Saturday morning reflections

It's 8:15 a.m. and the three women in our household are still in bed, while my son and I are around the dining room table. He's drawing with his markers and I'm trying to organize my day. We leave for the U.S. in 2 weeks, so we have no shortage of things to wrap up before we leave.

Honestly, I love mornings and have my most productive creative times then. Having kids has definitely cut into these contemplative moments, but it's only for this season. I hear our 15 month old starting to make some noises, so she'll soon be joining us.

During the last couple of days, we've had interaction with friends from near and far. Peter, who plays the viola in the NY Philharmonic Orchestra, was in town for a Wednesday night concert. While we didn't get to see him this time, we had a good chat on the phone. Hopefully we'll get to catch one of his concert this summer in NY.

We had Lionel (not his real name) stay over with us on Thursday night. We met in Paris in July/August 1989 during a project called "Love Europe". Since then, we've both spent most of the past 18 years doing ministry among the nations. He also is of Asian heritage, although he's 1st or 2nd generation and has actually loved there, while I'm a 3rd generation Asian who has never lived there. He met his European wife in Europe and they now live across the Channel from us. He's currently on assignment there for a couple of years working on a key project there.

It was stimulating and encouraging to catch up on each other's stories. We were both pretty green back in 1989. We're still excited about being part of getting to do ministry among the nations. We're both "Company" (large C) people, but much less "company" (small c) people. We're excited about what God is doing in different companies, but don't feel overly tied to a particular company, although we appreciate our current companies. Like many our age and younger, we don't necessarily feel that we'll be with the same company for a while lifetime.

All 3 girls are awake and in the living room, so I need to wrap this up soon. Life is definitely messy these days. It's full of excitement, hugs, wrestling, interruptions, wiping bottoms, cutting food, filling and refilling milk bottles, vacuuming food particles, etc.

Right before Lionel left, we had goûter (late afternoon snack in France) with Francois, Alex, Luc and Emily. We do Tuesday swim time with Francois and Luc. Our older 2 kids enjoy running around with Luc, who is definitely calmer and more reserved than they are. Emily is about the same age as our youngest. Alex is American. So we have a lot of common with them.

Got to get going for now...