Home Leave

For the last month, Gregg and I have been on home leave in the USA.  When we got off the airplane in SLC and spent our first hours in Costco, Walmart, and our local gigantic grocery store, we had 2 reactions:

1. There are a lot of white people in Utah.  It would be nice to have more "color."
2. We in America have far more than we actually need.  Most of us that were born in the US are grateful for our many blessings; but we have come to know from our Africa experience that we who have so much have a responislibty to use these blessings to help others.

We got to be with all of our children and grandchildren for a week.  It was wonderful, fun, chaotic, crazy and we are so glad we did it.  Gregg was amazed at all the diapers (we had not seen that in a while).  He was sure we were violating some city ordances with all the people in our house.  We actually got a picture of us with our 6 grandchildren wearing the Ghanaian soccer shirts we brought them.  Each family also has a Ghanaian soccer ball.
 
We also enjoyed a week in Maui; it's a little piece of heaven.  The scuba diving, sun, and golf was just what we needed.  (We hadn't been on a dive in 18 months). 

So, we are tan, we are rested, and we are ready to go to work back here in West Africa!


PS - I love being an American.  I love going through Customs and Immigration where I am always greeted with, "welcome home."  My nature would be to hug this complete stranger; but I restrain myself, smile, and say, "thank you."  It was great to be home for the 4th of July.