Joy-zee

   Last week was one crazy week, but God's goodness was ALL over it.  We started off the week in Port Republic, New Jersey, visiting our friends at St. Paul's UMC (or as the locals call it, Port Church).  Port Church is where Mom Waggoner grew up attending.  It's where she and Dad were married, where Nathan was dedicated as a baby...  we were so glad when Rev. Frank Brown (whom we used to work with at WGM) invited us last fall to come for a visit when we made our way out east. 

   Frank and Kelly hosted us at the parsonage for a little meet and greet on Saturday night over supper.  The next morning we were blessed by wonderful worship led by Brian (center, below) and the choir.  ('Cause I'm assuming Brian probably doesn't read the blog, I'll just mention that he sang back-up to Sandy Patti for seventeen years -- but if you heard him, you didn't need to know that to know that God's blessed him with a great voice!)  They performed a beautiful missions song ("We Speak to Nations") accompanied by a video with images from around the world.  Nathan shared the morning message, and then we shared together during Sunday school.

(L-R: Amy, Brian, Reni, Pastor Frank, and Ellie)

 Thank you, brothers and sisters at Port Church!  We loved our time with you!  We appreciate your heart for the world and all you did to make us feel special and get to know us better!

Our hosts were Nathan's amazingly generous aunt, uncle, and cousins who live just down the street from the church.  They spoiled us with great food, and lots of attention on Ellie and Reni!

Sunday afternoon we headed down to the Cape May Zoo.  Many of the photos below are courtesy of Aunt Melanie (shamelessly swiped by me from her Facebook page).

On Monday before leaving town, we went to visit Nathan's Pop Pop (grandfather) Champion.  This was our first visit since he passed away over a year ago.  It made me appreciate again the fact that we were able to visit New Jersey in the summer of 2011 to introduce Reni to his great-grandparents.  Little did we know then, but we only had six more months with Pop Pop in this world.

After visiting the cemetery, we made our way to the nursing home to see Grams.  Reni was a bit shy, but Ellie was fantastic, holding her hand and talking to her.

As I posted last, shortly after saying 'goodbye' to our New Jersey family, the newly rebuilt transmission in the RV started failing quickly.  We hobbled off of the Garden State Parkway into a little town called Manahawkin where we were directed after a couple of phone calls to Bay Transmissions.  I also shared how  George gave us the courtesy van and encouraged us to go check out the local light house.  Here are the pics from that excursion...

(top left)  Long Beach Island is so narrow (at some points I could see the beach and the bay just one block to the right and left of the road we were driving on) that I asked Nathan to take a photo of the GPS to show you how skinny this strip of land felt.   

(Right)  Nathan was an amazing dad and carried Reni up all 217 steps to the top of the light house!

After lunch we came back to the shop to learn that the transmission was just going to have to be tossed and that we'd have to stay another night as the guys were going to stay late to install a replacement, but George couldn't clear us for the road until the morning.

Ellie and Reni found a lot to entertain them at George's shop.  Whether it was model cars, Twizzlers, a beta fish, or Tracy's puppy, the kids enjoyed it so much, Reni asked yesterday if we could go back (for more Twizzlers).

Given that we would be staying another night, we decided to take up Uncle Paul and Aunt Melanie's invitation to return to their home to sleep and get showers.  Wouldn't you know that after sharing of our experience, we learned that they KNEW both George and Tracy (the office manager)?  What a neat, small world connection and evidence of God's hand on us during this !

Thankfully, Thursday morning we were given clearance to return Winnie to the road and we made our way to Vermont!  More on our time in the not-so-Green-yet Mountain State coming up soon!  (you can check out advance photos on our Facebook page).