Q Squad leadership is back in Nairobi, setting up for debrief. It’s about to be an awesome week, and I’m so excited to see the rest of my squad! I just uploaded my most recent podcast episode, so check that out for details of our month in Kachibora. Right now, I’ve got something else to share.
written on January 21, 2011
Today is my Dad’s birthday.
It’s his birthday, and for all the same reasons that this blog is post-dated, I can’t talk to him.
He’s been especially sentimental lately. I suppose that’s understandable: of his two “baby girls”, one is expecting her own baby girl, and the other is running around on the other side of the world with Kenyan baby girls.
Mickey Hines isn’t a “small talker”… but when he does find things worth sharing, he shares with precise articulation and beautiful description. Out of his heightened sentimentality, he sent me the story I’m posting below. It’s something he wrote in the fall of 1987. I was an infant, and Lora was already speaking complete sentences through her pacifier. The setting of the story pretty much encompasses my happy childhood.
I miss my family. But my World Race family, my five girls, have been building me up SO MUCH lately. We’ve been preaching at the church here every night, and apparently I’m good at it. It’s definitely fun for me! Spiritual gifts were never a big deal before this season of my life, so it’s been really interesting to stumble upon what might be mine. The girls tell me that I’m a natural teacher.
I always think of my Dad when they say that. The way I see things, and the way I want to share them, he does that! He taught me.
So this story is something from his heart. And really, it’s from mine too.
Love you, Daddy!
-Katie
