The final countdown is here…4 days until we leave Minnesota,
and 8 days until we fly to South Africa.
We’ll be there for three months, returning in late August. People have asked if this is a missions trip,
or a work trip, or visiting family……..yes to all of these in some regard, but mostly
we’re just calling it a life adventure.
Since David works from home, and can work from anywhere with
an internet connection, we’ve talked for years about the possibility of living
and working abroad. (For a while we
talked about maybe going to Chile for a bit, because hey, why not live in
Chile?) We knew that by May my PhD
classes would be done, my research and teaching positions would be wrapping up,
the money was saved up, David’s boss approved a 3-month stretch working abroad,
we’re past the foggy-brain, happy-just-to-have-showered newborn stage…the one
thing holding us back was finding someone to care for our dog and our
house. How would we find someone for just
3 months?
Then we got an email in January from some friends of ours
who are missionaries in Kenya. They were
planning on coming to the States for three months this summer and asking a
group of us to pray that they would be able to find housing for them and their
two boys, ages 10 and 12. Preferably
somewhere in the northeast metro of the Twin Cities (where our house is) to be
close to church and their family. And a
dog would be a nice bonus since they have a dog at home in Kenya. We remember reading their initial email and
thinking “This would be perfect!!” It
turned out to be answered prayer on both ends:-)
So we didn’t end up deciding to go to Chile…Ultimately we
decided to go to South Africa because my brother (also named David) and
sister-in-law (Stephanie) live there. My
brother teaches math at a high school in Hilton, South Africa, and Steph is
working part time at a Christian ministry (iThemba), and
part time on a Master’s degree in sociology.
(She’s studying post-apartheid whiteness in South Africa, and how whites
are the minority race and yet also the dominant culture…this
makes South Africa unusual and therefore interesting to sociologists. But I digress.) Steph grew up in South Africa, she speaks
Zulu, she knows the culture…and in our eyes this is the best way to see a new
part of the world. We’re so excited that
Steph and David can be our local translators…from interpreting the world around
us into our cultural language but also help in opening doors to friendships,
relationships with locals, their church, stuff to do and see, where to eat,
etc. Plus they are just a blast to hang
out with and their 10 day visit at Christmas to Minnesota was just not long
enough :-)
All that to say…we’re off to South Africa SOON. Below is my inspiring picture of the various
lists of things that need to be listed so that my brain does not explode in the
process of getting our family out the door, and our house ready for another
family. (Passports…just don’t forget the
passports Ann…everything else is gravy.)
The stuff on these lists are about all my brain can focus on for the
next few days so I thought it deserved a photo in this post. Timothy had to remind me yesterday to feed
him lunch because he was hungry. (The
hunger was partly because he accidentally “donated” his breakfast bagel to our
dog and didn’t like his backup breakfast option.) So maybe I just need to
add “feed the kids” to the to-do list if lunch is going to happen before 2pm.
