"Use hospitality one to another. I Peter 4:9"
Fellow GFA missionaries, Randy and Elena Smith and their children, and Matt and Rebekah Crain and their little son, Nathan, joined us for a South African braai just a few days before Smiths left Greenville on February 22 to head back to Papua New Guinea.
The bond with these fellow co-labourers is strong and sweet. We all seem to understand missionary jokes (and trials) in a way that makes us able to re-connect even when furlough opportunities like these are often many years apart.
Missionaries to Moldova and Malawi, Eric and Stephanie Chapman, visited us late in February. We learned a lot about the ministry in Malawi the evening they were with us. Tony will be teaching the Sermon on the Mount to two separate pastors' schools in Malawi in July.
We were very happy to visit our middle daughter, Clare, and to get to know her boyfriend, Jesse, when we traveled to NC and VA the first weekend in March.
The cold weather caused us to opt for an indoor activity rather than a hike! We enjoyed our visit to the Naval Museum in Norfolk. While we were in VA, my mother visited her great grandchildren in NC.
When we returned to NC on Sunday morning, I had the opportunity to teach the ladies' Sunday School class a lesson that I plan to teach at the Ladies' Retreat in May in South Africa. After the morning service at Victory Baptist Church, we had a Mexican meal with my brother and his daughter and her family and two special friends, Mrs. Evans and Mrs. Walker.
We were pleased that it worked out for Melvin and Susan Purvis, veteran missionaries to Chile and to the Hispanics in Alabama, to join us last Sunday when they were in town for just a couple of days. They have meetings in West Virginia this week as they seek to increase their support to go to Puerto Rico.
We brought the Lord's Day to a close around a table of pizza and popcorn hearing the testimonies of how each one in this group came to know the Lord.
Our dear friends, Paul and Jeanne Keck and their youngest daughter, Lydia, shared our table on Tuesday night. Paul rented us a little trailer, that we called the "Honeymoon Home" the first year we were married. We thank the Lord for each home He has provided and for the privilege of sharing each home with so many of His dear children over these 33 1/2 years.
