On the Eve of the the Next Chapter

This week marks the beginning of some significant things. I (Geoff) will start my new position at the college tomorrow and Connor and BayLynn will start at their new schools on Wednesday. We're ready and excited for this week to be here. We're grateful to God for bringing us to this point.

Since today was Labor Day we were able to go to the Italian Festival in Scranton (top pictures). We got some great Italian food including some gnocchi (sp?) and cannoli. We like to see if anyone can beat Nonna's (Susan's mom) gnocchis, but so far nobody can. :-)

Then we came home for a Labor Day BBQ with two very important couples (mid right picture). These are the only two couples here in PA who have known all 4 of us for much longer than the 2+ weeks we've been here; and they're the two PA couples who God used most powerfully to help us discover His call for us to come here. The first couple is my parents, Don and Judy Ellsworth, who's generosity, balance and modeling we have been blessed to receive; and if I were to elaborate on it would make for a very long post. The second couple is Chuck and Loretta Emert. Dr. Emert was both Susan and my Bible teacher at Christian Heritage College in El Cajon back in the late 80's/early 90's. He also spoke at our wedding 17 years ago. And besides knowing me since I was a kid, both Dr. and Mrs. Emert have been a tremendous example to us in how to truly live by faith.

Anyway, the BBQ wasn't really planned (by us anyway) to be THAT meaningful to us, but it was just neat that we were all together on the "eve of the next chapter." We all count it a great privilege to have both family and friends like this (and like so many of you who read this) in our lives to be used by God to guide us and give us great counsel along the faith-way (Proverbs 13:20). Thank God and thank all of you for the role you each play in our lives.

In news from yesterday (Sunday), we were back at Grace Bible Church in Dunmore where I helped lead the music again because Josh (their main leader) was ill. We had a great time again with our friends there. Then that afternoon my Aunt Joan and Uncle Bob came up spontaneously from Orwigsburg and we had a great visit with them for the afternoon and into the evening; a visit that included some playing on the Wii where Gma beat us all in bowling with a 214 or something crazy like that.

On Saturday, Connor played in his first soccer game. He played most of the game actually and did really well. We won 1-0 against North Pocono, the team that Daniel Tarr is on (see here for context of that relationship). It was cool to reconnect with Daniel and his family on the soccer field that day, and then again at Grace Bible on Sunday.

On Friday, we were able to squeeze in a quick trip to the lake to try out a kayak (we hope to get a couple of these sometime) and a paddleboat (lower pictures).

Thank you all for your continue interest in our life. Please feel free to write us a short hello at ellsworthg@gmail.com

Onward! (Philippians 3:12-14)