All American

It’s been a week’s worth of new/familiar sights and sounds for us here in Durham NC. Our good friend and hostess, Renee Combs, has opened her home and enabled us to introduce our kids to all kinds of American sights, sounds, smells, etc… her beautiful spacious backyard, complete with trampoline and hammock has been the scene of much frolicking, jumping, water gun battling, fetch-playing with the family dog, Smore eating, and conversing. We’ve eaten pizza, good North Carolina BBQ, and I-Hop pancakes. We toured the storybook Duke University campus/chapel, went bowling and skating, and explained baseball to our kids at a Durham Bulls game. You can’t get more all-American than this last week has been. Renee’s hospitality to us has humbled and blessed us beyond measure.

Yesterday, all six kids made dinner for Alfie, Renee and I. Their chosen menu included sticky orange chicken, confetti rice, a grape tomato, romaine heart, and zucchini appetizer, and candy sushi. They chopped, marinated, melted, mixed, and even cleaned. They did a great job working together under Renee’s culinary tutelage.

Today, we worshipped in English, at Renee’s church Ebenezer Baptist. We spent a long time at Steve’s grave which is in the church’s cemetery…