South American Journey - Shipmates

We are traveling these two weeks with some friends that we are very close to.

Van and Sarah have been friends for many years. Van is a physician who served in the IMB home office twenty-five years. Sarah is an accomplished musician. Together they served in India for ten years. Van recently retired from the IMB.

John and Susan live in Texas. John, my older brother, retired about a year and a half ago after a career of using higher mathematics to help hotels and other companies predict occupancy rates and thus establish pricing. Susan formerly taught Spanish on the college level, she is also an accomplished musician that plays the organ. She recently retired from the MD Anderson Hospital foundation where she worked in web development.

Sarah and Susan are sisters. But, the connections go deeper. Their parents served in Colombia as missionaries years ago and were very close friends with my parents who also served there. I have known them for many years and of course Susan married my older brother.

Of course Charlotte and I are the third couple on this journey.

Part of the reason for the journey is that Susan, Van and I recently retired and it is somewhat of a celebration of our retirement. The other reason for the journey is to revisit some of the places where John and my parents served as missionaries for many years.

It has been a time of reminiscing about parents, family and telling a lot of good stories. It has also good to see some of the legacy our parents left us and retrace some of our roots. As we begin our trek through Chile that will be a major theme to our journey.