FEBRUARY FLIGHT PLAN

The month of February has flown by and brought to our home the feeling of an airport terminal. Rucksacks, duffel bags, and carry-ons crowd floor space; misty-eyed hugs goodbye and joyful bear-hug reunions.

Son Ramsey left on the 2nd of February for 2+ weeks of IRT (Innovative Readiness Training in Army lingo) down in Yuma, Arizona. Task Force Diamondback is the building of the border fence (more like a wall) on the Arizona/Mexico border. Ramsey spent his 12-hour shifts welding together steel panels that make up the 18.5' x 9' sections of the fence.

He came back to us Saturday, the 18th, tanned, peeling, and freezing. Two weeks in the desert was enough to thin his blood -- 'course, the fact that it was -25* with windchill ten degrees colder didn't help. Ramsey wasn't the only one shivering around here!

While he was gone, his dad left on the 17th to fly to New Orleans a part of a short-term missions group sent by our church to help victims of Katrina. Mark and the rest of the group will be there for eight days, returning home in the wee morning hours on the 26th. The group is spending their days mucking out houses; tearing out rotten, molded wood, drywall, carpet, etc.; re-roofing; and cleaning up all the debris in people's yards.

We tend to think of floods as water. Not so. We are talking sludge, folks. Nasty, black, and stinking. Seven months after Katrina, the devastation is still mind boggling. The mission team has set up a blog site, complete with photos: http://conovermissions.blog.com Check it out. Seeing this kind of suffering sure puts our own problems in perspective.

We are thankful Mark was still able to go on this trip after separating his shoulder in a snowmobile accident last month. God has been so good. I was somewhat dismayed though, to learn Mark is roofing down there. (see Wednesday's photos on missions blog -- white T-shirt & camo hat, for readers who wouldn't recognize him). He's supposed to be doing something like supervising or running a Bobcat. But that's typical of Mark -- expects no special treatment; gonna do whatever needs to be done. We're praying daily for the team's safety, health, rest, and opportunities to share the love of Christ with people they come in contact with.

So anyway, it's been kind of different for our household with all the coming and going. Mark and Ramsey will not have seen each other for almost a month by the time Mark gets back from Louisiana. I am looking forward to having both my guys back home and underfoot again.