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.