As promised it is time for the Grand Finale. The Photo Essay of Seven the Sabbatical. Time to let you know all about our secret travels. Sure I kept you informed of the places we went to church, Cleveland, Grand Rapids, Indianapolis, Lafayette (that was the seventh Sunday), etc. But now in Photo Essay form you can see about our travels to Bible lands -- without ever leaving Indiana!

Of course we went to Nineveh!

Now be honest, did you know there was a Nineveh in Indiana?

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 On that same ride we went to Samaria. All we found there

 was a church building. Still used? We don't know.

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And then we went to Joppa and found a rock. It is on the map, and we found a rock to prove it. Nothing else. A Joppa rock.

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 It was a nice day for a drive through Lebanon. 

Do you think that is a cedar tree behind me?

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You would think I never held a camera before. That sign really does say Egypt Road. The map says Egypt. We couldn't find much there, and it is not that far south of us. Does anyone know anything about this place? We are officially curious.

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A bonus -- not on the map but just east of the Egypt Road sign we found Jordan School.

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 And here we are in Macedonia -- OHIO -- we broke with the Indiana theme there just a little.

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But there is a Macedonia, Indiana. And a Jordan. And so many more. We went to at least two where there was absolutely nothing to take a picture of.  One of these might have been Antioch. Or Gilead. I don't remember. Sorry about omitting Hebron, we drive through there a lot but don't stop to take a picture. I really wanted to get to Bethlehem, Smyrna, Cypress, Canaan, Mars Hill, oh and of course Paradise...so many more, just look on your Indiana map...maybe on our next road trip...

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As you can see we enjoyed our travels. We enjoyed our destinations. We enjoyed our Sabbatical.

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the end

This is part two of my final serious* blog entry about our Sabbatical. We were officially back home and back to normal just over two weeks ago, but those weeks were really anything but normal. A tiny baby – as tiny babies do – rearranged our lives as family made plans to gather for her baptism. Seven weeks of coming and going and packing and unpacking made the task of getting ready for guests look impossible. But with Labor Day weekend freeing up a Monday for travel for Emily and her family it was worth the effort to have so many special days together with 4 generations.

The photos I am including show some of the together times we were able to share. It made for busy precious hours with 3 year old Finley and her brother Reid who turns one tomorrow, children of Lance and our daughter Emily, with Josh, who I have now finally mentioned, and our daughter Jessica and their 20 month old son Levi and new baby Beverly, briefly with Sam and Dorinda in Japan thanks to Face Time, and Megan briefly in Georgia via Skype, and Oma Wetselaar. (Rev. is just safely home from returning his mother to Hamilton, Ontario. He went to get her one Monday/Tuesday trip and brought her back the following Monday/Tuesday. Nine hours. Each way. Two weeks in a row! )

Those hours did not include time for me to finish this blog although the thoughts have been in my mind since the latest entry, where I wrote my thoughts on church. Go back and read those if you did not see them or what follows will not make sense.

On ministers – we heard at least a dozen different ministers while on our Sabbatical. One is so famous he has a huge church and a well known website. Another is so new he was serving his very first communion the Sunday we were there. Not all of them were able to meet us and exchange greetings, and of those that did some felt like instant friends. 

All of this got me to thinking about ministers, not just the churches. And as I said earlier, “It has been interesting for me to hear from so many people that have been reading this, and a lot of you are not from my home church of Immanuel URC in DeMotte. So I am going to take advantage of this to share some weightier thoughts that are the result of my time of contemplation and of looking back over our own ministry milestones. A sort of blog farewell, if you will, with a deeper message than most.” (previous post)

But now two days have passed since the previous paragraph was written. Oh I have been writing. And deleting. And writing. And deleting. I had planned to use what writing skills I have to cover some generalities on the ministry and on my particular area of expertise, the minister’s wife. But the generalities failed, and I wrote too much. And then I deleted. And then I wrote some more. And deleted it all. I discovered it to all be too much of a personal exercise as I could not remove myself from any of the general comments I thought I could make. One brief parking lot conversation with someone reminded me how quickly wounds that I thought had healed could open again. But that sounds too negative. There is so much on the positive side of my part in our ministry, but my mind could not form it into words to write. It is all just out of reach. So much that I want to say. So much that might be of benefit to another minister’s wife. So much that could be useful to anyone who has a church that has a minister who has a wife. But I will keep reaching, and I will keep writing, and above all I will keep standing. The Ephesians 6:13 kind of standing: "Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand."

*I will conclude with the promise of one more blog. The Grand Finale of Seven the Sabbatical will be a photo essay with a surprising twist!