Elver Valley Farm Cochranville

Dear Family and Friends,
I am making my first entry into a travel blog that Christi and Dan set up last night. We are leaving today for Los Angeles California and tomorrow will attend the Agape Sunday service. I am looking forward to ...

... and I have been running most afternoons, helping to improve her Spanish during the run. Alex and I have been playing football and soccer and I even managed to catch one of the last games of his soccer season. I’ve been able to attend a few of their 'student’ functions, help them with their homework, and read Dr. Seuss and Shel Silverstein most evenings. Meanwhile, I visited my parent’s home in ...

... Trip and went to Guatemala with 34 of my colleagues as a participant. Despite the fact that I worked for Thrivent Financial for Lutherans and its predecessor for twenty years, I knew no one. I came back with a new appreciation for Thrivent Financial and the difference it makes for others, a love for my colleagues I worked side by side with for the week, and a new sense of the fact that we, as Christians, are charged with serving the poor ...

This [extended] weekend, we're staying in a wonderful little motel--family owned, specializing in extended stays. So we have a little kitchenette, and a separate bedroom. How refreshing it is to say "Hey I'll be in the other room"

We're in the quaint little Pennsylvania town of Mohnton, and we're staying here just in time for the annual Pumpkin parade!

It was fun! Pictures attached!

... well. Holden received several calls on his cell phone while enjoying his smiley fries. That afternoon, we packed Holden up and went for a walk in Long's Park. There were a lot of people, ducks, and geese, but the trails were suspiciously hard to find. Therefore, we walked around the pond a few times and noted that several people appeared to be taking portraits for ...

... began the day I was born. I have had many experiences since then. They all form part where I'm at now. The current part of my Journey is to experience as much of everything as I possibly can. This also includes, for me because that is what I require, reading as many different viewpoints as possible from other people. I relate very small parts of what I am learning from my current experience in my blogs because they all tie into what I have experienced in the ...

We met Lucy's boyfriend Stu at Newark airport and got straight onto a train to Philadelphia. Philly's great, it was good to see some buildings more than 30 years old! It was also very nice to check into our posh hotel!! We worked out it wasn't much more expensive to get a room between 3 of us than paying for three beds in a hostel so we ...

... were served by the missions which St. Drexel established. The fact that they were nearly full spoke volumes about the faith that pilgrims had in the saint’s ability to intercede on their behalf.

I moved away from the tomb and into other areas of the crypt. It was in these other areas that I found a couple of rooms that contained some relics of the saint. There was nothing in them that was morbidly interesting, like the heart or skull relics ...

... Amish goods, which could be purchased in the town’s many stores. These arrangements led me to wonder: were the tourists there to see the Amish and bask in the "superiority" of the modern lifestyle, or were the Amish there to take the tourists’ money as a means to maintain their simple lifestyle?

Certainly, capitalism is an essential part of the Amish experience. There are plenty of products on which people can spend their money. I ended up ...

... trappings in the buildings. Outside of some copies of the religious music the followers composed and a few copies of the Bible there were no other indications that this was a religious site. Obviously, many of the religious elements had to be removed once the cloister became a state park. However, the lack of religious paraphernalia didn’t diminish the spirituality of the place. Instead, I found that it enhanced it. I thought that removing any religious ...