This is the eve before my 8-day trip to Tanzania. My sister-in-law, Corrine, and my niece, Meagan, are up from Cupertino, CA, for the weekend too. So, the day was filled with packing, errands, and special times with family.
It started by getting the silk painting banner studio set up at church. Anya has a huge role in this major project!
The artistic gifts of Christy Lindell have established a tradition of sharing a colorful silk banner with our mission partners in Tanzania.
We continued with the art theme by visiting the Chihuly Glass Museum in Seattle.
After an afternoon of packing a second suitcase with gifts for Tanzania (12 pounds of chocolate chips, almonds, and craisins; 7 soccer balls; soccer jerseys; a carbon fiber violin bow with replacement tuning pegs; 480 blue knuckle bandages; and more!) and all the final preparations (like getting Swedish flash cards synced to my iPhone), we were off to a birthday celebration at The Melting Pot.
Anya and her aunt Corrine share the same birthday (different year), but I’ll be gone for the official day. I’m off to present a paper at a conference in Tanzania, funded by my PhD adviser’s Norwegian Research Council grant. At first I declined the invitation, because it is Anya’s birthday (and a whole lot of jet lag for 8 days of travel). But because we usually end up celebrating Anya’s birthday before or after her birthday week, as it seems to coincide with spring break and many friends are out of town. So, she encouraged me to go for the special opportunities this trip affords.
So, actually, my day started revising the paper that I’m to present. What is this paper about? Ok, here’s the geeky title, “Is ‘The God who Rules’ Adequate?: Stimulating Discussion on the Representation of YHWH in the Kimaasai Bible.”
The next 8 days will have updates of the journeys–mine and the paper’s. I may be a little limited with Internet access, so while I hope to post each day, I may not be able to. If you’d like to be notified of a post, one easy way is to scroll down on the left navigation and click on “Entries RSS.” If you choose “Subscribe to this feed using Live Bookmarks,” it will add a bookmark to the bookmark toolbar of your browser. I believe it notifies you when there is a new post.
With blessings,
Beth