Graduation, a Move, and a Journey to Sweden

Matthew with friends Ian and Austin

Well it is official, Matthew has completed his Masters of Divinity at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. He graduated on May 10th after three years of very hard work. It was, for sure, a bitter sweet moment for our family as it meant that it was time to move away from Gordon-Conwell, Faith Lutheran Church in Andover, and a lot of our friends. A couple days before our move we watched the Movie "Monsters Inc." as a family and at the end when when they have to say goodbye to Boo both of us (Matthew and Kristin) broke into tears. Linnea just looked at us like we were crazy.

Linnea and her friend Eleanor play with Sonja

Linnea has had to say goodbye to her best friend, Eleanor and she constantly talks about her every day. Sonja was seriously neglected during the packing process but by the blessing of God she is a very patient baby and was very good natured.

The process of packing and cleaning our apartment made us want to never move again. Alas this is not to be, we probably have three moves to look forward to in the next three years.

We have now moved in with Kristin's parents, Lee and Diane, in Westfield, MA for the summer. This means that the girls are getting spoiled we are saving some Money. We will be in Westfield until August when we will move to St. Paul, Minnesota were Matthew will begin to work on another degree while completing a Lutheran Residency, but we will only be in Minnesota until December because in January we are moving to Sweden!!!

No, not Sweden, Main... Sweden the country and yes we realize that January is cold in Sweden. Matthew has been offered a fellowship to study the preaching of a former Bishop in the Church of Sweden named Bo Giertz. You can read more about Giertz on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bo_Giertz , He is best know for writing the novel The Hammer of God, but in addition to this his preaching is credited with having played a key role in preventing the breaking up of the Church of Sweden after the church decided to ordain women. We will certainly write more about this adventure as more details become clear.

If you are looking to get in touch with us e-mail always works and our phone numbers will stay the same until January because the are cell phone numbers. We would love to hear from you.