mutual hobby in metal detecting.  Together they decided they needed to go sometime.  Yesterday, a chilly autumn day (Allen’s from far enough south he called it winter), it finally happened.  My dad, who also has a passing interest in metal detecting suggested his old school yard might be a good place to find old coins.  Today it’s just a patch of grass with a few trees planted around it but he had some fun memories to share with us of where everything had been and what they had all done there.  Pastor Anthony was super excited to find an old silver quarter and a silver dime and Allen came home with a penny worth 1 in 22 million.  In 1954, for some reason, only 22 million Canadian pennies were minted as opposed to the usual 70 million minted yearly in that time period.  My dad has been collecting pennies ever since I can remember and he needed that one to complete his set.  It was an exciting day.

It seems strange to go from being single to being an empty-nester in 3 years.  Never could have predicted that!  So it’s with some nostalgia we arrive in Michigan to visit Allen’s sister Sandra and her husband Mike who run a vet clinic in Hillsdale County.  This marks the end of a chapter and the beginning of a new one as we leave Paul to live with them as he works toward the required hours he'll need to apply to vet school some day.  We are thankful he has such a great opportunity and that we can leave him in such good hands.  Allen and I, on the other hand, are looking forward to spending a second honey-moon (otherwise known as 14-day quarantine) in Blumenort next week!

Paul holding a recovering Sharp-Shinned Hawk that rammed into the window on Saturday.

Thursday, Paul and I went early to the Saline County courthouse and found 12 people in line ahead of us but after only an hour's wait he passed his test and we walked out with his learner's permit!  Yay!

Friday and Saturday was our garage sale and we sold 75-80% of our things, so that made us happy.  Over 50% of the shoppers were Latinos, so we had lots of opportunities to speak Spanish over the two days.  Ben came over from Lincoln and Alice (Allen's sister) and Keith came from Omaha to help out, so it was a fun, mini family reunion.

Mary Beth went for a walk yesterday morning and decided to try jogging a little bit.  She decided to run from electrical pole to electrical pole, but after getting to the first one she felt so good she decided to run to the next one and then one more!  Her heart felt freer than ever before!

So here’s a news update on our lives.  Paul’s been doing school-work, getting up at 6:00 a.m. some days for classes.  I think he’ll be happy once we begin moving east into a different time zone.  Mia has been working on making her drug cards for nursing school.  She jokes that she’s doing drugs so watch out.  Yesterday, we joined Sarah and Zach via zoom for some of their orientation for UIC med-school.  It was good to see how excited they are to begin this new life stage.  Ben’s moved into a new house with some friends and is ready for his last school year to start.  Allen’s been working on organizing our lives and keeping the house-work in check.  He’s cut out most of his Peru work in order to take care of me, but still has a bit of project and missionary-related work.  Since surgery, I’ve finally been able to do two courses that SIM requires which I was unable to do before because of my health.  I’ve also been going on daily walks, stretching, and practicing my breathing.  Today I walked a mile for the first time, which makes me feel quite satisfied.

Today we went to another Mayo Clinic campus to get some autonomic tests done (like a tilt table test where they take one's blood pressure lying flat and standing up by moving the bed while the patient is motionless) and I was reminded again of how beautiful Arizona is.  There are amazing rocky ‘desert’ gardens all over the city, artistically and creatively bringing out the very best this landscape has to offer.  Cheerful red and yellow flowers, prickly cactuses of many shapes as well as unique emerald- and fall-coloured trees with the most interesting leaves I’ve ever seen.  Tall stately palms add contrast as well, and the roads are lined with walls engraved with interesting designs that catch and hold the eye.  It’s a little easier to be cheerful today, because the miniscule improvements of the last week are adding up into substantial improvements, including walking in to my check-up today and sitting upright in the waiting room which felt like a huge achievement.  I also took a 15-minute walk around our neighbourhood!  At our appointment yesterday with Dr. J., she said she was quite pleased with my progress which also improved my spirits.