We're finally back on American soil! After a 4 hour mechanical delay at London Heathrow airport, we arrived in Chicago on Sunday morning around 1:30 am. We made it back to Kalamazoo around 4:00 am, and caught a few hours of sleep before a day of catching up with family. Today, we got a start on our 15 loads of laundry and rode bikes to Barne's and Noble. It's felt so different to hear everyone speaking English. Not British English, not English with an Irish accent, but actually MIDWEST English!

For the next couple weeks, our home is Lauren's old bedroom at her parents house. Soon, we'll be moving back into our old condo in Portage. Lauren looks likely to return to work at Water Street Coffee, and is on track to finish up her degree by this April. Jake is enjoying unemployment and looking for work with a church or some other faith-based organization.

We're just beginning to process all of the amazing experiences that we've had over the past six months. Since January, we've been to Switzerland, China, Philippines, Holland, Germany, France, Luxembourg, Belgium, England, and Ireland! We've been stretched in what we believe about God, what it means to live life as a Christian, who we are and what our place is in this world, and so much more. It seems the past months have brought more questions than answers, but we're looking forward to finding those answers in the next stage of our journey.

We want to say a huge THANK YOU to all of you who prayed for us, gave financially, offered advice, or kept up with our blog and e-mails! We really mean it when we say that we couldn't have done this without you. We're hoping to get in touch with each of you individually over the following weeks or months. We wouldn't want to invite ourselves over for dinner, but if you're going to have extra food and you'd like to hear some stories and see some of our pictures, we're not going to refuse! (We have over 1,500 of them!) Feel free to call or shoot us an e-mail. Until then, here are just a few pictures from our travels:


In Zermatt in front of the Matterhorn


The Guiness factory in Dublin


Eiffel tower in Paris


Near Jake's Grandpa Mulder's childhood home in Holland