More Catching up

After our time in California, we flew over to Chicago where we picked up a car that we are borrowing for our time in Ohio.  It was perfect that we got to borrow a car from the Chicago area, because that meant that we got to stay with my college roommate Katie and her husband Dan for a few days.  Katie was 9 months pregnant when we arrived and she had her baby while we were there!  The day after they came home from the hospital we drove out to Ohio, so things worked out perfectly!  

Here is a picture of us visiting Katie and the beautiful Miss Clara Mattix in the hospital

While in Ohio, we also got to visit our supporting church, Winnetka Bible Church, meet up with another college room mate of mine, Melinda, who is also due with a baby soon, and make some new friends while we were in town too.  

Another highlight for me was getting to celebrate the 4th of July with some awesome fireworks.  I haven't been in the US for the 4th for 7 years!  It was such a sentimental and emotional moment to celebrate the fourth in all it's traditional glory and fun in my homeland.  Elijah loved the fireworks too...he wasn't even a tiny bit afraid and loved watching.  

Last Friday we drove over to Ohio.  It was an 8 hour trip and Elijah did pretty well.  

I sat in the back with Elijah to entertain him for a lot of the trip.  He also nibbled off a good part of this pool noodle while I wasn't watching...oops!

Our town here, Coshocton, Ohio, is quite in the middle of nowhere, to say the least!  The is like a little island of land in the middle of a sea of corn and fields :)  I've never lived in a small town before so it's a new kind of adapting for me.  We do have a Walmart though, which is more than we have in our town in Brazil, so we're good to go :)

We are renting the mission's furnished guest house, above.  Here is Jeyson getting home from his first day at the mission in the car we are borrowing.

Elijah is settling in nicely.  We have done a few things with some of the other families form the mission, including visiting an Amish farm.  We haven't quite found our new rhythm and routine yet, but we're in process.

The last month has been crazy between backing and traveling, so I didn't realize how much Elijah had developed in his abilities to eat right under my nose!  His new favorite thing is sweet corn...he gnawed on this ear for about 30 minutes very happily!  I love the US sweet corn too...yum!

Here are a few pictures from around the hangar at MMS that Jeyson took the other day.  Jeyson is LOVING it so far and really feels like he's going to learn a ton.  I'm so glad since the whole temporary life upheavel wasn't the easiest thing with a little baby.  But it seems like it's really going to be worthwhile for Jeyson, which is awesome!

Here's one of the hangars

Ryan, who is the head mechanic at Asas, is also here with us helping to train/supervise Jeyson over the next month while he is on furlough

The paint room in the hangar

An MAF airplane that is being worked on that has served in several countries.

The MMS slogan is "Preparing People and Planes for Worldwide Mission Service" and that's just what goes on here day to do.  The experienced mechanics are missionaries who train incoming mechanic missionaries as they work on planes that are sent to out missions all around the world.  The mechanics are currently working on a plane for the 100th different mission since it's existence.  So neat to see how many lives have been touched as the missionaries train.