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!!