In less than 72 hours I will be officially on Sabbatical—and in exactly 72 hours I should be on a plane between St. Louis and Atlanta. But the travel actually starts tomorrow, as I fly to St. Louis for the wedding of GCF alumnae Prof. Cynthia Lo to Christopher Jones—I will be officiating. There will be several gatherings in the next couple of days for the other alumni able to come to the wedding.
The MIT Grad Christian Fellowship students have showered me with blessings as I go... note the profile photo to the right. A group (mostly exec members) took me to a Korean restaurant on Sunday evening and I tried my hand at table bbq—I think I did pretty well, too. Afterward they took turns blessing and affirming me—what an incredible privilege to be sent off that way! Last night the Mark Manuscript Study celebrated the successful completion of the semester-long study, with a great dinner (honey almond chocolate tort for dessert!) catered by Matt and Tamiko (immediately to my left in the group picture). See the giant card? The message is partially written with candy bars, commemorating the chocolate that fueled our time in Mark.
Again, what a privilege to be sent off this way!
The last, and less comfortable piece of my departure for this first leg of my sabbatical journeys was a cardiac stress echo exam (yep, the one on the treadmill) as part of a physical. And while one of my sabbatical goals is to get in better shape, I'm good to go...