It has been a long time since I sent you greetings last time from Yokohama. I am sorry for being way behind in communication. I’d like to update you with my new work content, which is such a learning experience to me!

After being missionaries in the D.R. Congo for nearly thirty years, we are really being stretched now! Over sixty years ago, the Kikongo pastoral training school was established to train rural pastoral leadership. We have been involved with this school for twenty years.

It has been an extremely busy summer. Whew! There was the last push to finalize the lay pastor training program and get it to the printer. Then there was a month of intensive research and writing (in French, not my best language) the brief history of the CBCO Baptist women’s organization here, prepared for their 50th anniversary celebrations.

So the nest is empty. As we write this (20 August 2015), our two older ones, Alisa and Silas, are taking their little brother, our youngest, Sam, over to Virginia from Indiana to get settled into college.

There is a beautiful exchange between Jesus and his disciples recorded in John 15:15. Jesus has just finished teaching his followers about how he is the vine and they are the branches, a metaphor depicting the interdependent relationship between Christ and his followers.

I landed at the airport in Habana and went through customs. The airport seemed like an image out of the past and I felt a little apprehensive.