We’re going to try a few different things for our furlough this July – October.  Here’s the rest of the list of things we’ve learned, some by experience, and some from wise, seasoned missionaries.  The first three items were in our previous post, and the last four are here:

4) Intentional family time is important.  Even if it’s just leaning back and relaxing over breakfast.  =)  We have a little family vacation planned while we’re in the States, and we’ll try to establish a daily routine over the months and to stay organized.  Abi is pretty flexible, but she will have so many new things to process that she’ll need some things to be regular and consistent.  Her parents would probably benefit from this too…

5) We have set aside 4 weeks with family: 2 weeks with the Floreens and 2 weeks with the Smiths.  We’re not planning anything else for these weeks, except for speaking at our parents’ churches.  Everything else we’ve left for our parents to plan, and we will be 100% there to enjoy time with our families.  We’ve tried this and a couple other alternatives for spending time with our families, and this 2 week deal is the way to go.  Even if the parents are close geographically, it doesn’t work to try to catch a meal here and there, to stay with them the first or last days of our visit (because we’re either zombies or frantically insane!), or to blindly hope that a weekend will open up to spend with them.  It needs to be specific, intentional, and long enough that we can relax and enjoy the time together.  It’s the only time we’ll spend with them for the next 2 years, and all three generations agree that it’s worth the investment.

6) Because our furlough is only 4 months, we need to focus more time on fewer geographical locations.  We’ll be primarily in 3 locations: southern California, north-western Washington, and eastern Kansas.  The majority of our time will be in southern California, and then we’ll be in eastern Kansas at the end of September, and north-western Washington the beginning of October.  We’re still working on some of the specifics, so more details will come as we have solid plans – and airline tickets.  But if you live in one of these locations, or within driving distance, we want to see you!  Hopefully we’ll have some people to host and coordinate a few get togethers (hint, hint, want to host one?), and then we’ll let everyone know when and where.

7) We think it’s important to enjoy furlough.  There is a downside to furlough, and that’s being away from our home in Malawi and all the things that are happening in the life of our church and the lives of our friends. However, furlough should be, as all of life should be, a time for us to glorify the Lord and enjoy His goodness and His good works.  We have so many things to be thankful for in America!  Family, friends, cranberries, fuel at every gas station, continuous water and electricity…  In order to enjoy God’s goodness to us during our time in America, we need to be disciplined to get proper rest as well as consistent times in the Word and in prayer.  It will be tempting to get caught up in the busy-ness of life in America, and because we’re not used to that temptation, it can sideline our walk with the Lord and our joy.  That would be a shame, and a wasted furlough.

That’s what we’ve learned about furlough so far, and we’re sure to learn a few more things in the next 5 months.  We’d appreciate your prayers during this time, and we’re already looking forward to seeing many of you… soon!

Four weeks from today… we’ll be in America!  It’s time for furlough!

We’ve realized in the last few years that furlough, raising support, and just in general being in America can be very busy and at times overwhelming, so we’re going to try a few different things this year.  We’ve come up with a list of things we’ve learned, some by experience, and some from wise, seasoned missionaries.  The first three items are here, and our next post will cover the last four items.

1) We like one-on-one time with everyone we know, but groups are better.  There are a LOT of people that we would like to see – that’s you! we want to see you! – and we have only 4 months in America.  In both 2010 and 2011, we tried to set up meals with individuals and families every chance we got.  Every night of the week, and sometimes lunches and breakfasts too.  It drained us!  We had a great time with people, at least the first 20 people, but then we were wiped out and couldn’t keep track of who we’d seen and what stories we’d told.  But then, at the end of our brief trip to America in 2011, a group from one of the Bible studies at our church hosted an evening for us to invite everyone we knew and share with lots of people at once.  It was fantastic!  We got to show slides, we had time to chat with groups of people, and we got to enjoy the kindness of this Bible study in helping us in a very practical way.  We’re going to try to focus our catch-up time with most people in this type of a setting.  Want to host a group?  Let us know – we’d love to find a few coordinators!

2) Every missionary jokes about gaining weight in America, so as much as we can, we’re going to say no to desserts.  If we end up eating a meal with you, don’t be offended if we turn down dessert.  Now, Matt could do with putting on a little weight, but Rachel’s determined not to gain 20 pounds in America!  Enough said.  =)

3) We’re going to be better at asking for help.  Missionaries have an independent streak, which can trick us into thinking that we can do everything all on our own.  That’s not good for anyone, especially for the church.  As the body of Christ, we need to work together, and a proud, independent streak is not conducive to unity or the joy of working together.  So, there are a few things we need, and we humbly put this little list out there for any interested parties:

• People to host groups like we mentioned above – either at their home or at their church.
• A car to drive while we’re in Kansas.
• A car to drive while we’re in Washington state.
• Support – we need to raise over $900/mo while we’re in the States.
• Costco chaperones. =)
• Someone to watch Abi while we go on a few dates (Yay! America has places to go on dates!)

Any interest?  Click on the linked words above to email us!

The last 4 things we’ve learned about furlough are coming up in the next blog post!

Earning and Keeping Miles

We’ve learned a few tricks about using airline miles, and decided to type them out for all our friends.  I hope they’ll be helpful for some of you, and maybe other readers will be able to suggest some tips we’ve missed (let us know in the comments).  Part one, written a few transcontinental flights ago, is here:  Part 1: Flyer Miles: What to Expect

Pick Miles with a Long Shelf Life

I’m assuming most of our readers are, like us, folks who fly the occasional really, really long trip.  If so, the most important feature in a frequent flyer program is most likely the life expectancy of the miles.  Many miles will expire 1.5 to 3 years after you earn them.

Earning Miles Intentionally: Determine Your Top 2 or 3 Airlines

This can take an hour or so, but I definitely recommend it.  I wish I’d done it years earlier.

1. First, make a list of all the airlines you already have miles with.  For chronic mile-wasters like me, that means digging through your desk drawer, email archives, or passport holder and finding cards, welcome emails, and notes torn out of SkyMall.  If you can find your membership number, write that down too.
2. Second, add any other airlines that would be a logical addition to your list.  Applying for work in Alaska?  Add Alaska Airlines.  Also factor in the airlines which have a hub in your city.  (If you aspire to be an over-the-top mile collector, the folks at FlyerTalk have a forum for you.)
3. Then for the hard part.  Answer each of the following questions for each airline on your list.  I recommend typing it.
• Expiration: How long before miles expire?  (On a good plan, the miles never expire)
• Activity: How often do you need to fly to keep all your miles active?  (Even if your miles don’t expire, your account can be cancelled if it’s inactive for a period of time)
• Partners: What airlines can you fly and still earn miles with them?  (Write down the ones you might fly someday.)
• Login:  What is your username, password, etc. for the airline’s website?
• Balance: What’s your current mileage balance?
4. Pick your top 2-3 airlines.  Once you see the above info side-by-side, it should be pretty clear which program will give your miles the longest shelf life.  My #1 airline choice is KLM, because they partner with airlines I fly often (Kenya, Continental, Delta), and their miles last 20 months as long as I fly once every 20 months.
5. Keep this list handy.  I have mine saved on my computer so I can refer to it whenever I book a plane ticket online.  Just because I have a Continental OnePass card doesn’t mean I should use it for my Continental flight.  This list shows me that I should put those miles on KLM instead.  I keep a 3×5 card with all my flyer mile numbers on it in the back of my passport.

Keeping Miles

1. Never refuse miles.  Even if you don’t think you’ll ever fly Aeroflot again, get the miles.  If they’re not a partner with any of the programs you already have (refer to the list you made above to check), sign up for theirs.  It’s easiest to do it on their website before you fly.
2. To keep track of all my miles, I love AwardWallet.com.  It can check all my balances in one view, and shows me when they expire.  If I see that one of them is going to expire this year, I’ll schedule a reminder for myself to revisit it the month before they do.
3. And when you see that your Lufthansa miles are expiring this month, you don’t have to fly to Frankfurt quite yet. You can often get an extension on your miles buy spending a few of them.  We’ll cover redeeming miles in part three.

(Matt) Over the years, I’ve lost hundreds of thousands of frequent flyer miles.  I imagine that if I could have somehow consolidated them, I could fly around the world… but they’re gone.  I lost some because I didn’t get around to signing up for a membership card with Northwest or Swiss or some other “random” airline.  I lost some because I didn’t have my card when I was at the airport.  And most of them were lost because they expired before I did anything with them.

I think I knew all along that frequent flyer programs were designed for, um, frequent flyers.  And the last several years, I’ve been more of a “take 1-2 really long flights each year” kind of flyer.  Any guesses how many miles we fly from Lilongwe to Nairobi to London to Los Angeles?  (See the bottom of this post for the answer. )

So is there some way to do something with all those miles besides let them expire?  I’ve determined to figure it out, and share the results with you.  Here’s what I’ve learned so far.

Set Your Expectations

Again, the people who benefit most from frequent flyers are ones who fly often.  If, like me, you fly far, but not all that often, it’s good to put aside the idea of a free flight to Australia every year.  To get an idea of what you can expect, head over to milecalc.com and guesstimate how many miles you’ll fly in the next year.

Here are a few global landmarks to give you an idea of how many miles you’d earn:

• LA > NYC and back:  4,924
• LA > London and back:  10,912
• LA > Tokyo and back:  10,964
• LA > Moscow and back:  12,188
• LA > Sao Paolo and back:  12,306
• LA > Johannesburg and back:  20,770

Now, here’s approximately what you can redeem them for:

• 500-5,000 – Magazines, travel accessories, flowers
• 5,000-30,000 – Upgrade from coach to business class within the US, Caribbean, or Central America
• 15,000-50,000 – Upgrade from coach to business class from USA > Europe, Asia, or Australia
• 50,000-100,000 – Free RT flight within the lower 48
• 70,000-150,000 – Free RT flight to Central America, the Caribbean, or Hawaii
• 100,000-300,000 – Free RT flight from LA > Australia, Europe, Asia, Africa (be sure to drop by!)

In other words, plan on paying for that trip 8-10 times before you get it for free.  And you’ll need to fly there 2-3 times in coach before you can get that free upgrade to business class.

While it may be discouraging to see that they don’t go as far as we’d like, it is nice to see that most flyer mile collections can be used for something. The trick is to collect enough of them to use them, which we’ll cover in the next post.

ANSWER FROM ABOVE: Our most recent flight to LA: Lilongwe to Nairobi to London to Los Angeles was 21,166 miles round trip.  To fly through South Africa adds 1,500 more.  (Compare your latest trip at milecalc.com.  Got a longer trip coming up?  Commiserate with us in the comments.)