The City of Lights

Well, on Tuesday we jumped on our cruise ship in Southampton, England. The travel to the port was actually very smooth...it is REALLY nice not to have to carry our huge packs around for awhile. This is the first time we have been able to actually unpack our bags for almost a month.

As we stood in line to get on, we realized that once again we were going to be about 55 years younger than the average aged cruiser on our ship. Really funny, but we dont mind it at all. Everyone is really nice to us and we do our best to connect with other and hear about their kids and grandkids and great grandkids...

We got some sleep the first night and got up early to explore Paris! Jan has been dreaming of coming to this city for years, so we were both very excited. We were able to catch a train on take about a 2 hour ride to the city center. We connected with a few other folks from the cruise and split a cab to the Eiffel Tower. It was amazing standing right next to such a famous icon of Europe. After a bunch of pictures, we walked down the Champs Elysees towards the Louvre. The walk was beautiful...tons of shops and incredible gardens, fountains and ponds. We stops at a local stand and got a crepe with Nutella and each had an espresso. It was pretty crazy sitting on a bench eating authentic crepes looking over all the famous sites.

At the end of the Champs Elysees we ended up at the richest art museum in the world, the Louvre. It is home to the Mona Lisa and the Water Lillies by Monet. It was WAY bigger than we expected. The picture doesnt to it justice...apparently it was oringally a royal palace.

We then wandered down to Notre Dame. It is their famous Gothic looking cathedral. Pretty cool. All that to say, it was ALOT to take in in only one day! Although we were really grateful to be able to see everything.

With the navigational genious of Jan we took some underground metro rides back to the train station and caught our train back to the port.

We have been able to have a couple days to catch up on journals and labeling all of our pictures, along with some rest, reading and laundry. Jan even won a game of bingo and won some art!! She is pretty giddy...

We are in Lisbon, Portugal today and head to Gibralter tomorrow.

We love you all and look forward to talking soon!! jon and jan

London in Two Days!

Wow...things have been a bit hectic as we have in our opinion "done" London in 48 hours. We are staying with our friends Darren and Pam Prince(two kids named Lucy and Jesse) who live in the East part of London. It has been REALLY great to be with people who we can have some intellectual and honest conversation with. Over our time running around cities, most of our conversation has been with tour guides, so this was actually a big answer to prayer. Definitely has been fun to share and listen to each others stories.

So, we felt like we sold out to the ways of the average tourist a bit here in England when we bought a 24 hour open air tour bus ticket. Basically it allows you to jump on and off a bus, along with a few other perks, for 24 hours with a guide. You stick out like a sore, almost pulsating thumb, but it was actually a great call. We are a bit tuckered out of being the two lost tourists in a big city, so this allowed us to see: Big Ben, Buckingham Palace, Westminster Abbey, the London Bridge, Tower Bridge, London Tower, London Eye, John Lennon's house, Sean Connery's house, etc...The last two were part of the cheesy, mega "touristy" part of the ride...fit Jon well. We actually even got to fulfill one of Jan's dreams of going to Le Miserables at the Queen's Theater tonight. It was incredible.

We try to find a train to Southampton tomorrow and jump on another extreme bargain cruise for the next 16 days. We will be in Portugal, Spain, Gibraltar, France, Italy, Croatia and Albania. Should be a blast...

This is a short one because it is almost 2am over here and we leave in the morning, but we may try to add a little something before we get on the train tomorrow.

Much love from Jon and Jan...

pictures: top pic is at Buckingham Palace after the changing of the guard. bottom pic is on river boat with Big Ben and Westminster Abbey in background

We should have done this 3 months ago!!

So, due to a number of reasons, procrastination being the primary, we have just now set up a blog for our current trip that has taken us across the globe. We have done our best to keep in contact through email and have loved hearing back from so many of you! It is fun sharing such an eye opening and forming experience with you all.

Anyway, we will do our best to keep this blog updated every few days and add a picture or two when we can. We also added the mass emails we have sent out over the past couple months if for some reason you stubble onto this and don't have any idea what the heck we are talking about...

Today is our last day in Amsterdam and we have really enjoyed our time here. We are staying with friends(parents of Adam and Allison Buzard) and they have been EXTREMELY hospitable. We even have a sauna in the downstairs apartment they are allowing us to stay in!! The city is really diverse, in fact it just recently became the most diverse city in the world, and we have been able to walk everywhere. The 120 something miles of canals that run through the city are beautiful and we have been able to check out the Van Gogh Museum along with a few others. Because of the diversity, we are able to find any type of food we could have imagined. Yesterday we had falafel's(spelling?) and today we will eat some Chinese fried rice that we picked up at the market.

Because we have had an extended stay here(5 days), we have been able to take it pretty easy and spend plenty of time reading, catching up on email, taking long walks, playing cribbage and having some good conversation. Amazingly we still aren't sick of each other after 3 months straight!! Yesterday we actually downloaded the same Rob Bell teaching onto our Ipods and went for a walk in a local park(which has a Picasso sculpture in the middle of it!) while listening. We followed that by having some coffee and discussing some of the nuggets we were able to take from his talk. Really good for us to do...

We take a 6 hour ferry ride tomorrow to London and are staying with the Prince family, who we got in contact with through some close friends. They recently moved to London from San Francisco and have started a missional church community and non-profit. We are really excited to share and learn from each others experiences.

Hope you each are doing well and having some shaping experiences of your own! We are beginning to miss everyone more every day. Looking forward to being back in a few weeks...Jon and Jan

From Sweden, April 14th

Hello Family and Friends!

Hope you are all doing well and having some fresh experiences and quality relationships...

As we write this, we are realizing that our last "mass" email went out to about 5 people...sorry about that(not that anyone was anxiously awaiting our news anyway:)), maybe we will attach that one to the end of this if you care to read.

Things have been a whirlwind, but REALLY incredible as we have now been in Europe for about a month. We have been to about 15 cities and are now experiencing our 8th language...we start to get the basics(hi, yes, no, how much!!) down and we are off to our next destination. We are so grateful for this opportunity and know that we have been very blessed to have the chance to experience something like this.

We are currently in Amsterdam with Adam and Allison Buzard's folks (who are MORE than taking care of us), we spent the last 5 days in Jon's families' homeland of Sweden(also with friends), 9 days in Italy and 18 days on a cruise that stopped at about 11 Mediterranean and North African countries. Thank goodness for a REALLY cheap cruise fare and very hospitable friends we are getting along great on more than our expected bread and water diet!

It is hard to write a brief email on the vast experiences we have had since coming over here, but here are few highlights:

• Rome: We spent 3 days in Rome in a very basic bedroom in a Monastery about 20 minutes from the main part of town...let's just say it wasn't the area of greatest affluence, which probably fit us well. Our time their was highlighted by a very spiritual, historically insightful and to some degree haunting trip to the Vatican, Colosseum and ancient Roman Forum. Walking through such profoundly influential and history packed areas where breathtaking. Knowing of the violent and oppressive actions of the Roman Empire at the Colosseum and in the Forum, it was hard to know whether to smile or be somber in our pictures. Standing inside the remains of the palace of Nero, Julies Caesar, Domitian, Constantine, etc...was definitely Jon's highlight with all the study and teaching he has done on those characters. Jan was blown away by the art of the Vatican. She loved the Michaelangelo and Rafael art that filled St. Peter's Basilica.
  
• Cinque Terre: These are the "five cities" on the northwest coast of Italy. They are much more villages than cities(pop: 500 - 1000 people) and we really got hooked up my a local lady who found us wandering the street with our huge backpacks looking for a place to stay...it is off season, so she put us up in a two bedroom villa overlooking the main street, Via Roma, in one of the cities called Monterosso. We LOVED our time there...very relaxing times of the beach, beautiful hikes up in the hills between the villages and loved soaking up the very local Italian culture. We would go the local bakery, coffee shops and grocery stores about everyday.
  
• Barcelona: This was our favorite big city. Lots of energy and atmosphere. While we were there we ran into 3 local parades and 1 local dance in front of the cathedral that involved all the locals grabbing hands and dancing in circles. Jon also got his hair chopped off in a small hole in the wall barber shop.
• Stockholm, Sweden: Beautiful city made up of islands. We went to about EVERY museum and took a great boat tour of the area as we did our best to soak up the culture and setting of Jon's family heritage. It was freezing cold, but well worth the experience.

We are still looking forward to another few weeks of traveling packed with new experiences, perspectives and conversations. This has been a fertile time of individual growth for both of us as well as a beautiful opportunity for us to grow closer in our relationship with each other(We just tell each other when we need a break and go for a long walk!!). It seems that everyday we are challenged to evaluate our inherited norms and lifestyles, while being open to all the different and creative ways that Jesus message is being played out across the world...Good stuff.

Thanks for all the support and willingness to read this monster of an email! We love each of you very much and would love to hear the latest in each of your lives...we will have email for the next 3 days.

Jon and Jan

p.s. We attached a few pics of Pisa and Morocco

In Spain, March 27th

hey family and friends,

hope you are all doing well!

we have made it across the Atlantic and are now heading through europe. today we are in cadiz, spain...this is where christopher columbus took off to head the states in 1492. the last couple days we were in portugal and tomorrow we are going to be heading deep into morroco with a couple of friends we have met along the way. really looking forward to that.

we have been really grateful for our time together and can´t believe we are getting the opportunity to do this...unforgettable.

we are keeping it short, but have added a couple of the hundreds of pictures we have taken so far....they are from Funchal and Lisbon, Portugal.

love you all and looking forward to hearing the lastest with you all when we get back!

we will try to send out another email next week in Rome...jon and jan

p.s. there is a picture of us sleding down the streets in Funchal in a wicker basket

p.s.s. please forward this to anyone who would be interested...our address list is NOT complete and we don´t have a way to track down other addresses...thanks!

From Costa Rica, February 13th

Hope everyone is doing well! Even though we are in the middle of paradise, we miss everyone VERY much and are more grateful than ever for the powerful relationships that we have with each of you. Sorry this is so general, but internet is hard to come by and we wanted to give a picture of our trip so far. Don't feel pressure to read it all...we know it is long and we feel self consumed even sending it, but we told you that we would keep you filled in!

The beginning

• Every flight we took was over 2 hours delayed
• One plane ran low on fuel so we had to make an unexpected landing in Liberia! A small airport in the middle of nowhere, Costa Rica
• We finally landed in San Jose, Costa Rica…but Jon’s bag with ALL of his clothes and most of his writing resources didn’t…
• 5 hour Taxi ride through the mountains of Costa Rica that led to our driver getting lost
• Saw the last 2 minutes of the Super Bowl in a restaurant called the Twisted Toucan in Uvita, Costa Rica.
• We stayed at Richard and Cheryl Mattison’s beautiful house in Dominical for 3 days.
• Jon’s bag WAS returned a couple days later!!
• The first two nights we were down here Jan wouldn’t peek her head out from under the covers because of the huge bugs
• Went swimming in pool on a hillside overlooking the ocean and the famous “Whale’s Tale.”
• Got some authentic Costa Rican pizza with the Mattison’s
• Went swimming in a deep in the forest river with waterfalls
• Experienced the warm, topical water’s of Costa Rica for the first time at Ventanna’s Beach. We were surrounded by coconut trees, huge mountains, rain forest and warm water.
• The whole time we were with the Mattison’s we rode around in the back of Richards late 70’s diesel pick-up and had to go up and down a river and then across two rivers to get to their house…more than one bug’s life was lost on our faces

Travel

· We said our goodbye’s to the Mattison’s and started our LONG treck to Mal Pais on the tip of the Nacoya Peninsula.

· We got on a bus in Dominical that took us to the coastal town of Quepos. We switched buses and went to Jaco, which is right on the Pacific Coast of Costa Rica. On both trips we got a good look at authentic culture. It was about 5 hours of travel and may of cost 6 bucks for both of us…total!

· We spent the night in a hotel in Jaco and went out to nice dinner.

· The next morning we got on a bus to Puntarenas which is where the ferry we needed to catch departed from. We missed our first ferry, but got on the second and head to the Nacoya Peninsula.

· We met 4 people from Oregon and Cananda on the ferry and ended up catching a ride from one them to Mal Pais. It was arguably the smallest car ever created…we called it Rapidito!!

Mal Pais

· After searching for a place to stay for a few hours, we ended up at a brand new hotel called Beja Flor. Jon thought we were being taken by the taxi driver(he was charging way too much…I thought) who dropped us off, so the taxi driver ran over to the owner of the hotel to complain about us. Apparently that was the going fare…Jon felt like an idiot. Great first impression. It was beautiful, but didn’t have a kitchen or internet and was too expensive, so we only stayed for two nights.

· Instead of renting a car, we figured we could save money by renting two beat up beach cruiser bikes for the month. We have to wear a mask driving up and down the road because it is so dusty. Jon’s bike is currently on the back patio with a flat tire…shocker.

· After our two nights at Beja Flor, we saddled up on our bikes with two HUGE backpacks full of over 28 books, Jon’s computer bag and Jan’s carry on. It was mess. Broken baskets, endless dust and lots of laughs(at least afterwards) we pushed our bikes into our next spot.

· We are now settled in at Villa Manarka which is WAY cheaper than the last place and we are right on the ocean, with a kitchen and a great family that owns the Villas. They offered to teach us Spanish

· We wake up to the sound Howler Monkeys. Sitting on our front patio we are able to watch monkeys, squirrels, iguana’s, gecko’s and very nice dogs.

· After going to the local market, we have been able to do almost all of cooking ourselves.

· The first time in the shower at Villa Manarka, Jan was mildly electrocuted by our high tech hot water device, which had open wires hanging out of the wall. The smoke coming out of the shower head should have been a warning. She now can only open her left eye half way…we are hoping for a full recovery.

We have friends from Deleware in the Villa on one side of us and another gentleman from Canada on the other. We are planning on making dinner for everyone in the next couple days.

· We now feel like we are in a routine that is sustainable after the hectic first week.

· Usual day:

o Wake up with a fresh cup of coffee

o Go surf(the waves are amazing! Jon bought a beater board for 80 bucks)

o Make breakfast, eat on the front patio and study the Sermon on the Mount together

o Jon works on his book(one wall in the Villa is covered with 3X5 cards for his storyboard)

o Jan reads, cooks and lays in the hammock

o We eat at our favorite soda(small, local restaurant) on the water

o Go to town and use internet, ect…

o Surf again

o Make dinner, eat on patio at sunset, play cards, watch a movie on the computer, read

o Go to bed by about 8:30 or 9pm.

We are very grateful for this time and hope to start learning some Spanish soon! We would really appreciate your prayers for renewal, restoration, insight...especially for Jon as he writes his book...and a profound closness between us. Also that we don't get sick of each other!

Please let us now how you are doing and we would love to be thinking and praying for you as well!

jon and jan