back from my sabbatical...

I’m cold.

During the month of January I was incommunicado whilst away on my long-awaited sabbatical. I was in Nicaragua, and it was amazing! I stayed with friends who have an organic farm on an island called Ometepe in Lake Nicaragua. The weather on that tropical island was perfect. The view of the volcano, as pictured below, was also amazing. It was warm and sunny most of the time, and I spent many relaxing hours sitting in a hammock reading a book with a slight breeze keeping it just perfect.

But now I’m in Chicago and I’m cold.

I left Nicaragua on Friday night after the hottest day I had experienced in ages, and I arrived in Chicago on Saturday for one of the coldest days I had experienced in awhile. It’s actually not dreadfully cold for Chicago. For that matter, it’s not much colder than the kind of weather I’ve come to expect in Scotland during the coldest time of year. However, the abrupt change from the 80’s and 90’s to the 20’s and 30’s is a shock to the system indeed!

I don’t mind though. I’m really glad to be in Chicago. I love this city! I’m here to preach and teach for a few days before I go to California for the rest of the month. I preached at a Spanish speaking church on Sunday, and it was a really powerful day. I prayed with many people afterwards who said that God had really touched their lives in a life-changing way. Among them, one young man gave his life to Christ and two others rededicated their lives to Christ.

I’m grateful, however, for the time I had in Nicaragua. Now that I’m back to work I intend to update the journal regularly again, so I’ll probably share some of the stories about my time there soon.

For the moment, however, I think I’ll just crawl under a big blanket and try to warm up a bit.