Northwest Yearly Meeting

I was able to spend several days with my parents in the Kent, Washington area before heading off to Yearly Meeting on July 26. In the morning I spoke at Hillsboro Friends Church before going to the George Fox Campus where Yearly Meeting is held.

It was so good to see so many old friends and to reconnect with people all across the yearly meeting. During my time in Rwanda, I always felt the most homesick during the week of Yearly Meeting because I knew that I was missing out on time with my extended church family. The yearly meeting week is now a day and a half shorter and culminates with a celebration banquet, but other than that not much had changed since I last attended in 2006

This year it felt as if my whole family was there. My parents, two of my brothers, my sister, my grandmother, many cousins, and two uncles and aunts attended. I stayed in La Shauna, a brand new dorm that was just beginning to be constructed when I left for Rwanda. The temperature rose above 100 degrees several days, which made sleeping a bit uncomfortable, but luckily the meeting rooms were all air conditioned.

On Sunday night I was able to meet all of the other Team Rwanda English teachers at the Outreach Celebration. We also participated in the EFM workshop Tuesday afternoon and were commissioned by the Yearly Meeting during the celebration banquet on Thursday. I'm really looking forward to working with these people in Rwanda. The team includes Matt and Gayle Denham, Paul and Miriam Bock, Johnny Kaye, and Drew Miller.