I know that the angels are ministering when I am so together and able to put things together that ordinarily I forget.

God's Boys will be good boys! My example of the efficient, contemporary woman is Aunt Gwen. This trip was Aunt Gwen's example directing me. Some of our trips from the first trip away that we took to this one. I have seen Aunt Gwen, always the perfectly organized packer. She always comes out with something or other unusual that she thought of that others don't think of. This time, it was as thought Aunt Gwen said to me bring your own coffee, there are no real coffee places in that "coffee forsaken" land. You will be annoyed at that. I packed the coffee in a ziplock and my creamer in another ziplock. What hotel doesn't have brew it yourself coffee? I had just gotten a coffee cup from the "food-place" I brought that just in case there was a problem with the coffee.

Sure enough, when we got to the hotel, I opened the coffee maker and there was some white yucky stuff in it. Ginger's example of teaching me to quick brew my own and Aunt Gwen's example of being a forethinking careful for self comforts that can become a real distraction in emotions when you are at the end of your rope. I am thankful for the women who have shown me that.

I hope that you can be a man whose masculinity can still appreciate some of the little things that women share with eachother that can become a strong family bond and comfort in some of the moments of anxiety that could take people to the edge or draw them back from the precipices. There are unspoken love languages that women pass from generation to generation. The silence of what older sisters show to their younger sisters in their examples of how they keep it together amidst the love and concern that they have for each one of the younger children in the family. Are we able to juggle love of parents, love of siblings, love of husband and wives and love of children in one limited heart? God gives us many others in life to show us how to juggle these battling priorities.

It seems that a man's mission in part is nurturing a family where the loves can be demonstrated and passed on to the next generation, without shame. This is hard. Travelling to Chowan gave us time to reminisce in our demeanor the people before us, who we got to see let their children go that far away. We are always growing.