Sabbatical Journeys -- August 2013, part 2

Scott here again... finally making good on a five-month-old promise.
ADOPTION UPDATE:
Things have started to move forward recently, and although it's going to take a little bit of patience, we are slated to travel hopefully in February or March. We will have been at the whole process for two years in November.
GARAGE SALE FUNDRAISER:
The longer the adoption process takes, the more we start to have redundant fees. To keep ahead of those expenses, we're going to have another Garage Sale Fundraiser this Friday, August 16.
I started to describe our first leg of the sabbatical. At that point, we didn't have much of a time frame for when things would move forward with the adoption. The elders of our church encouraged me toward resuming the sabbatical in June if we didn't have any further progress on the adoption. Basically the idea would be to work out the time in South Africa later, but they didn't want to stretch out the process too long. With that I am in agreement. Continuity is fairly important in this sabbatical process.
The rest of our travels were as follows:
* From Champaign, we traveled on to Indianapolis and stayed for a few days at John & Liz Crocker's house. John was our former interim senior pastor.
* We then made a side trip to the Creation Museum in northern Kentucky, just across the river from Cincinnati. This was generally driven by my desire to keep moving toward education on God as Creator.
* We trekked back to Champaign to stay with Jeremy & Janelle for a few more days. I had some extended prayer & reading retreats during this time.
* Our journey home took us south through St. Louis (and a visit to the Arch), and then down to my Aunt Janice's beautiful home near Springfield, MO. It was a peaceful place to connect with the Lord Jesus in prayer and through Scripture.
* The trip back north to Nebraska took us through KC. We stayed for a night with Ted & Hannah Mabie.
Besides just catching up with family and friends, we visited several different churches. I also set aside chunks of time for reading, reflection and prayer.

After breaking from the sabbatical for April & May, I jumped back into it from June 17 until August 13. This time was spent both at home and away, most notably at Timberlake. I took several days for personal reflection and study, and our family was also out there for my week as camp pastor. I might have to blog separately on what I learned through that process, but it was summed up in my theme for the week: God wants your heart.

Connected with that idea though, I've grown through spending time in reading some books that I don't normally get to read, particularly toward missions, the poor, orphans, and how we can serve the Lord with our lives. Of particular benefit were William Carey's An Enquiry into the Obligations of Christians, K.P. Yohanan's Revolution in World Missions, and C.S. Lewis' Letter's to Malcolm: Chiefly about Prayer.

Lastly, I have grown significantly in daily prayer during this time. Through a series of events related to friends with sick babies, we began to pray each day at 4:15 pm for several families. Sometimes this has stayed limited to the babies and families, but when I have been by myself, I've especially taken the opportunity to hear God in prayer. Other thoughts there, but again, for brevity's sake, I'll tie it up with one line: I've grown a bit in my relationship with Jesus by disciplining myself in prayer time.
Okay, Hannah. you can have the blog back now.