Back from Holiday

We just got back from vacationing in Malawi. Lake Malawi is so beautiful and we had a wonderful time there just relaxing and… diving! We spent the first 4 days at a place called Kande Beach on a chalet right on the beach. The scenery was amazing even though the lodge itself wasn’t all that great.

The best part, however, was that we took a scuba diving course and are now officially certified as Open Water Divers. Diving was awesome, freaky, surreal, fun, and a great experience. It was like swimming in a huge aquarium and being able to breathe the whole time. There were a lot of little fish there and some were amazingly beautiful with bright blue stripes or gleaming white. Also there were a lot of rocks that you could dive around and through which was crazy! The technical end of diving was not as hard as I thought it would be and we soon caught on to all the little details. At first we definitely had some buoyancy issues (on our very first dive we immediately shot toward the surface when we started to swim) but we got much better after the 2nd dive. We also learned how to plan our own dives so now we can go diving together, which we definitely plan on doing. A funny thing about the week was that after the first day the fins started to hurt my feet so for the rest of the course I wore socks with my fins. I was quite the sight to see… a nasty tight wet suit, big goggles, and white socks with flippers. I got teased for that one a lot but I guess it was funny looking. Overall it was great and we are so glad we took the course.

After our course at Kande Beach, we went farther north to a place called Nkhata Bay. There we just checked into a cute little lodge for a couple days of R&R. The place was also extremely beautiful, more rocky and wooded but beautiful. Our lodge was by a place called Myoka Village and it had the best food ever!! On Friday night they had a BBQ and it was incredible! Needless to say, Stephen was very happy….giddy almost. J That restaurant was also the place where I saw possibly the cutest old man in the world (well, after Grandpa Castle of course). He sold chocolates in the corner of the room and he wore a colorful tie (a little bit short) and a huge purple garden lady’s hat. He’d come around 6:00 and set up his little table of chocolates then sit down and fall fast asleep. Sooo cute!! I got pictures. J

Well that was pretty much our vacation. It was really great to get away and see some new sights. However now we are tired of long bus rides and just ready to be back in the village. We look forward to having Christmas there with all our friends.

Hopefully this Saturday the women and I will make our first big batch of Mango Jam. We have everything ready to sell it and we want to get a batch out before Christmas. I’m really excited to see this project work. Also we will be able to check the progress on the Special Education boarding school. They were planning on doing some enrollment work while we were out and putting all in place to get the children started by January. We’ll see what was done and what else is left to do when we return. Please keep praying for that project. It’s really important to us that these kids are able to learn but it will take everyone doing their part. Also we think we will find a completed church building when we return which is awesome! When we left they were half-way through the roof and we will not be surprised if they have started meeting there. It really is so neat to see these things come to completion. It’s a bit bittersweet to realize how really our work here is finishing but we feel good about our time here.

Which leads me to the next subject of excitement….we have our tickets home!! We actually have possession of our tickets and it feels great! We are leaving Zambia on March 15th and going to Egypt with some friends for two weeks. Although I have been there before, I’ve never been there with my husband so I’m looking forward to it. Then we are going to visit cousins Joe and Kathy for a week in Manchester which will no doubt be a blast. After that it’s home! We fly into Detroit on April 3rd! Eeee!!! We are so excited to see everyone! We have really really been missing our family and friends lately. Once home, we are definitely going to want to see people whenever we can. We’ll have to keep in contact when the time gets closer so we can make plans.

Lastly, if you could be praying for us as we look into the future. We have a really good idea of what we want to do when we return and we need to keep placing our plans in God’s hands. We just want to be in the exact place He wants us and we are trusting Him to work out all the details. Also, we have a bit of anxiety when we think about actually returning to the States. The lifestyle at home is so different from what we’ve been living the past 2 years (we’ll actually have to wake up to an alarm clock again!) and it’s a bit daunting to think about. So just keep us in your prayers! We really appreciate all the support we receive from all our family and friends. We love you guys!!

102!

Hi everyone!
Hope you all had a happy Thanksgiving full of turkey and stuffing. Like last year, we spent our Thanksgiving at the mission hospital and had a huge feast of chicken, potatos, rolls, pies, and all that good stuff. We had a really good time just eating and fellowshiping with our fellow Americans there.

And now we are preparing for Christmas! Actually over my b-day weekend (yes I am now 25) we had a decorating party with our friend from Peace Corps and my Zambian friend Doris. It was a lot of fun! It was especially fun to watch Doris decorate because she has never done that before. I kind of gave her free rein to use her creative side and it turned out to be quite amusing. She put a bow in a random spot on the wall, strung streamers up in the most uneven ways, and the best part was the hanging gingerbread men ornaments that she put on the wall still in the package!! In the end it was definately not Martha Stewart material, but it was funny! :) We got some good pictures too! So our little mud hut is all set up for the holidays and I am excited to have Christmas day with our villagers. We aren't exactly sure of our plans but I think we may be spending the day with our Zambian family and might possibly be killing a goat. maybe?? at least a chicken or two. :) Oh and I am definately going caroling even if nobody goes with me (but Doris said she would go).

But before all that we are going on vacation! We are actually in Lusaka right now on our way to Malawi and we are so excited!! We'll spend about 10 days there and while there we will get our scuba diving certifications. We can't wait! This is a much needed vacation and scuba diving will be awesome! It's also pretty cheap to stay there and the place we'll be at is right on the beach! It's going to be so nice to just relax and enjoy the new sights.

In project related news, we just had a big World AIDS Day event on Saturday, Dec. 1. It was a crazy, hectic, and awesome day! We planned a big sensitization event with prevention messages, a positive living speaker, a talent contest, and we even brought in a major Zambian entertainer (Runell) to do activities and a concert. The day went really well and a ton of people showed up. There was probably over 1,000 people there for most of the day. The only bummer was that we were unable to do any testing because of outside factors. But other than that the day was a sucess with only a few snags (like when the power went out for 30 minutes right before the concert) but all was overcome. At the end of the day we felt pretty happy but completely exhausted.

Finally we have found out that our official closing of service day is March 15th. Thus 102 is the number of days we have remaining in Zambia. Crazy!!! We can't believe how fast the time is going and has gone. Before we know it we will be on to a new chapter of our lives and this amazing one will be finished. We really want to just enjoy every last minute of Zambia and although we are looking forward to being home, we want to keep our eyes focused on what God still has for us here.

We love you all and miss you so much! Really we miss you a lot!! Thanks for all the prayers and please keep them coming, especially as we wrap up our time here.