Let the Journey Begin

Dear All,


I wanted to write and catch many of you up on the Robinson family!

Johnny continues working at World Wide Flight Services and stays very busy there. He remains in Bible Study Fellowship where the last two years he has served as a Children’s Leader. How fun it has been walking through lesson preparations, story times, getting the story down at an age appropriate level…and endless other challenges as he serves with second graders this year. He has been asked to serve this next year as the Assistant Teaching Leader and it is exciting to see how God has prepared him for that new area of service.

Amy is still in California and is working for Pardee Homes. She does very well with that. She runs in 5k and 7k events and thoroughly enjoys preparing for those. She just completed her fifth year to run in Camp Pendleton’s Mud Run. She beat all her previous times and was thrilled with that.

Alyson lives in McKinney, Texas and works very hard on her little house. It is darling. She works for Fossil. She has an active life with puppy dog, Stella, and finds time to be a Big Sister in the Big Brother Big Sister organization. Alyson also joined Amy at the Mud Run in San Diego.

John Micah is in school at Texas Tech University. He owns a house there and had his ROTC buddies renting rooms all last year. He is still in the National Guard and remains focused on having a military career.

John Micah’s joining the army and deploying to Iraq for a year changed us all forever. It stretched our faith and strengthened our hearts in many new ways. For me it has given me a new love, ministry and passion to serve. During John Micah’s deployment I got involved at Dallas/Fort Worth airport with the Welcome Home a Hero program and also with the USO. The combination of the two was therapeutic for me while John Micah was away. Greeting the troops each day and serving them in the USO made the miles between here and Iraq seem much shorter and gave me a way to give and serve that connected me to John Micah.

For the past three years it has been my joy and honor to serve our military in this way. A year and a half ago I was hired by the USO at DFW airport to do their special events and projects. That has added even greater joy to my life and given me a way to further use my gifts and talents. I now stand with a new opportunity ahead of me that will once again stretch our family and cause us to seek God even more fervently.

I have accepted a job with the USO in Balad, Iraq to go and start the first USO there. I am so honored and proud to be a part of this undertaking. For those of you who don't know me well, going to Iraq to start the first USO has been a dream of mine for two years. Hard to imagine that it is really happening!

At this time I only have the bare details....but they are very exciting! I will leave on September 26th, 2007 with my first stop over in Dubai. I will meet the other two on the team and the Southwest Asia Regional Vice President. Our team of three will do some training there before going into Iraq. I don't know at this time when we will actually be going into Iraq but I will certainly keep you informed.

Our mission in Iraq is to open a USO and provide a place for the troops to come and relax and have a touch of home. The whole thought of doing this excites me beyond anything I can imagine.

I look forward to taking you with me on this journey via this blog! I hope to update it frequently. Thank you for all your support and encouragement and thank you for supporting our troops!

In His Mighty Grip,
Linda