Easter 2006

(L-R) Toby, JoAnn, holding Oliver, Charles and Meryl at Lake George, NY

Two sons and their Mom! Toby (left), Charles and Meryl


Meryl and I are staying with our son, Toby, and his lovely wife, JoAnn for a few days. They live in the northern part of the State of New York in a rural city called Queensbury. It is about 560 miles/900 km from our home in Chesapeake, VA. Queensbury is about 45 miles/70 km north of Albany, NY, the State Capital. We originally planned to arrive here last Tuesday but we had a major mechanical problem with our minivan and had to get the automatic transmission rebuilt. This took the garage several days and cost over $3,500/EUR2,900/GBP2,000. We are trusting the Lord will provide this money before the interest starts getting charged on our credit card in October! Thus, we were delayed by 24 hours, arriving last Wednesday.

Our other son, Charles, arrived the next day and stayed until Easter Day. Providentially, he had been at a professional convention for his job in Atlanta, GA and had the time to come and see us for a few days. He is now back in Amsterdam, Netherlands. He had found the convention extremely interesting and useful.

We leave here tomorrow, Tuesday 18 April, my 60th birthday, to drive to an Alpha conference at Raleigh, NC, arriving there on Wednesday evening. The conference is on 20 and 21 April and I am presenting a workshop on Alpha for the Military on Thursday afternoon. We had hoped to visit the large US military bases of Fort Bragg and Pope Air Force Base but this has not worked out. Instead we will go home on Friday and be there for a busy weekend and following week.

We have had a lovely time here with the family. We went out for a meal on Wednesday evening and Thursday was a working day for each of us, although we enjoyed Charles arriving that afternoon and had an enjoyable time of family togetherness in the evening.

On Good Friday, we thought a lot about Jesus death of the Cross but were also able to take a lovely car trip for several hours to visit a beautiful and peaceful lake, have a picnic lunch and enjoy each others company.

On Saturday we relaxed and in the evening, Charles treated us to a wonderful dinner and a very smart restaurant – all to celebrate my 60th birthday!

Yesterday we went to a special Church service at a local church where they acted out a very good dramatization of the resurrection and its meaning for the disciples. JoAnn’s parents were there and, later, with JoAnn’s sister and brother in law (Jason is a Children’s Pastor) they came for a special Easter celebration lunch at Toby and JoAnn’s home. We had a very blessed time with a lot of good conversation and fun, especially as we watched some videos that had been taken over the last few years by Charles and Toby.

Today, Monday, is a work day again! But, we will relax as we enjoy a wonderful meal coked by Meryl. We all love her Cottage Pie, a traditional English pie of meat and potato, served with other vegetables. Toby loves this dish and always asks his mum to cook it for him whenever we/they get together! Such is family love!

We pray and hope you all had a lovely Easter and that your church was full for the special services I am sure you held. Please give our love to all your congregation. We miss you so much!

For more news about us, please see http://noeldawes.blogspot.com

With Jesus love and blessings,

Noel and Meryl