Life on the Vine

Last weekend Tom and I flew to southern Italy for one last weekend getaway before the move back to the United States.  I've mentioned it before that Tom moved back to the States in October, while I remained here in Germany.  I haven't mentioned on this blog that in early June I got a job offer with the U.S. Air Force at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Tucson, Arizona.  So, I'm in the process of moving back to the States Tom arrived here in Stuttgart on the 16th to help me with the move and we left for Italy the morning of the 20th.  We flew into Naples in order to reach the Amalfi Coast.  We spent three nights in Sorrento, using the town as our base to explore the region.  There was just one thing that I wanted to do in Naples and so we did that the afternoon of July 23, just before our flight home. Just before our trip I told Tom half jokingly...I'm going to Italy and I'm going to eat pizza, pasta, gelato and put on five pounds!  Fortunately I didn't

My blog assignment this month from Gospel for Asia is to blog about whatever is laid on my heart.  One of my favorite daily devotionals is Charles Spurgeon's Morning and Evening .  The scripture verse from my July 13 evening reading really struck a cord with me...particularly the last part of it.  It is Psalm 56:9: "When I cry unto thee, then shall mine enemies turn back: this I know, FOR GOD IS FOR ME."  We all have those moments when it seems like the world is against us.  When we are surrounded by people and yet feel all alone.  When it feels like no one else can possibly know or understand the struggles we are facing.  But just think...God promises that whether we are in our highest moments of achievement or in our deepest valley of despair that HE IS FOR US.  He is our champion.  He has a good and perfect plan for each of our lives and He wants to help us achieve it.  GOD IS FOR US! I think about the men, women and children of Asia who Gospel for Asia serves. 

Aside from visiting the great museums of Paris, we also visited some of the must-see sights of Paris.  This included, of course, the Eiffel Tower, but also the Arc de Triomphe, Notre Dame and Sacre-Coeur.  Visiting these sights included plenty of walking both the horizontal and vertical kind.  Many of these sights offer great views of the city.  The weather while we were visiting was a bit of a cornucopia so we didn't always have the best of views.  For example, it was raining when we visited Sacre-Coeur so the views weren't the greatest but it had cleared up some by the time we got to the Arc de Triomphe. I guess it's only right to start with the Eiffel Tower.  Its presence is virtually impossible to escape when exploring the city center.  There are elevators at the Eiffel Tower but the lines can be extremely long and it is more expensive.  For a reduced price, you can opt to take the stairs up to the first and second levels, 200 feet high and 400 feet high resp