Good times, good news

On Sunday, our old friends from our old college visited us, Ben and Becky Gambrell. They spent the last several years in Bolivia ministering to the youth in Santa Cruz. About six years ago, got to visit them there for a quick missions trip to work on airplanes. They have such amazing kids. They're very intelligent and they're bilingual! We took them to the park and had a great day catching up. I think it sounds so amazingly cool to be a missionary. I asked Becky about this and she said reality hits you after the first year. I used to think it would be awful to be dependent on others for support (to ask friends and family), but now I realize that one called to the mission field isn't dependent on others, but rather on God. Just as we all are, if we think about it. I guess it's silly of me not to see the luster of our own calling, our own mission field. Bolivia is just so much more exotic than New Philadelphia, but we have a nice park.

It's funny we have two couples we're friends with that are named Ben and Becky. Anyways, we're gearing up for another quick trip to West Virginia. We can't stay away! Just going for a few days this time with some close friends Ben grew up with and their wives.

Good news! We finally paid off our kitchen! We rebuilt our kitchen about three years ago with lots of help from Ben's brother, Andy. Tiled the floors, refinished the original woodwork, new cabinets, the redid the ceiling, painted the walls, new lighting fixtures, and a new stove! Did it all for about $6,000 and a lot of elbow grease. We had one year without any interest, so we paid as much as we could, then switched the balance over to a new credit card without any interest for another year, and did that again a year later! Finally, this year we got a tax return and paid the thing off! Now to really attack those school loans of ours! The wildest thing is that we've paid off more loans since we've been living on one income than we ever did when we made twice as much! Goes to show, money measured is money managed. Thank you, Jesus, for a little less debt!

These are the original cherry cabinets (from 1889) that we refinished. Remember painting that little nook with me, Grandma? What was it, five times to cover the burgundy?