And now for something completely different

So I'm not in Nepal anymore. I arrived in Geneva, Switzerland yesterday to visit my friends Jeff and Ruthie and their kids for about a week. Here is Jeff and his beautiful 18 month old daughter, Eva, in the parking lot of the grocery store on the Swiss side of the border yesterday afternoon.

And here is Ruthie and their nearly month old son, Manny, on the walk to church this morning in old-town Geneva.

Last night after dinner we all went for a walk near Jeff and Ruthie's home. They live in Ornex, France, which is so close to the Swiss border that we actually walked right across the border through these beautiful fields on this small road yesterday evening.

Note the rockin' pack that Eva is traveling in. Well done. Happy kid.

It's very green and grey here, reminds me of home in that way. Due to the grey, though, I have yet to really see the Alps. Jeff and Ruthie tell me that on a clear day one can even see Mont Blanc from where we were standing in the above photo. Not bad. Hoping it will clear up a bit in coming days.

This morning we went to the English-speaking congregation worship service of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Geneva. It was a lot of fun to attend the service and meet some of Jeff and Ruthie's community here in Geneva. And what a diverse community it is! Literally people from all over the world: Brazil, Denmark, Namibia, and New Zealand just to name a few. For all of these people, though, English is more convenient than French for a church service. That doesn't mean by any means, though, that they speak English as their first language. When it came time in the service to say the Lord's Prayer, everyone was invited to say it in their own language. I'd guess there were probably at least 10 if not 20 languages spoken. Moreover, we sang songs from all over the world, and Africa in particular, as we were praying for Malawi and Zambia as a part of the Ecumenical Prayer Cycle, which by the way, I had never heard of before. Fascinating.

Right now Ruthie and Manny are taking an afternoon nap. Jeff and Eva are having some yogurt on the living room floor. They just finished checking out Turkey and Georgia in Jeff's world atlas. It's good to be here. My six weeks in Nepal were wonderful, and I'll have more to say about it. In a way being here feels like coming home, though. The green and grey. The Western sense of order. One chapter ends and another beings.