Tuesday, December 16, 2008

Through rain, sleet or snow ... farewell to Minnesota

Welcome back to Minnesota! "You picked a great week to come back!" That was what I have heard most these past four days. The high yesterday was about -2F (not counting windchill).
Yesterday I hit the remote starter to get the car running so I could pick up the U-haul trailer. The parking lights flashed, but there wasn't any sign of vapor out of the exhaust. I hit the button again ... nothing! So, I put on shoes, coat, hat, gloves, pried the door open, mashed the key into the ignition, and ... just a click! AHH, of course, why WOULD the car start on the coldest day yet this winter?

Olivia and I stayed with John, Gioconda, Kattiana, and Karsten in Worthington, Minnesota, where we lived for the last year. Olivia spent a little more time with her friends, and I went through our "essentials" we want to take to Africa. They were in the basement of our old house at the airport. There was less there than I remembered, AND Breanna had done an awesome job of labelling everything before we left. So, I tallied up the cubic feet for each category, generated a Google spreadsheet, prioritized what I thought needed to go, then shared it with Breanna.

Today, everything is loaded (thanks to three other guys helping, including John), the car is working, and we are set to take off into the falling snow! What a great way to remember our time here! I bet I will miss the bitter cold it in a handful of months as pour out sweat half a world away.

And as a friend said here at our church "We may have cold weather, but we have warm hearts." Those I will definitely miss.

No comments: