July - Vacation in USA

"Welcome, Grandma and Grandpa." Kade, Isaiah, and Kathryn,
children of Jon, welcoming us at the Charlotte NC airport.

We spent the month of July on “vacation” in the USA. July has also been a time for other church meetings, especially Mennonite World Conference, which met in Pennsylvania. But we did not attend any of those, since we focused on visiting our family, especially the children and grandchildren in Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, and North Carolina.

Sherrie and her girls, Mykah, Zoe, and Gloria, at the
Milford DE Dairy Queen - always a favorite.

We also attended reunions with our siblings. The first was around the funeral of Joe’s father, Eli Bontrager, who passed away just before we left Africa. He was within 3 weeks of his 97th birthday and has been longing for his “transition” for many years. He passed peacefully following a short illness. His funeral was early July. Near the end of July we attended the annual reunion of Gloria’s siblings and their families.

It has been a time for remembering and sharing our rich heritage! We are so blessed and truly appreciate the influence of our families on our lives. Hopefully our children and grandchildren will also treasure the relationships and backgrounds from which they come.

Gloria reading to Ivy, Max, and Kaia, children of
daughter Chris

A picnic at Dismal Falls, Bland VA, with Beth
and Brad and their girls, (left to right) Beverly, Lily, Juliet,
Evie, Beth, Brad.

It has been especially enjoyable to get reacquainted with our thirteen grandchildren, ranging in age from 15 years old to 10 months. What beautiful personalities, exuberant energy and noble spirits they display!

We are writing this on our way back to East Africa, and will complete it after we have arrived in Nairobi. Within our first week back, we expect to engage with the new Mennonite churches in Uganda, then a training seminar in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, finally returning to Sumbawanga to complete the teaching we left in June.

Unfortunately we did not have a chance to see many of you this visit, but we are grateful for your interest and support that we often feel as we move around to encourage leaders.

Note: we arrived in Nairobi, all our flights were on schedule, and we are grateful to arrive safely. Our luggage arrived also. But it was a long trip, about 30 hours from Charlotte to Nairobi, with stops to change planes in Frankfurt, Germany and Doha, Qatar.