Author Archives: Dale

Sunset at the South Rim – View to the East Northeast from Maricopa Point, on the South Rim of the Grand Canyon, Arizona.

A couple years ago, the whole family went with some friends to the Grand Canyon. We took our time getting there from Phoenix, and we arrived late in the day. We had an hour or two to walk around and explore as the day was drawing to a close and the sun began to set. With Miranda’s permission, I wandered off and found my own little outcropping from which to make a few photographs. As I stood there on that precipice, I felt incredibly small against the amazing, God-made, beautiful vastness of that canyon, carved out of rocks over the course of centuries past.

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We had a great time this past weekend reconnecting and hanging out with many old friends from our time in Phoenix.

On Friday night, we hosted a dessert night at the Campus Christian Center in Tempe, across the street from ASU’s campus, and were able to meet with a few families from our former church.

On Saturday, we spent some time with our friends Ben and Sarah, and then went to another friend’s home, where we were able to meet with some more friends and share a bit about what God’s doing in our lives.

And, finally, on Sunday, we were able to worship and fellowship with lots of friends from Church on Mill, our spiritual home while we were in Phoenix for the two years we lived there. After church, we had a fun lunch with a number of couples from our “Young Married” Sunday School class (and all their new babies), and then visited our former pastor and his wife at their home.

We thought we’d share some photos of our weekend, mostly from Church on Mill.

If we were to write a FAQ (which we probably should…) the first question on the list would be this:

When are you leaving?

That’s the most common question we get. Generally it’s asked with equal parts excitement and genuine curiosity on behalf of the inquisitor. And we love it—we know that many of you have invested your time, energy, prayers, and even your finances in this task to which God has called us.

We really want the answer to simple, short, and sweet. Unfortunately, we can only give you two of those three. The answer is:

It depends.

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[Warning, this post is a bit on the long side—about 50% longer than our normal target length…read accordingly.]

I’ve sat down many times over the last week or so to write the post we last promised you guys—the story of the “when” of our departure coming later this year. However, every time I did so, I couldn’t seem to write that part of the story without first telling you about how I, myself got here, as Miranda did late last year. But my (back)story is sufficiently long that it seemed best to tell it in its own post, so here goes…

There are two streams which have defined my passions—my avocation, if you will—over the last two decades in varying ways: photography and missions. Each has had a profound impact regarding how God has formed my paths during this time.

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One of the many things we learned while in Kandern was that the frogs are, apparently, a force with which to be reckoned–if they get squished on the road, they make it slipperier than ice, and just as dangerous, thus the warnings.

When we first started writing about our time in Germany, Miranda and I shared with you our hopes, expectations and concerns for our trip there in March. We also shared three major Things Which Need Sorting (TWNS): school, location (town/country), and how do we do life. Now that we’ve been back for a while, and we’ve had a chance to reflect on our experience there, we want to report to you on this so that you can rejoice with us in what God has shown us.

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We made our way through many small towns in the Alsace region of France. This one was Village-Neuf. If you look closely, you can see our car in the bottom-right of the image.

We spent the better part of the day in the Alsace region of France yesterday. Living in France is one of the options available to us, as some of the closest communities there are about 25-30 minutes from the Kandern area. As such, we thought it would be good if we spent some time there, so that we’d have an idea of what it might be like to live there.

We drove south from Kandern to Basel, passed over the French border into Saint Louis, and then went up along some of the various north-south highways, back toward Mulhouse. We kinda meandered through the area, stopping and exploring along the way, and making photos of interesting things along the way.

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Here are some additional photos from our exploration of France yesterday. We were in the Arrondissement of Mulhouse, in the Region of Alsace of France.

Phoenix is taking photos for a group assignment from God’s Little Girls. She got shooting advice from Dad, and really took to it…be still my beating heart!

This is Phoenix’s first published photo ever. This is one of the ones she was shooting in the photo shown above.

Today was a busy day!

We got up bright and early to take Phoenix to her first day of school!  Her first day ever in a formal school classroom was at the Tannenkirch German public school with a new friend from the Kandern area.  She seemed a little nervous at first, but she had a good morning there.

While she was in school, Dale took some beautiful pictures and did some computer work while we were enjoying a “second breakfast” at Sanctuary.  We commuted next door to the SIL Germany offices (literally–the back balcony of the SIL offices overlooks the front door of The Sanctuary!) and met a lot of people there.  The offices are in converted apartments, so we also got a glimpse of what housing for our family might look like.  I can see a 3 bedroom apartment with generously sized bedrooms working for us.

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