Center for Intercultural Training

On the road again!

After another bout with kidney stones, Jane this time, we are back on the road.  This time we are serving on a Sower project at the Center for Intercultural Training located in Union Mills, North Carolina, just south and east of Ashville.  We arrived on Sunday afternoon.  We were supposed to be here on Thursday but were delayed by those wretched stones.  Jane has had several painful episodes over the last couple of months, another one just before we went to East Tennessee to clean chalets at Fairhaven ministries two weeks ago.  

She made an appointment with our Urologist for when we returned home (pretty sad when you have a family Urologist).  While at Fairhaven she had another episode but thankfully it passed after several hours of pain.  We went to the doctor last Monday and the Xray showed four large stones on the right side up in the kidney and a small one on the left side in the tube that leads down to the bladder.  The intense pain episodes she was experiencing were on the left side.  He recommended shock waving the small left side stone now, and dealing with the larger ones when we have a break in November.

He had an opening on Tuesday night so she signed up and showed up for a nice sleep and hopefully a successful stone crushing.  Well, after coming out of anesthesia she had the severe stone pain back.  Our plan to leave on Thursday was put on hold and on Friday she passed some of the stone fragments and the pain as well, Praise the Lord!

So, we hooked up the wagon on Saturday and hit the road on Sunday.

We will be here at Union Mills for the next three weeks.  The Center for Intercultural Training (CIT) is a partnership of missional agencies, churches and organizations dedicated to training and equipping cross-cultural workers and their families for cross-cultural ministry.  Participants attend courses at CITʼs 28 acre campus located near the mountains of western North Carolina. The quiet campus provides the ideal environment to build cross-cultural awareness and skills in a community-based learning environment.

We are parked on the tennis court along with Bobbeth and John Hawkins, long time Sowers that hail from Rome Georgia where Rebecca and Corey live.  They just finished the August project at The Billy Graham Training Center in Ashville.  We served with them at Lake Placid Conference Center in Florida in February.

The tennis court just happens to be right next to the swimming pool.

Just across the street is an old school building that has been converted to an performing arts venue.  

Jane and I attended a blue grass festival here in May when we were at the Billy Graham Center in Ashville.  We parked in the CIT parking lot and wondered what they did here.  I did some research online and found out about their ministry.  Later I was looking at the Sowergram which lists the projects available and saw that it was a Sower project.  So we signed up for September.

Looks like we won't have to go far for the friday nite concert!

Now that's a great flag!

Supper for 5 bucks, free blue grass concert, and in walking distance to our rig.  My missionary care buddy, Barney Davis, always hoped for a beach ministry.  I think I have found my "beach ministry" 

Bluegrass, food, and service for our Lord!  What a combination.

On arrival we met with Art, one of the maintenance guys.  It looks like they have plenty of tasks for us to accomplish during our service here.  The next session of training starts on September 14th.  They had a crew here on saturday hanging drywall and doing some first coat painting on some of the apartments.  

Our first sower partners, Doris and Frank Hutchison, emphasized to us that the first letter in Sower stands for servants.  We are blessed with the opportunity to come along side of this ministry and help them in some small way to enable them to enable God's servants who are called of Him to serve cross-culturally.

Your prayers for John, Bobbeth, Jane and I are greatly appreciated.  Specific prayers for safety as we work would be great.  Also pray for opportunities for us to be a blessing to the staff here at CIT.

We will return to Summerville on September 18th.  We have a two week break before our next project.  We will be at Summit Grove Camp and Conference Center in New Freedom PA in October.  That is near York PA, which will be a short commute to visit Jane's dad in Annapolis.

Blessings till next post!   Godspeed,  Glenn and Jane