Houston, this is Tranquility Base…
First of all, our heartfelt thanks to all who helped with our move on both ends, including the wonderful “army” of people who don’t even know us yet who turned out with Nancy and Henry on the Jenkintown end.
We arrived in Jenkintown (the Philadelphia suburb where we now live) Saturday about 2 p.m., five hours drive from Charlottesville. Not bad for a semi-terrified truck driver and his nervous but dilligent Hyundai-driving wife trying to keep together on I-95!
We are thrilled with our new apartment, so much nicer than we would have dared to hope for. It’s an older complex (built in the ’30s when everything surrounding was still farmland). Very peaceful…from our second floor windows we hear only birds and see only trees. Though it’s smaller than our C’ville flat, Karyn has done a marvelous job of organizing the space (thanks be to God for Ikea!) and it seems like it is going to be a great place to study.
Extra blessing: I ran into one of our neighbors on our floor who turned out to be a fellow M.Div.-Biblical Counseling Westminster student with a roomate who is a D.Min candidate. We look forward to the fellowship we’ll have with them.
Monday evening we drove through the night to be with our daughter Hannah in northern Maine for the birth of her second child (our fourth grandchild). No signs of impending arrival as of this writing (Thursday, July 29). I’ll return to Philly on Saturday to prepare for my first class (summer Greek intensive) which begins Monday morning. Karyn will stay here for a while after the baby is born to help Hannah, then I’ll come up on a weekend to retrieve her.
Karyn and I have been truly overwhelmed by the outpouring of love and support we have felt from all of you. The community of saints in Christ Jesus gathered around us is a sweet foretaste of what we will know for all eternity. We pray that God would grant that we would see many of your faces again this side of heaven.
P.S. We’ve established a Yahoo group for friends and family who want to keep up to date with us. It will be much more periodic (and less detailed) than our blogs, but will serve to inform you about things that we think are important. To receive an invitation to join the group, email me: trappermark at yahoo dot com.
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July 29th, 2004 at 12:43 pm
I am glad that y’all made it there safe.
I knew you’d find community, too. Praise be.
July 29th, 2004 at 2:46 pm
Yay, Mark! That’s really exciting.
One of the things that I am most scared about me moving into an apartment complex so far away from my family is that I won’t know anyone. But I am hoping and praying that God will bless me with friends and companions to rely on there away from “home.”
It gives me hope to know that God is already working in that area of your life. Exciting!
July 30th, 2004 at 8:13 am
Good to hear all the great news about your moving!
And, if you are ever in Maine and “you see me walking by, and the tears are in my eyes, look away, [Sage], look away” (yes, I just came from Trey’s blog :wink:)