We're home!

Yes, we are back home from the first leg of our four month Sabbatical! It is good to be in this familiar environment, but strange to be here without our usual schedules and activities. We are quite busy with appointments and arrangements for the overseas leg of our Sabbatical. Still, I haven't forgotten that I am on Sabbatical, so tomorrow I will do one of my weekly spiritual retreats, this one at Broom Tree Retreat Center, a Catholic retreat center near Irene, about 20 miles south of us. (Loretta will stay home this time.)
Our trip home from Elkhart went well. Our first stop was at the Center for Theology and Land in Dubuque, Iowa, part of Wartburg Theological Seminary, a Lutheran school. This is perhaps the leading training center in the country for preparing pastors for service in rural parishes. We stayed at the seminary, attended chapel on Tuesday, bought some books, and I visited with Dr. Paul Baglyos, the director of the center. Our visit to Dubuque came on the heels of a major winter storm, so the hilly city streets were quite treacherous, as was the trip froom Dubuque to Washington, Iowa, on Tuesday afternoon.
We did get to Washington, Iowa, safely, and went to Crooked Creek Christian Camp for one of my spiritual retreats. We stayed (all alone) in the retreat center at this Central Plains camp, and had a good retreat day on Wednesday. Wednesday evening we visited our old friends, Bob and Phyllis Hartzler at Wayland.
Thursday we drove to Des Moines, Iowa, and made a stop at the offices of the National Catholic Rural Life Conference. There we visited with Tim Kautza, the director, and Bob Gronsky, another staff member. It was interesting to hear what the Catholic church is doing in the area of rural ministry, and we picked up some very helpful and practical resources.
Friday morning we made one last stop in Lyons, Nebraska, south of Sioux City, at the Center for Rural Affairs. There we met for an hour with four staff members to hear what the center is doing in the area of rural revitalization. Again it was good to visit and also to pick up many helpful and practical resources. Friday afternoon we got home!
This week of travel was not easy and not the kind of thing either of us find easy to do. However, there is value in meeting people face to face, developing a network of contacts, and exploring what people in other denominational settings are doing in the area of rural ministry.
We covet your prayers for us particularly in the next weeks as we pack and leave for our Christian Peacemaker Team delegation to Israel/Palestine. We fly a week from today, Tuesday, March 4. We have lots of loose ends to tie up before leaving, and we continue to be anxious about this experience. We are not so anxious about the danger part, but perhaps more about all the arrangements and in general the intensity of this experience. Yet we continue to believe and trust that this may also be the richest and most rewarding part of our Sabbatical experience, and we trust God will give us strength and courage for each day.
Roy