Miracles in Packing (Revisited)

Greetings from the Middle East. It is great to be here again and to get the feel of the city, its sights, its sounds, and smells. In my last post I bragged on my wife for her amazing packing skills, and to what end? Our wonderfully packed bags did not make it to the Middle East with us. So, now instead of hoping for a miracle to get all our stuff into our bags, we are hoping for a miracle that our bags would get here, and get here soon, and a miracle may be our only hope.

picture update

I just added new pictures from this weekend....

I will hopefully have weekly picture updates throughout the summer, so check periodically for those.

Click on the badge to the right under "Our Photos" to go to our pictures.

Miracles in Packing

After traveling much overseas, or much at all, one soon learns the lesson of packing light. Just try carrying your luggage through the underground, on buses, and trains all over the city of London and you will soon find out the benefit of taking as little as possible when traveling.

This summer marks a new adventure for Jessica and I: traveling overseas together. This means we got to pack together (or rather I got to watch my wife put all the stuff in the suitcase and tell her what not to leave out, maybe I should have helped more). When planning on what all to take and how to get it there, Jessica's first suggestion was that we would both pack in her suitcase. But I, knowing how large her suitcase was, and not wanting to haul it all over the world, suggested that we pack in my suitcase because it was smaller and more manageable. Well, to cut out all the gory details, my wonderful wife, packed all our clothes and other travel necessities in that one suitcase and a carry on size suitcase. If it weren't for my love of books, we might not even need to take our backpacks, but at least they are full of things to keep us entertained for those long hours in cramped airplane seats. So in the end I am very thankful that we found a way to pack so light, especially since I have a pregnant wife and I will probably be deemed the family bellhop.

We leave tomorrow, fly for a few hours, stop for a few more, fly for many more hours and eventually we will be at our final destination. Please keep us in your prayers as we travel and hopefully everything will run smoothly, and the next time you hear from us, we will be on the other side of the world. What fun.

jm

Silence

I have been accused of not contributing much to our blog. Although this may be only my second post in the life of our short online forum, in my defense I must say that my writing energies have been consumed by more pressing and demanding projects. However, school is now over (at least for a few months) and papers are done (at least until next semester), so here I am typing away again, but this time for the pleasure of our faithful readers, and not the requirements of my professors.

I said at the end of the semester that I wanted to spend some time reading blogs, mainly for the purpose of catching up on the culture of the day. I've spent the last semester studying the importance of culture and thought that I would engage in some hands on learning through the world of online blogs. I have made attempts to live up to my ambition, but there is just something about books that draws me in. In the time that I had set out to read blogs, I have already read two books. So even when the semester is over I cannot seem to escape reading.

I have done better at escaping writing though. I did spend the week after finals fine tuning a paper to submit for publication, but other than that, this is the first thing that I have written since the semester ended. It has been a much needed break because April was filled with papers. It really is a good thing that I enjoy writing, otherwise I might not survive school.

I have learned, however, that I have an uncanny ability of filling up my time with activities. Just because the semester came to an end did not mean that I got to slow down. Instead I practically bumped up to full time at the paint store and worked over 4o hours a week. Although this took a lot out of me, the paychecks look much nicer than when I was putting in 25 hr/week. I have come to enjoy working at Sherwin-Williams and I have always felt it was the practical side of my education. Beside learning about paint, I learn about all kinds of people and what life is like for them. It teaches me many valuable lessons that are applicable for ministry. In fact, I often tell my wife that one day I am going to write a book called "All I Learned about Ministry, I Learned in a Paint Store."

Work is now over for the summer. As much as I hate to leave those guys and girls to fight the summer rush, I am looking forward to going back to the Middle East with my wife. There is nothing like eating falafel everyday for breakfast and hanging out with Arabs drinking tea and coffee all evening. And on top of it all, this time I get to take my favorite person along with me. (by the way she is reading over my shoulder as I write this). Hanging out with the wife in the desert sounds like great fun. So stay tuned for the epic adventures of the Bouchers as they travel the world over. JM

We leave in a week!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


and John Mark supposedly made some really good potatoe salad today.....we'll see in just a little bit. Jacob and Corrie may think other wise. I don't like potatoe salad so I can't say either way.....


that's all, have a great day!