The Final Countdown

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.