La Sonya

Here I await the bus that will take me to the train that will take me to Fresno where someone from camp Wawona waits to take me to camp! Downside is it's only 12 noon and my bus won't be here till 2pm. Set to arrive in Fresno at 8pm! Sheesh, I've never traveled by bus in the states before! Yet another memory trigger to traveling in Honduras and in Africa. Cool. It can't be the same. . . can it? Chickens in seats, people crammed in, dust coming through the windows? Although I remember one trip in Honduras that was in a really nice bus, good comfy seats, big closed clean windows. I had a blast yesterday. WE had lots of people over for lunch. What started off as just a few people coming over ended up as 15-20 people eating with us :o) The really funny part was they were all mainly 3rd year med students, who knew each other already. Liz and I (although it was mainly Liz) whipped up some tasty food . The fellowship was fun. Since Joe and Christine had been in Tchad too we ...

Kaleb I was heart broken yesterday when I found out that 4 year old Kaleb died yesterday from Malaria. How does someone cope with that? What do you do with that kind of information? I wanted to do so many things at one time. I wanted to weep a deep heart wrenching cry, I wanted to scream at God, “Why did you let something like this happen to such a hard working family, whose on YOUR SIDE?”, I wanted to drop everything and get on a plane and fly back to Tchad and sit with Wendy and Gary. I want to do whatever it takes to relive them of this horrible burden of sadness. But as the news slowly sank in and my tears stopped flowing I knew that God is still in control, that God is weeping with me and with Gary and Wendy. I talked to Esther about it and we both relived some memories of Kaleb. He was a great little guy. He would always ask about his dad, Gary, when he was coming back on the plane, when he could go up in the plane. He was great at making friends with the local kids. They would p...

Dear Brothers and Sisters of the Living God, A lot of you might have already have heard about the tragic death of four year old Kaleb Roberts in Bere, Tchad on Wednesday do to Malaria. He is the son of Gary and Wendy, the pilot/nurse from the states. This is the family that would let us SM’s go and visit them when we were feeling low, or they would let us bake at their house and I watched Cherise and Kaleb several times so both Wendy and Gary could help at the hospital. Wendy is a true kindred spirit and they both were a great support to us. We would not have made it through the year without that family’s love, support and spiritual encouragement. It’s at times like this when we want to do something but don’t always know how. Right now Gary, Wendy and Cherise want and need to come back to the states for 3 months to be with close family and friends. A support system is what they need. Because of the sudden nature of this they will have to find $10,000, $3,500 per round trip ticket. If y...

I've been 'living' in Cali for a few days now. I think my body has gotten used to the three hour time difference. Although it's hard to tell when I've been staying up late talking and giggling. I was born here in California, but remember nothing of the state. So it's as if this is my first time here. Rachel and I have been having our share of adventures and excitement. For me it was yesterday when we went to try for my first time Boba tea. For those of you that have never been to the west coast and don't know what that is let me explain. Boba tea is a drink containing little tapioca balls, they are in the bottom of the drink. They are drunken through the large straw. The drink is a tea or milk base. You can get most any flavor from mango to coffee. They can be slushy, ice creamy or like a tea. It was created in the 80's in Taiwan. I loved it! It was cold, fruity, sweet, quenching and fun to drink. (be careful when drinking sometimes the boba balls can ge...

The joys of traveling through Dallas. Here I am again on the next leg of my summer journeys. I find myself comfortably surrounded by "my people". To quote a common Texas phrase, "I wasn't born in Texas but I got here as soon as I could". I arrived, according to my folks, at 11 months to the great state of Texas. When going through security here at Dallas Love Field, the woman in front of me was a Texas business woman and dressed as such, a silver theme consisting of heels (but not the stiletto, a nice solid Texas look) silver bangles, necklace, earrings jacket and skirt with a white lacy tank-top/blouse. Her hair was big but not over the top crazy Texas big. And then the businessman behind me handed me a tub for security and said, "Here sugar." Once on the other side of security I was putting my cowboy boots back on and I felt at home and a part of "my people" because he also had to put his boots back on. While sitting here in the terminal I...

As with all families mine is no different. We all have our inside jokes our inside stories. We re-tell stories and re-tell jokes. As outsiders look at our family they might not understand what on earth we are doing, but we get it. We know what's going on. This week while I'm at home one has come to pass through the winds of time yet again. It's a story that goes like this: A family goes on vacation leaving Grandma and the cat at home. The family gets a family friend to watch the house, Grandma and the cat. While on their vacation Mom calls home to check up on things. Each time she calls home things are going okay. Until one day close to the end of vacation, Mom calls home and asks. "How's the cat?" The friend says, "oh, things aren't going well. The cat got out of the house and was hit by a car." Mom was very shocked and surprised! "Why did you tell me the cat died, you should have just told me that she had climbed up on the roof and wouldn...

I'm on my middle leg of my journey to California. I'm currently at my mom's house. But this last weekend I was chill'n like a villain with my best friend from high school. It was great to see her. I think it's amazing how she and I can have not seen each other in two years, only talked on the phone a handful of times and yet when we get together there is not barriers. We can giggle, talk and share as if we were still 16 and sitting on her bed in Keene, Texas. I love it! We played with my computer a bit and I'm pretty sure they summarize our friendship :o) Some friendships are just blessed with the ability to love long term and long distance. We know that we care and if ANYTHING were to ever happen to one or the other we would drop what we were doing and run to their aid. God blessed us with a friendship that will last!