Missionary Retreat

Missionary Retreat--Brazil. The group seemed to mostly enjoy Keila's

shenanigans in the middle of the presentations.

Participants praying for the life and mission of Sherron George (center, red and blue blouse),

mission co-worker of PC(USA) for more than thirty years, and

regional liason for southern South America for the last five

years or so.

April 30th, Jenny, Keila and I headed out of Papay to spend a week in Brazil with fellow PC(USA) mission workers serving in South America and the Caribbean. It was a long trip. We left Papay on Friday, April 30th. After one night in Port au Prince, we took a flight to Miami on Saturday and arrived in the Sao Paulo airport around 6 AM, Sunday. It was the longest trip we've attempted with Keila, who, by the way, has now visited five countries in the ten months since she's joined us here on Earth. Keila was a bit tired and grumpy by the time we reached the hotel around 2:00 PM, but maybe less than Jenny and myself. And she definitely doesn't enjoy being grumpy, because eventually she found something to laugh or giggle at, which, of course, whatever it was, made Jenny and me laugh, too.

For me, it was a great pleasure to see folks again, some of whom I had met for the first time almost four years ago. For Jenny and Keila, it was a bit like meeting cousins and aunts, folks you hear stories about, but only really meet in person only once in a great long while. PC(USA) mission workers are, on the whole, truly amazing people. For example, here is the blog site of Kristin Hamner, a mission worker based in the Dominican Republic (DR) who worked with twelve brigades in less than five months since the earthquake in Haiti, many of them serving refugees from the earthquake who moved to areas near the Haitian border with the DR.

Kristin's blog is: http://kristinspeace.blogspot.com/

Blessing and being blessed was an important part of the retreat, but even more than that, it was being part of a community of believers, blessing and being blessed, praising God for God's grace, sharing and receiving that grace in concrete moments of fellowship.

Blessings to you all. I finally had a chance to connect and publish this blog, after nearly ten days. ARGH.