WE’RE HERE !!

This is the real beginning of our journey, we are now where GOD has called us to be and the joyful work of the Lord will be administered.
Sunday February 1st. Our day began with worshiping at our home church. Lunch with our family and a long drawn out packing fest which consisted of one visit to the one and only…… Wal-Mart for more luggage. Watching our grandson try to pack himself in one of the suitcases closing the lid and saying “Hep me” We stayed up all night packing so we will sleep on the long flight after we leave Atlanta??

Monday, February 2nd, since we did not sleep we continued our Good bye with our Grandson for which Amanda & Travis took him to daycare. Then pack the Church Van (very appreciative for the use) My sister came with us to the airport, Our Pastor Timmy Blair and Youth Pastor Tim Lynch met us there for support.. and we really needed it. It was very hard saying good bye. The last thing my daughter whispered in my ear was “ Go tell them about Jesus, Mom.” How blessed to have a daughter that even though it breaks her heart for her parents to be moving over 8 thousand miles away that she understands the call of God and how important it is. Thank you Jesus!! So 11:30am we are off..The flight was a smooth one and so was our connection to Atlanta..In Atlanta we had enough time to eat lunch, Mexican..my favorite, not so much Donald’s but it was the closest food to the departure gate. 4:30 pm board Delta for a very long flight approximately 9 hours over the ocean to Senegal (a short stop for refuel). Off again for another 9 hours to Johannesburg (Joberg for short). The flights have been great, no turbulence but also no sleep for me (much) .

Tuesday, February 3rd, 5:30 pm arrived in Joberg. After receiving the good news that our luggage (all 8 pieces) arrived with us but were checked straight through to a holding bldg. till Wed. morning when our final flight will leave for Manzini. We crossed the street and took a shuttle bus over to a nice hotel called the Southern Sun. ( Appropriately since we are southern and we are to be a bright and shining light in the darkness for Jesus..) After a nice meal (for which I not thinking ordered TEA, Tea here is served warm, which I enjoyed) in the hotel restaurant we went up to our room and…. Oh please, let me ship the bed to our new home in Mbabane, it was wonderful, reminded me of dreams of jumping into a big pile of feathers…Needless to say I slept like a baby till 4 AM Wednesday morning .

Wednesday, February 4th, 4am Joberg time, 9:00 pm Tuesday night U.S time. The internet was not free so we bought a few minutes and tried to connect with our daughter who was out and about with our Pastor’s wife, Wendy, God bless her, she took Amanda for the day to try to keep her mind off missing us.(.Love you Wendy.. and Timmy) and back to their home to eat dinner for which our Pastor prepared. Run, Run, Run through the airport, the passport area took longer than we expected but we did make the flight..This flight was a lot different, this was a 29 passenger prop propeller tiny plane but they served a very good breakfast. It was cloudy so I could not see much of the country side as Donald did when he flew in April of 2008 but as we were landing you could see the large mountains and rock..it was beautiful and since it is summer here in Swaziland everything is green, but also very wet. They have a cyclone off the coast and it has brought a lot of rain. 8:00 AM We step off the tiny plane and the Airport is painted very colorful and it is very small, quaint. We were picked up at the airport by one of our fellow missionaries, Sandra Chesterman. She and house-mate Jessie will be our neighbors. We could not believe that ALL 8 pieces of luggage arrived with us. This is very rare; usually it can be as long as weeks before you receive your entire luggage since the plane is so small there is not much room on the flight. Sandra informed us that the plans had changed for a couple of days due to her and Jessie were having to drive to Joberg to pick up a child who had surgery several weeks ago and they were finally letting her come back home. So for the next few days we will be kind of on our own. The Rogers have a house keeper named ma-gay Joice who will be fixing us meals. So we start unpacking some of the suit cases, don’t want to unpack a lot since we do not know how long we will be here in the Guest house before we move to our house. It has rained solid since we hit the ground this morning. We received our first visitors today, 2 missionaries Greg and Kristen since ma-gay Joice prepared lunch (a lot of food) We invited them to join us then they were so kind as to drive us over to where our house is located, we could not go up the hill to the house since we did not have access to the gate. Our house is having some light repairs done since the house was previously rented by a few bachelors. Lunch consisted of a type of vegetable beef stew to go over some spiral noodles and homemade rolls, yes rolls, better than the ones they serve at Golden Corral. I will have to get her to teach me how to make them. Things are cooked different here due to the altitude we are at. So with a full stomach and a sightseeing tour we came back to the guest house and with it being cool and damp and raining outside we both decided to take a nap. The nap for me consisted of about 4 hours, did not realize how tired we were.

Wednesday night 9 pm : As I sit here at the counter typing this blog and drinking hot tea, I am thanking our most gracious heavenly father , our family, church family and friends who have made this possible though donations and prayers. Please continue to pray for us, we have a lot of work ahead of us here. Thank you and God’s Blessings to you all.