Florida!

We're sitting in a beautiful apartment - thanks to Doug Brennan who let us stay in his time share this week. We had an un-eventful trip down to Florida on Friday and Saturday, spent the night here in Fort Myers Beach, then drove up to Sebring for the morning service there. Had a great time, really enjoyed the visit, made some new friends, and saw a few people we knew. The Gorniks were there, which was a fun surprise - they'll be there for a few weeks studying with Randy Smith's Bible Institute - which btw sounds very interesting! We were really encouraged by this church - the Sunday evening service we shared in went really well, and a lot of people were really interested in what's happening at the Château - asked a lot of good questions. It's really cool to be a part of a small fellowship like the Grace Brethren, where people feel connected to each other, and the ministries of GBIM. I think at least a dozen people from the Sebring church had been to the Château - so far, there's been someone from every GBC we've visited that has been to the Château.

Debbie and Tarrah Dubusak making crêpes 3 at a time which we shared with everyone after the evening service (it takes quite a while to make 120 crêpes)

We've enjoyed a bit of Florida cuisine - we had boiled peanuts - which from the picture below don't look so appetizing, but looks aren't everything - these were cajun flavored, and were pretty good!


We visited with Serena Nelson on monday (she took the day off work even!). We went down to the inverted pier in St. Petersburg (right next to Tampa where she lives). They had a sweet airport for small planes which was pretty much in the bay - you didn't want to overshoot the runway. We had Cuban sandwiches for lunch, and went on a dolphin tour boat ride - which was tons of fun. We only saw two dolphins, and they have a guarantee that you'll see dolphins - aparently, two isn't enough, because we got free passes to come back again sometime (Serena will be able to treat someone else to a trip sometime). I think we had as much fun looking at the crazy huge houses along the shore - there were some pretty fantastic designs there.

Debbie & Serena on the dolphin tour boat

Debbie loves pelicans!

That's a cute little baby fish that Debbie is mercilessly
feeding to the carnivorous pelicans

I also found a great sign - you probably all realize if you've been getting my emails for the past two years, that I like signs where people try to use pictures to communicate dangerous situations - for some reason they always make me laugh. This gate will beat your backside if you try to go through and you're not an auto.