3 hour drive to Auckland, NZ + 3.5 hr flight to Brisbane, AUS + 13 hour flight to Los Angeles, USA + 2 hour flight to Salt Lake City, USA + 2.5 hour flight to Kansas City, USA = HOME!
1 week ago today I arrived in Kansas City for a brief home assignment and holiday. It has been a blessed time of reuniting with family and friends, sharing about God's work in New Zealand, and rediscovering the necessity of sunblock and ice-water. :-) More than anything it has been a genuine refreshment and reminder that God's people are sprinkled all across the globe and to be a part of his holy people is a gift! 
Despite the dry desert-like conditions and extreme heat here in Kansas, the time here has been for me an oasis and I am thankful. 
Home is comprised of much more than merely a house and bed to sleep in at night. Many things here in Olathe make home a treasure for me: immediate and extended family, church family and supportive Christian friends, fellow gymnastics and swim coaches, faculty and staff at MidAmerica Nazarene University and Nazarene Theological Seminary, teachers in the Olathe and Blue alley School districts, the employees at the local Hy-Vee grocery store a myriad of other seemingly small things that make home. .. well. . . "home". 
After a year in New Zealand, a new home has also been formed for me across the Pacific. In two weeks time I will be returning once again to this very special place, continuing to live, love, and participate in God's mission in Whangarei. I can't say thank you enough to all those who have so faithfully supported the ministry in New Zealand , as well as me personally this last year. Keep up the good work! We're all in this together. :-)
