Of course, I naturally thought about my sign language boot camp director :) -- Tim. He works full time for the post office, and ends up being called in on many of his days off. Inspite of working long days and coming home tired, as well as his work as the minister of the Deaf Church, he invested a massive amount of time into my instruction, something for which I am very grateful.
On Tuesday of the final week, I decided I needed to test my ability to hike at higher elevations. Saturday Danette, Donna, and I were planning to attempt to hike Mt. Bierstadt, with most of the hiking done on a steep trail from 11,000 ft. to over 14,000 ft. All of my hiking had been at elevations lower than that, and I had been nursing a strained calf muscle for weeks. So I drove to the summit of Pikes Peak and hiked down to 10,000 feet and back up to 14,000 feet. There was more snow on the trail than I had anticipated, and being at elevation didn't keep me from doing business with Scott and Linda by cell phone. But when I got back up to the summit, I felt encouraged that I could at least give Mt. Bierstadt a try on Saturday.

Wednesday I met for the final time with the Deaf Church midweek Bible study. We met at Tim and Tami's house for a cookout, and then Tim took to us to his basement where he had a projector set up to show everyone my blog. It was a good way of showing the deaf people what an important part they played in my sabbatical time. After we watched and talked about the blog, everyone met in front of Tim's house for a group picture where they signed their love to us back in Kokomo.

On Thursday I holed up in a hotel at Castle Rock for some private time with the Lord and to prepare for the hike on Saturday. Although Tami graciously did laundry for me a few times, there were several times I needed to do laundry on my own. I discovered that the laundry room of a hotel is a perfect place to practice sign language.
Early Saturday morning Danette, Donna and I met to drive to the trailhead of Mt. Bierstadt. We weren't sure that the trail would be good enough to try it because there was still a lot of snow on many of nearby mountains. As it turned out, the trail was very doable, and the snow we ran into was reasonably easy to negotiate. Here you see us ready to hit the trail.
It took us about four hours of steady hiking to reach the summit of Mt. Bierstadt. It was an absolutely gorgeous morning. From the summit you could see the snow capped Rockies to the west and north, and Pikes Peak to the distant south. It was simply impossible to miss the power and majesty of God in such a setting.


Below I am showing the sign for "song" or "music." The Lilly Clergy Renewal theme has to do with what "makes your heart sing" and I wanted Tim to see that I was practicing my signs on the summit :) !!
On the way down, at the encouragement of my two mountain guides, I couldn't resist making a snow angel. Let's see, when are we supposed to start acting our age?
On Sunday I was back in Colorado Springs for my final Sunday with the Deaf Church. The ladies prepared a wonderful Father's Day breakfast and then to give Tim a break from the pulpit, they secured a really good Scripture video to use for the sermon time. It was excellent.
At the end of the service, to my surpise, Tim presented me with a couple of going away gifts. One was a handheld fan that lights up with varying messages, and the other was a special hat acknowleding that I had successfully graduated from sing language boot camp :). It was a touching moment as the Deaf Church poured out their love on me.


As I headed to the airport on Monday to fly back to Kokomo, I carried a lot of mixed emotions. I was obviously very excited about getting home to Linda for a few days before the Carpenter clan heads out to North Carolina. But I was also a little melancholy at the thought of leaving my Deaf Church family and Linda's family behind. It was an amazing time in my life filled with both anticipated and surprising blessings from the Lord!
As I headed to the airport on Monday to fly back to Kokomo, I carried a lot of mixed emotions. I was obviously very excited about getting home to Linda for a few days before the Carpenter clan heads out to North Carolina. But I was also a little melancholy at the thought of leaving my Deaf Church family and Linda's family behind. It was an amazing time in my life filled with both anticipated and surprising blessings from the Lord!