Home Again For Now

Home again for now
It seems like a long time since we were roaming around Florida. We had a short visit to St. Augustine, FL and then up to Jekyll Island and St. Simon Island. Both are just off the coast of Brunswick, GA along the inland waterway. There is a small historic church in St. Simon where John Wesley was a minister for a few years before his “conversion experience” after which he started the Methodist Church. The graveyard is also where the author, Eugenia Price, is buried.

We continued up the coast to Savannah, GA, an historic and beautiful place. After having visited the Spanish fort in St. Augustine, it was interesting to visit the old British fort in Savannah. Both sites were significant in the early settlement days.

On our way to Charleston, SC we spent a night in Bluffton with a couple who have stayed at our house for a few weeks while we have been gone. Their son and daughter-in-law are friends of ours who live near us. It was fun to meet them; it seemed like we had known them for a long time.


If you like history and old houses then Charleston is the place for you. We spent an afternoon touring the city and walking the streets, but didn’t end up hanging around for long. Instead we headed off toward Waxhaw, NC, just south of Charlotte. It is the location of the JAARS international headquarters. JAARS is the aviation, radio and tech division of Wycliffe Bible Translators. We spent a day with some friends, Tom and Mary Beekman, who have been missionaries with JAARS since shortly after I married them 28 years ago. (Yesterday, 5/15, Tom and another pilot left Switzerland with a new airplane en route to Sentani, Papua, Indonesia. Today they expected to arrive in Egypt, tomorrow Oman, then on to India Malaysia, Bali, and Sentani.)

Easter was a special day for us; not only the celebration of the resurrection of Jesus, but also being with friends, the Barbers, at their new church. The family was at Arlington for seven significant years before moving back to the Charlotte area to start a new church. It was a pleasure to be at their Easter service and also to spend the afternoon with their extended family. Oh, the joy of Christian fellowship!


We also visited other friends in various parts of North Carolina; one fellow we hadn’t had any contact with since he left our team in Singapore in 1962 to come home and get married. The two-hour lunch with him was special, as were some other unexpected connections with longtime acquaintances. From North Carolina we went through the Appalachian Mountains to Tennessee on a snowy afternoon; fortunately the snow melted on the road but we couldn’t see any of the countryside, which they say is beautiful!

For five days we parked at a Christian camp where I helped in their construction of a new chapel. They hope to have it ready for the summer camping season. We have known the couple who started the camp over thirty years ago; they have been after us to come and help at the camp, so it was fun to give them some time on the building project. Then we went an hour north to the Nashville area to visit some friends from Arlington. We spent Saturday night and Sunday with them and then headed home to Illinois.


After ten days at home we went to Kirksville, MO to be with our granddaughter, Shaina, for her graduation from Truman State University. Our son, Keith, and his wife came up from Albuquerque, NM for the graduation, so it was a fun family time. Shaina has many wonderful friends at TSU; some of them have been up at our house before, so it was a great time of celebration with all of them and some of their parents.

Last week Rosie worked at the flower shop for a few days in prep for Mother’s Day. I have been helping in some renovation work at the church, so we keep enjoying ourselves and making ourselves useful! On Friday we plan to fly out to California for two weddings. Rosie’s great-niece is getting married this Saturday, and the following week Rosie’s sister, Anne, will be married to a man whose wife died several weeks after her husband died last year. They are both in their eighties, lonely after losing their spouses, and were good friends as couples for many years. They will be married in a courtyard at a restaurant in a very brief ceremony which I will conduct. It should be a fun day!

The rest of the summer we will be around home most of the time. Rosie will do flowers for some proms, graduations, and weddings at the shop. They are always glad for some extra help at the peak times. I will do some work at the church and we will go to family camp again at the end of July and early August. In the meantime we will see our younger grand children a time or two, take them camping for a weekend, help Eric put a new roof on a small duplex, etc.

We hope you have a good summer: enjoy the outdoors, visit with families, vacation, etc. If you want to tell us what you are up to you can click on “Comments” at the end of this blog and give us some news. We would love to hear from you.

God be with you; grace to you,

Roaming Around Florida

For two weeks we have roamed around the south tip of Florida. From Orlando we drove to Key Largo, the first Key south of Miami. We had the pleasure of staying at some friends’ condo for five days overlooking the ocean. It was warm and beautiful. One day we drove to Key West, the last Key in the 90-mile chain of islands connected by 42 bridges, one being seven miles long. It was fun to see although not all that attractive or appealing to us. Another day we went on a boat ride four miles out to a coral reef. The waves were about four feet that day so both of us didn’t feel too well after looking through the glass-bottom boat for about 30 minutes. But it was a good tour.

Each morning they served a complimentary continental breakfast at the cafe, then we would try to do some walking, before enjoying the pool. One day it rained most of the time so we stayed in the condo most of the time; a good chance to read and relax. We explored the area some, enjoyed a delicious seafood sandwich one evening, and found a good ice cream shop.

After we checked out of the condo we went to Flamingo, the south tip of the Everglades National Park. We stayed there two nights, walked some trails, took a boat tour up a canal into a large bay, enjoyed the ranger programs each night; saw lots of alligators and birds. The Everglades were not quite what we had expected but it was fun.


From there we went up the Gulf coast; drove through Marco Island, up to Fort Myers. We stayed one night with some friends in Sarasota, then joined friends vacationing at an RV resort in Dunedin, north of St. Petersburg, for two days. It was fun to be together, especially since they have camped there before and knew the area very well. They showed us the best sights, including sunsets over the Gulf.


Yesterday we came back to Wycliffe in Orlando to pick up our mail. I worked on the building project again for a day and a half. Tomorrow morning we say goodbye to our new friends here and head up to St. Augustine for a day, then up to Savannah, GA for a few days to see the historic city and visit some friends too.

We have enjoyed the six weeks in Florida, especially the 80 degree weather, sunshine, evening breezes and getting to meet many lovely people. Hopefully, it won’t get too cold as we go north.
Hope you are doing well and enjoying the springtime.

By clicking the ‘comment’ button you can let us know you read this and tell a bit of what you are up to.

God bless!

Finished At Wycliffe

Believe it or not, we have been in Orlando (at Wycliffe Bible Translators) for four and a half weeks. It has been a fun experience.

The weather has been beautiful -- most days in the high 70s or low 80s with lots of blue sky and sunshine. Several nights were in the 40s, but that isn’t hard to take when it warms up so quickly as the sun comes out.

I (Abner) have been working on the new building every day, four or five days a week. My work has been varied; some on the outside of the new building, some in the inside. Usually I have worked with two or three other guys, some very skilled, others more like helpers.

We have fabricated and installed metal boxes and soffits, put up mesh and plastic expansion joints for the stucco exterior, cut and welded window mullions, and lots of other smaller stuff. It has been very enjoyable and they have assured me that I would be welcome to come back on the job anytime.

Rosie has been working in a variety of jobs -- answering phones, working at a thrift shop, purging old clinic files, sorting stamps, washing dishes in the Cafe, helping serve lunch to a kids group, etc. Two weeks ago she fell and hurt her wrist/hand so she has been limited recently on what she can do. The swelling has diminished and it is feeling much better, though not completely healed.

We took two Fridays off; one to go to the Kennedy Space Center (about 45 miles east), and one to go to North Palm Beach for a weekend to visit friends.
The KSC was very enjoyable, seeing the launch pads, exhibits of all the space travel, rockets and engines, IMAX movies of landing on the moon and the International Space Station. One astronaut (in person) described some of his space travel, including a trip to the ISS. The next space shuttle was on the launch pad to lift of in mid-March, but a severe hailstorm did some damage to the fuel tank so it had to be moved back into the “shop.” It would have been fun to see a liftoff while were were down here, but it has been rescheduled to mid-April.

We had a relaxing visit with Kevin and Eloise Dyer in North Palm Beach. It was great to reminisce, eat Indian curry, look out over the inland waterway with its many boats, shop a bit, and spend some time in prayer together. It was a refreshing time.

As the days have gone by we have met many very nice people, some that we have known in the past, or who know people that we know, etc. It is a small world, especially among Christians with whom we share so much in common. We have had several visits with Dave and Linda Marcy (from ACC) who have been on staff with Wycliffe for over 25 years. Last evening we had dinner together at the famous Dixie Crossroads in Titusville.

Today we visited the Holy Land Experience, a Christian exhibit center not far from Disney World. It is a mock Jerusalem with walls, gates, a marketplace, the temple court, a scriptorium, Golgotha, and the garden tomb. There were several stages where they did musicals, enacted a wedding in Cana, Jesus talking to people, healing the sick, movies explaining the biblical message, etc. All well done, and worth the hefty price tag!

Tomorrow morning we plan to leave for Key Largo and the Keys for a week. We will be staying in some friends’ condo right on the beach. That should be fun; no schedules to keep, no work to do, just relax and enjoy! We are looking forward to the experience.

We would love to hear from you; you can make comments at the end of the blog or send us an email: abner_bauman@wowway.com.

The Lord be with you,

Abner & Rosie

Florida Bound 2007

Hi friends:

Welcome to our travel blog. There aren’t any snow-capped mountains in Florida so the pictures won’t be as dramatic as the Alaska trip last year, but thanks for tracking with us.

We left home (Prospect Heights) on February 5 on the morning it was minus 10 degrees F. It was a beautiful traveling day and by evening it was in the 40s in Evansville, Indiana; a very pleasant improvement. We stayed with friends who were at Arliington Countryside Church (ACC) 25 years ago and now retired from missionary work. It was fun to see them and to see their daughter’s family (3 grandkids) who were the magnet bringing our friends to the Evansville area.

The next day we drove through to northern Atlanta, GA to visit more ACC friends. After two nights we drove a short distance to friends with whom we went to Emmaus Bible School in the late 50s. This was the first time we had seen them on their turf. After two nights with them we moved across town for two nights with more ACC friends. We had a great time catching up on family news.

On Monday and Tuesday we drove the rest of the way to Orlando and got settled in a campsite a few miles from Wycliffe Bible Translators (WBT) USA headquarters. On Wednesday morning we went through a brief orientation, had a photo ID hung around our necks, were given our work assignments for the afternoon and met some long-time acquaintances from Illinois and California. A man who Rosie hasn’t seen since she was 15, introduced himself and said he knows who she is! Rosie has some recollections of him.
Rosie is a floater--she gets assignments on a daily basis and I am working on the new building that Wycliffe Associates are building adjacent to the WBT’s headquarters. The Wycliffe Associates is a volunteer organization that helps WBT. Over 100 volunteers are here right now helping on the building and other projects. The Wycliffe RV park is full with 60 RVs but this morning we were able to move to the park; it is much more convenient to be here and it will help us get better acquainted with many people here.
The Wycliffe Associates have an activities center where we meet each morning for devotions, have our mid-morning and afternoon coffee breaks, Sunday evening worship, Tuesday potluck suppers, and have internet access to get our emails via a wireless router in the ceiling. There is a free laundromat across the drive in the RV park. So, you can see we aren't hurting at all--lots of conveniences and no snow, no freezing temps; just sunshine and the honking of the many sand cranes,

Maybe you could be a Wycliffe Associate volunteer too sometime.

Our love and best wishes to you,
Abner & Rosie