I missed a Tuesday blog post this week, the first time in a while, because we were kind of preoccupied.

Between Sunday morning and late Monday night, we drove 25 hours and 1500 miles to Charlottesville (and back) to put Julian on a plane for France.

For 2 years.

He’s been doing online missionary training for the past month and a half, living with the family of a good friend. He could have been with us at the lake, but we’re not members of his church and so are not versed in all that’s required and expected of missionaries; that he could live with someone who is close to a second dad (and is the dad of Julian’s best friend) who is also a lifelong church member was extremely helpful. Mike even served his mission in the same place where Julian will be! They spoke in French a lot, another thing that would have been tougher here.

Julian got his mission call in April and was initially hoping this Covid thing would be all over by now. Not so much. By June, he’d started to think he might be reassigned somewhere within the US, at least until borders opened up. We joked that maybe he could travel on his British passport . . . and then he decided to ask the mission organizers if that would make a difference.

Turns out, having a UK passport actually helps.

The rub was that his had expired, so the race was on to renew before his training was complete on September 18.

On September 17, his new passport arrived at the Sugar Hollow Missionary Training Center. Within 15 minutes of Julian sending the photograph to the mission travel office, he had his plane tickets booked from Charlottesville, Virginia, to Lyon, France. He’d be leaving on Monday, September 21.

So a little before 7 am on Sunday, we pulled out of the driveway in Averill for the 12 hour drive to Charlottesville.

Monday morning was a flurry of activity, including Bodos for breakfast (and a spare sandwich tucked into his suitcase for when he got hungry in the airport), picking up masks (my friend ElizaBeth MADE him a dozen!!!), and even getting flu shots. Plus time to drive through the old neighborhood and a walk to Narnia.

By 11:30 am, we’d given him the last hugs for 2 years and waved madly through the security glass.

He’s hoping to send out weekly emails; if you’d like to be on that email list (or if you just want to say hi!), please drop him a line at julian.waters@missionary.org. I know he’d love to hear from you.