EMERITUS WEEK

It happens once in every 5 years!

September was the time and this was our first. We were excited to

go to Ridgecrest. There were 6 going from our church, so we traveled

together to Houston, then flew to Atlanta, and on to Asheville, North Carolina,

and then a bus ride up the mountain to RIDGECREST.

Emeritus Week is a celebration week to honor those who've served

with the IMB for at least 15 years.

There were over 1100 IMB retired missionaries there, with the
accumulated total years of  28,929  served around the world!

We had general meetings like this every day! We got to hear IMB president

Tom Elliff preach (he's terrific and uses storying in his messages).

We met up with so many old friends, and then got to meet new ones as well.

Of course, we met up with our Indonesian family.

Can you Norwood kids name these folks?

Or these?

 

We gathered all the folks who have ever served on the SAPIM/LEAD Team

for lunch one day. There were 22 of us.

We got to connect with lots of our friends from the Philippines also.

Here are Phil and Retha Brewster, Trudy and Jim Crittendon,

Glen and Marvella Thompson and me.

Lots of good fellowship was done in the dining room.

We were thrilled to run into so many from our original "orientation" group

of 1972. So we got together and caught up on the last 40 years.

It was a great week.

But is took awhile to recover from all the travel and excitement!

Those years on the field were great years.

How thankful we are that the Lord led us in some surprising, rough, happy and

blessed paths, and for that week of memories with old friends.

During the week we were challenged to "keep on".  We're not home yet!