A Fresh Start

After a few-month hiatus from academic toil, from sweating it out in Thailand, and from this blog, it's time for a fresh start.

Admittedly, I've been lazy with updates over the past few months. There was plenty of great and bloggable stuff going on during my time back home in Wisconsin, on my excursion to North Carolina, and while doing some sightseeing in China, just to name a few highlights. Instead of trying to recap all of it, I'll take the easy way out: if one picture equals 1,000 words, then these three pictures should more than cover the last few months of inactivity on this blog:

Blessed to have spent two months with family

A great time to see great friends doing great things in Raleigh

Changed layover plans provided the opportunity to explore a little bit of Beijing

And now it's a fresh start to a new year in Chiang Mai -- a fresh start which includes a new place to call home (though only a short walk from my last residence), a new job, new coworkers and comrades, and a new semester in which I'll begin the process of researching and writing up my master's thesis project. As I undertake these and other "less fresh" ventures, I pray the LORD will do for me as He promised Israel: "I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh" (Ezekiel 36:26).

And I pray He gives each of my friends and family the same, that each day may be a fresh start in faith, in hope, and in love.

Cheers,

Eric