This week Barry took me on an R & R. Yes, you've already picked up on the fact that I've admitted this week that I have felt my age probably for the first time ever. It's taken me by surprise since I returned from Liberia. This has been a sobering reminder of my mortality, not that I want to sound morbid, but reality checks aren't bad for you either. This world is not my home, and yes, I am praying that I grow more and more desirous of going to my true home and meet my Savior face to face. Since I've begun to get in the habit of often being brutally honest with you regarding my "not so nice emotions", I'll tell you that yes, I might have to live a lot more years to conform me more into the image of the one I want to meet in real life!
On lighter notes, I've gotten very rewarding emails from some of my students. One of them very skillfully had given a persuasive speech in which he wanted to persuade his fellow classmates to petition the administration to have less professors "like me." What I think he meant was professors who were given the assignment of teaching 6 semester hours in seven weeks. The work load for us all was huge! I took his efforts in good humor, but what touched me was in his email he told me that if Prof. Vickery hadn't come, there wouldn't have been public speaking or public relations taught in 2011. (Maybe if we can send the young man to Daystar University in Kenya that I told you about for a Master's in Communication, both of my student's requests will be met.)
One student I'd had to discipline one day in class even came out to the helicopter to see me off the day I left. That too felt re-assuring that maybe the efforts had touched something in them, even though age, culture, and even "supposedly" speaking the same language often got in our way.
Let me close for today, to go through a week's mail. It DOES feel good to be home. The blessings of life are hard to count!
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