One Week Left In Texas

With the list of to-do’s refusing to shrink no matter the effort, I have decided to relax the rest of this week.  Mostly because all of the wind that has been blowing down from up north has managed to present to me, with all due honor, a headcold.  The vitamin C intake has risen significantly, but that has only seemed to help from my shoulders down.  Oh well, there’s the complaint, nothing insufferable, just floating bobbingly in the sea of discomfort and distraction.

Did have a step up in the world of formality…thanks to a quick internet search, I learned how to tie a Windsor and a Half-Windsor knot.  Hopefully, I will only be presented with the most minimal of chances to exercise this new found skill.  I mention this because it is a big accomplishment for a t-shirt and jeans kind of guy.  Now, once the passport shows up again, I will be utterly confident in preparations for my impending departure.  C’est la vie, baby.

Eventually, I will attempt to practice pack before entrusting my all-so-important traveling necessities to baggage-handlers and newly uniformed TSA agents (your “stimulus bill” dollars at work, but hey, don’t they look so sharp now?  Maybe they found different shades of white shirts and black pants…).

Passport

Today marks the two-week point before I am hauling bags and a guitar around airports on the first leg of this little journey that God is taking me on.  The only true source of concern at this point is the return of my passport with an authorized residence permit before I do head out on this first leg.  I had an email from the Consulate in New York that the Immigration Service was handling my application at that there shouldn’t be any problems…which takes a bit of the weight off, but it would feel even better if that pretty, little blue booklet was in my grubby, little hands soon.  Ah, be wise in how you pray for patience.  Das Geduld, I believe is the German for patience, and if I was studying like I should be, I would know it in Finnish, too. I think that I  mostly want to mark “Get Residence Permit” off my get-this-done-soon list.

Linguistic Warning

This note is to warn readers that I will probably transition between languages on this blog. Those most notably being English, Finnish, and, if I get crazy, German or Spanish. This will mostly be determined by whether or not I feel a certain word choice in a particular language is funny to me at the time of the posting. Oh, course that will all be easier when I find out how to get umlauts on a’s, o’s, and u’s. Ciao.

Initiation

Greetings!

This is my blog that will serve as an information point for all who seek to know about my work in Finland.  I hope to be consistent when dealing with this blog, as in I will actually post regularly, but it should be a pretty up-to-date account of my 2-years abroad.

I am aiming at a blog a week.  Let’s see if THAT happens.

I thank all of my prayer partners who are supporting me while I am away from all of you and my family.  God bless you all.