Well, after a wonderful summer of travel around East Africa we are settling back in to life in Ann Arbor, and I figured it was well past time to get some pictures on here. We had such a great time in Congo since my last post on Eliot's birthday, but we had very little access to internet or communication of any type, so my already poor updating became seriously delinquent. Thanks to those of you who haven't given up on us!
During our time in Beni, Congo we got to meet lots of new friends, enjoyed getting to know students and staff at UCBC, and also had a great time getting to know the town better and imagining a future life here as a family!
Some of the challenging parts included not having indoor plumbing or electricity, but we coped with those things much better than anticipated.
Each morning the boys and I had lots of fun doing the washing together (I will be happy if we go back after diapers are no longer an issue!) and the hot sun had everything dried by early afternoon. Funny enough we got so used to having generator power about 2 hrs a day that when we got back to all day power it felt kind of unnecessary and excessive! Funny how quickly perspective can change.
Graham loved playing with the pet monkey "Kiki" at our guest house, and feeding him fruits!
As some of you know our time in Congo was delayed and shortened by a long process trying to get our visas to allow entry. Thanks to tireless work from our friends in Beni we were able to squeak through with our documents (we actually had to print them out in the Kampala airport before catching our connecting charted flight; when Jon finally found a place where he could access his email the document had been sent to him 2 minutes earlier!) Here is a picture of us on our very own missionary (MAF) flight into Beni; in this shot you see the whole airplane, that's Jon's shoulder and the pilot's seat in the foreground. Graham loved having our own little plane and peppered the kind pilot with questions.
I also wanted to post a few more pictures of our idyllic time spent with Jon's family in Nairobi-- we had so much fun! Here is Eliot chillin with our neighbor friend Nicholas. Graham made friends with the entire neighborhood and had such a fun time with "Shosh" and "Babu"..
Here the guys are sitting on the car hood, for some reason one of their favorite things...
Now that we're back in Ann Arbor things are already gearing up for a busy semester. Both boys have spent as much time as possible in the sandbox, to make up for lost time, and Graham has been thrilled to reunite with his old buddies. We feel blessed to be back in this great community, and it's strange how much it feels like the time in Africa was just a dream in some ways! We're praying that God will keep the people and places we visited on our hearts in spite of the busyness of life here in the US. Thanks to all of you who prayed for us during our travels; I'll try to post some more details before too long, but you know how that goes...
Love to all!
