Our 'Kabalayan'

Kankanaey, our tribal language, has a word for the relationship between the two sets of parents when their children marry - kabalayan. I have often wished we had a word like that in English, instead of having to describe it - Craig's in-laws or our daughter-in-law's parents.

Doug and Hilary Jefferies are our Kabalayan.

We have spent many hours in our kabalayan's home, so felt very blessed this past week-end that we were able to share our home with them.
They made the 3 hour journey north to our home in North Cotes and we had fun hanging out together for the week-end.
I am sure I don't need to tell you what our main topic of discussion was, but besides sharing our 'Ellie and Rebekah stories' we enjoyed walking down to the beach, going on a day trip to a few small villages, and just spending hours talking around our dining room table.

Enjoying a cup of coffee at the beach.

In one town there was a Flower Festival in the village church.

All the displays were beautiful, but this was my favorite one. Too bad I'm not a better photographer.

Another reason I was thankful for our time together was that this summer when I was in Canada, Hilary received her docorate degree, and I missed the celebrations.

Dr. Hilary Jefferies

Ragnar was able to be at the party and I am glad for the pictures.

Do you think they are proud of their Grandma?!?!

Crazy Dinner

Our co-worker, Gill Baxter, is retiring soon, so we surprised her with a Crazy Dinner.

Each guest received a 'menu' that they needed to fill out, although they had no idea what they were ordering when they asked for 'red sea' or 'sloppy strings'.
The combination of the foods they 'ordered' were very interesting, and kept us all laughing throughout the dinner.

What would Moses' Rod or 3 coins in a fountain turn out to be?

I wonder why they would choice to eat their salad with a toothpick??

A fun night with some 'crazy' friends!!

Ragnar's sister & cousin

Ragnar's sister and her husband, his first cousin and her husband along with a friend came to cook at our recent Refresher Course. Besides blessing us with fantastic meals, we enjoyed a few days with them before and after the Course.

Enjoying a cup of coffee in our home their first night here.
Craig, Claire, Ellie and Rebekah were able to come up for a couple of days to visit with their relatives too. Here is Ellie enjoying putting a puzzle together.
And Rebekah building a tower.

The first night after Refresher Course we enjoyed a barbecue in our back yard.

Enjoying the beautiful weather as well as the food.

We can't claim the tag "Tourist Guides" yet as we have not been out and about much, but their last day here we drove to a couple of little villages just to walk around and enjoy the day together.

A cute little Tea Room in the town of Tealby where we tried Cream Tea - home made scones with jam and cream, accompanying the tea.

Then on to the town of Alford where we toured a working Windmill.

View from the top of the Windmill.

York

Many of us attending Refresher Course took a bus trip to York one day

- a beautful, quaint city.

Lots of flowers to enjoy.

We had fun roaming around the city, in and out of cozy little shops.

We also walked around parts of the walled city.

Can you see Ragnar way down there?

York Minster

We really enjoyed an old Viking Museum, but couldn't take any pictures there.

Very interesting old buildings.

York Castle - Clifford's Castle

Train station

Refresher Course

We recently were blessed to be surounded by lots of missionaries either on Home Assignment, or on their way to the field. The European Refresher Course was held here at the NTM center. We enjoyed lots of singing, sharing, reports from varios fields and were fed from the Word by a former MAF pilot.

People were here from the Faroe Islands, Norway, Germany and the UK - folks serving in Greenland, Senegal, Papua New Guinea and the Philippines.
Trying to sit with different folks at each meal time, gave us lots of opportunities to either get to know the families or get reacquinted.

A team of 7 came all the way from the Faroe Islands to cook many delicious meals for us, which was really appreciated.

Yummy Faroese fish.

We went through it very quickly.

Clean up time.

Serving with a smile on their faces.

The last evening of the Course Ragnar thanked them for the great job they had done.

A small token of our thanks.