So, we are in the Dominican Republic. I will share more later about our time here but, tonight, I just feel that same ol' 'gentle nudge' to share some of my meager meanderings.

It is just that this thought keeps returning to me.

Do what you will with it.

Whenever we take one of these trips that combine fun and faith, people ask us if it is 'safe'.  We always say that we do not feel UNsafe.

Because that is what we believe and that has been our experience.

Oh, of course, there is a level of risk anytime one steps out of their little corner.

We are not naive and we try to be wise.

BUT, what is interesting...no, heartbreaking...is that while others' have cautioned us to be safe in this and other foreign places, the actual DANGER has been in the very places we left.

THIS time in a restaurant where we have eaten and in a church we have served and with people familiar to us.

Two Michigan towns that we lived and served in have lost people this past weekend to yet more gun violence.

In the United States of America there has been yet another incidence of killings.

But, then again, that is what happens in the USA.  We shake our heads and we talk to our friends and we ponder and pray....

....but, ultimately, we just continue to live with it.

And then it happens again.

Yet, when I leave the USA, others caution ME to BE SAFE.

That, indeed, is my prayer for all of you back HOME in the USA.