Great Company, Lasting Memories

Great Company

One of the great advantages to being in many different places is getting to see many people that we wouldn't on an ordinary basis. In the past two weeks, we have had several of these oppurtunities come across our paths and every time it was a wonderful blessing. It is hard to describe the feeling of seeing a familiar face when we are with different people on a day-to-day basis. We were greatly reminded in these past two weeks how thankful we are for great Christian friends.

The Tuesday after we left Harrisburg, we spent the day at Valley Forge Baptist Academy where we were personally escorted around by Israel Alejandro, a friend from college. It was wonderful to catch up on what he was doing since college and see the great miniustry he is involved in. His wife, Shalee, joined us and we headed out to Olive Garden for lunch. This was not my first lunch with Shalee, as we weekly had lunch together with our mutual friend (and bridesmaid) Gretchen at college. It's been awhile since we had lunch with a young married couple and we thoroughly enjoyed the great company!

Later that week, we had a couple schools scheduled around Lancaster, PA so we wanted to meet up with Travis Weyandt at Lancaster Bible College. It just so happened that the day that we were closest to him, he had a playoff game AND his mom was going to be there!!! We have tried several times to get together with the Weyandts when we were home, but we finally got to catch up...several hours away from home. :-D We had a wonderful time watching Lancaster Bible be victorious and catching up with each other. We extended our visit with dinner at Texas Roadhouse...a first for Dale and I.

 

(Side note: the kids are in their pj's since they were getting ready for a late night drive to Duncansville. Pictures of their home on wheels and more of the kiddos are posted under "Snapshots".)

After parting ways with the Weyandts, we headed to Carneys Point, New Jersey, just south of Philadelphia. That night we got a call from Pastor Wessburg letting us know that their family would be wrapping up services at a church just north of Philadelphia that Sunday. We made definite plans to be there and could not wait to be reunited with the Wessburgs and meet all of their adorable munchkins!

The hour drive Sunday morning was so worth it as we heard great preaching from Evangelist Rich Tozour and then spent the rest of the day catching up with Miss Candace and Pastor Mike. I had a front row seat watching a cute pregnant lady keep three young ones entertained in their traveling trailor while Dale helped Pastor Mike get the truck and trailor ready for departure. What a blessing to just be in the presence of the ones who greatly impacted us during the crucial times of our teenage years. Dale and I thank the Lord for such wonderful examples! Our time with the Wessburgs greatly impacted us in another way as they introduced us to bananagrams! We and our restaurant dining will never be the same. :-D

Well, I guess another person that can be listed under "Great Company" is the head of the Promotions department (aka our boss), Mr. Bryant, who came to spend the first four days of this week with us. Since we are newbies on our first semester, Mr. Bryant came to follow us around and encourage us in ways that we can improve. We truly were thankful for him taking the time to leave his family and come to New Jersey to help us better reach students. We learned a lot and definitely have some new perspectives.

As he was visiting with us we were able to go to another church service the Tozour/Wessburg Team was holding, but this time in Delaware. Dale and I thoroughly enjoyed getting more time with the Wessburg family, but we were even happier that Mr. Bryant and Bro. Tozour had the oppurtunity to catch up as they had been groomsmen in each other's weddings 20 years ago! This week was also a wonderful time of "divine appointments" that left us throughly amazed and thankful. Read more about these in the next post--"Somebody's Praying Us Through".

Lasting Memories

Another advantage of traveling is getting to see many places that we wouldn't have an oppurtunity to on a daily basis.

As I mentioned before, Dale and I spent a weekend just south of Philadelphia. On the Saturday of that weekend, we got up the courage to explore downtown Philly. For a couple from the little town of Duncansville, Philly is quite intimidating, starting with the parking! After getting situated on a random back street and putting everything half worth anything far out of sight, we set off to explore historic Philadelphia. We started at the Visitor's Center where we picked up our tickets to Independence Hall and asked where we can find the "Rocky Steps". We thought this was quite the random question, but the desk worker said it was more than common. What a historic country we live in! :-D We headed straight to Independence Hall for our tour and were amazed to be standing in the very room where our country's foundations were laid!

After our tour, we jaunted across traffic to view the "Grave of the Unknown Soldier" and then onto the Liberty Bell. I think we did the quickest tour of the Liberty Bell as we realized in line that our parking time was ending before we even reached the door. So we quickly walked through the display building until we found the Liberty Bell, had a security guard snap our picture, than ran to find our parking spot before our time expired.

We then braved some more Philly traffic as we made our way to the Philadelphia Art Musuem to see those monumental stairs and take a picture with the Rocky statue. As we did so, we learned a very valuable way to get out of leaving a tip for a service we did not ask for -- hope that the police show up. As I was taking a picture of Dale with the Rocky statue, a man that was hanging out there insisted that I get my picture with Dale and the staute...at no cost, of course, Well, as he was finishing our oh-so-lovely (and blurry) picture session, he had just enough time to mention that he appreciates tips before the police pulled up and he booked it out of there. We were quite happy with the timing. Dale also took the plunge and ran up the Art Musuem steps in Rocky fashion.

The week after our Philly weekend, we visited some great schools, starting with an all-Mennonite one in Reading, PA. It had been 8 years since someone had come to this school to present the college AND we are the only college that they allow in to present, so we had a captivated and excited audience. After the presentation, we stayed and chatted with the juniors and seniors for almost a half hour after they were suppose to be in class. This school started our week out on a great foot and we thoroughly enjoyed hearing their dreams and aspirations.

We visited many other friendly schools that week, but unfortunately my lasting memory of the week was of the inside of our hotel room as I was knocked flat with a cold. Thankfully, our schedule had been worked out perfectly where I was able to get some extra rest while Dale went ahead and did all of the work. I was greatly appreciative that week of a sensitive husband who has great compassion.

We moved that week from Pennsylvania to New Jersey and spent the weekend outside Atlantic City. We pretty much only went downtown for dinner which was atrocious in itself. It was neat to see the bright lights and building size advertisements but it was crazy to realize how much people waste at the casinos and other sin-filled recreation that is there. That Sunday we visited the church of the school that we were going to be at the next day and found that they had Evangelist Ed Dunlop holding meetings there. It was great to see an example of a man that has a heart for young people and children. We ended up attending both services at the church and were encouraged by their ministry.

Stay tuned for an update on an exciting week of no coincidences!