hello friends!

this week mike and i had the privilege of staying at the famous homestead hotel & resort. on our way down we decided to drop by and visit my brother who is at james madison university. he took us to eat peruvian chicken at a&t and ice cream at klines. it's nice to know that even though i graduated from college 8 years ago, our favorite local eats are enjoyed by students today.

isn't this picture weird? mike and my brother, joe, look like cut outs or something.

here i am posing with the life-size statue of james madison, our 4th president. he was a very small man.

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hey friends!

so we hit the road to hit up two eagerly anticipated destinations:

min cha's alma mater UVA (the university of virginia)

and polyface farm (joel salatin's progressive farm featured in documentaries like Food Inc and Fresh and Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma).

more after the jump.

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mike convinced me that i should update our blog..so here i go.

the weather has been absolutely beautiful here in va/dc so we decided to check out the new MLK memorial and revisit the other memorials as well. it was a beautiful fall afternoon. i love dc in the fall.

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it's been a few days since our last update, but min's been busy being a part of her friend michele's wedding. yesterday we celebrated with them at the wonderful W hotel in downtown washington, dc.

here's a quick pic from the rooftop. you can't see it here, but we had a great view of the washington monument, the white house and a panoramic view of dc and the surrounding area. breathtaking!

the wedding itself was beautiful and elegant. the reception, also beautiful, had a string of humorous/strange moments including:

- a line of folks seemingly slow-dancing to "america the beautiful"
- overly sexy dancing by older folks
- random hotel guests taking off with the centrepieces
- an overly long tango request number that the live band had no idea how to play along with
- the hotel employee taking me on a behind-the-scenes tour of the W

there were other fun moments, but my memory fails me. congratulations michele and brian!


a day or two more of rest and relaxation then our first road trip:  southern virginia!

during our flight on alaska airlines, i was immediately reminded that we were going to be in america for the next three months. with our meal came this little card:

though its actions and believes don't exactly line up with gospel-teaching, there's no doubt that america definitely has a "christian culture". it's bizarre seeing blatant expressions of christianity in small cards like these, hearing worship music pumped through the speakers in fast food chains and the evocation of God's name in all spheres of public life. it's going to take some time getting used to.

in my morning devotion this morning in common prayer, i came across this small little line "commemorating" columbus day:  "In 1492, the indigenous peoples of the Americas discovered Christopher Columbus." a sobering reminder that nothing we enjoy comes without a price.

though a small mixup led to a pretty long wait at the airport, we eventually got home and enjoyed a great home-cooked meal at min's parents' house in fairfax, virginia.

one of the things we saw waiting for us was our new sony nex-5 camera. it's a micro 4/3 camera that we bought to replace our old nikon d40. though we loved the nikon, we just had to accept that we were less likely to lug the dslr around. the sony is smaller and will accompany us on all our adventures. we look forward to posting pics from the new little guy!

.... and we're off! after a frantic day of cleaning and packing on monday and an early start today our sabbatical has officially begun!

first stop: fairfax, virginia!

sabbatical (from Latin sabbaticus, from Greek sabbatikos, from Arabic Sobat, from Hebrew shabbat i.e., Sabbath, literally a "ceasing") is a rest from work, or a hiatus, often lasting from two months to a year. The concept of sabbatical has a source in shmita, described several places in the Bible (Leviticus 25, for example, where there is a commandment to desist from working the fields in the seventh year)

on october 11th, min and i embark on our three month sabbatical. we are deliberately entering into this time with the intention of creating space for rest, reflection and discernment.

rest - it is customary for people in the fields of education and christian ministry to take a sabbatical every seven years. ours is slightly different in that though it has been seven years for me on staff with inter-varsity, i will not be returning but moving on to a new ministry context. it is also different in that we are primarily going on sabbatical for rest rather than further education or training. both of us have gone pretty hard with work, ministry and education and we feel like taking a short break while we transition is a good thing to do.

reflection - we have also gone through a lot, particularly in the past five months. we are looking forward to the space and time we will have to reflect on the big questions of family, ministry, work and calling.

discernment - lastly, we need to make some important decisions about what we will be doing and where we will be doing it after the sabbatical. rather than just taking whatever opportunity arises or whatever makes the most sense, we want to approach this decision with an particular ear to where we hear God's invitation and calling.

we hope to include you, our friends and supporters in our sabbatical journey. without being overly exhaustive, we will post our adventures from time to time, both the ordinary and extraordinary. we look forward to spending lots of time with friends and family, visiting cool places, reading great books, eating lots of good food, exercising and praying.

we look forward to sharing the journey with you.