Transatlantic

I woke up at 3 a.m. Saturday. I wasn’t worried, exactly, but I immediately jumped online to flightview.com, punched in Air France Flight 51, Chicago to Paris.
It had arrived. It had left Chicago almost an hour late, but arrived within two minutes of its scheduled arrival time in Paris, carrying 78 members of the Blue Lake International Choir. No problem. I went back to sleep.
Kathy was on that flight, and by now, she should be in Germany, getting set up with her first host family. What a ride.



Fuzzy came up from Grand Rapids to help see off his sister Friday morning. The early morning – the sendoff breakfast was at 7:30 – drive from Lake Isabella to Blue Lake was nice. Driving away from a summer sunrise is a nice way to spend a morning.
Kathy is so, so confident. The change in the level of growth and maturity were palpable even over the last week.
I see that same kind of growth among university freshmen in their first semester. They are on their own, they must rise to the occasion, and often, they do. Those who can’t quietly pack things up and go home, to what?
It’s now embedded in Kathy’s soul that she has the raw talent, but more important than having the raw talent is the knowledge of what it takes to bring that out. That’s rehearsals, work, practice, sweat.
Her first concert will be Sunday in Minden, Deutschland, at Christuskirche. The concert has been previewed by the local paper, Mindener Tageblatt. I hope there’s a good audience and the performance will be awesome.
That would be the best Father’s Day gift I could get.
Kissy Missy, the boys and I are off for a weekend in northwest Michigan, their Dad’s Day present. It will be nice to put life out of my head for a while.