Re-entry

Having a laugh in a ferry in Venice with our friends from Canada and South Africa



On bridge in Venice, Italy

Well, we are back and doing our best to adjust back into life, responsibility and relationships. After being gone for 3 and half months, experiencing about 15 different countries, cultures and endless perspectives on life, the transition is not an easy one. Landing in San Francisco at SFO and walking outside to the HUGE highway's, HUGE cars and EXTREMELY fast pace of life was a bit overwhelming. It is interesting to begin to get back into life rhythm's that we have lived out for so long and now step back and take an objective look at those ways of life. Many are affirming and many are convicting. Each step is slower, but each step is filled with rich insight and perspective that has been gained along the way.

It has been great to slowly re-connect with family and friends. They have been SO supportive, encouraging and excited to hear our stories and we have really enjoyed hearing theirs. There is a wave of freshness and added value placed on each relationship that can so easily be taken for granted.

Most of all, we are able to wrestle and begin to live out some new ways in which to partner with God in bringing hope to the world through everything from our consumption to they way we show His love to those around us to our daily awareness of His presence in all of the world around us. We are anxious and excited to have the opportunity to bring and share some of the many insights God has offered to each of us through the formative conversations and rich experiences of the past few months.

Thanks for following along and partnering in our travels and experiences. We hope each of you are able to have a taste(whether it be eating a pigeon quesadilla or having an ape on your shoulder!) of God's creation and share it with us along the way!!

jon and jan

QUICK update...

left to right: street cafe in Florence and in front of Temple of Jupiter in Pompeii

Hello from Croatia!!

We would say in the native language, but our minds our swimming with languages and can't remember the basics for more than 5 minutes. Yesterday we were in Albania which has it's own language of Albanian...crazy.

Anyway, we are coming the end of travels and it feels REALLY wierd. It all seemed to go so fast now that it is almost over! We knew it would be this way, but now reality is coming too fast! Over the last week we have made stops in Rome, Sorrento(we trained out to Pompeii to see the ruins), Albania and now in Croatia. It was great to be back in Rome as Jon could be there for months at a time like a giddy school boy walking through all the ancient history. We actually went INTO the prison where Paul and Peter were held. It was really mindblowing and sacred. Pompeii was pretty incredible too seeing such a whole picture of Roman life, although our tour guide would get upset if we asked a basic question...Each of us got lectured a couple of times and felt like kicked puppies...Albania was very 3rd worldish, which we actually really enjoy. Croatia today is beautiful with a crazy number of islands, huge coastline and a ton of history within it's old city walls. They were heavily bombed in 1991 and our local tour guide was 13 at the time. Amazing story and many the buildings still have shrappnel marks. We are only about 10 miles from Bosnia. We were planning on going into Bosnia, but ran out of time...bummer.

We have met alot of friends and seems that everyday we have an insightful conversation with someone on land or on the ship. Looking forward to sharing some of the stories.

Talk soon!!

Jon and Jan

The latest...

Ciao!!

We are a bit behind in the blogging. Internet hasn't been real easy to track down for a decent price since we left our friends place in London over a week ago.

In the past few days we have been able to go to Lisbon, Gibralter(U.K. territory), Barcelona and St. Tropez(France). Today we are in Florence, Italy and the sun just peeked out from behind the clouds a few minutes ago. It is really beautiful here and we are doing our best to run around the city as fast as we can with only one day to do it!

We are getting a bit tuckered out of traveling at this point. Don't get us wrong...We are REALLY grateful to still be on the road and doing our best to soak it all in, but a taste of normalcy doesn't sound too bad at this point either. Being a tourist is alot of work!!

Over the next week will be going back to Rome, then to Naples, Croatia, Albania and get off the cruise in Venice, where we will be for a couple of days.

We have met some really nice people on the cruise ship and have had many encouraging and intellectual conversations. Honestly, having been tourist for so long, we live for the occasional stimulating conversation. With only a couple weeks left in our travels we are doing our best to soak in some relaxation, exercise alot and spend plenty of time in spiritual meditation. It has been a great mentality for us both so far.

We continue to be very grateful for the ways God has revealed Himself to us in new ways on this trip. Amazing all the different ways that He has been seen and experienced. Many of those experiences have come through dialog with you all and the people we have run into along the way...

Hope you are well and love you very much!!

jon and jan

p.s. these are some pics from Gibralter at the wild monkey reserve...we are far more terrified than we look!