Across the Pond

By Tim

On Saturday we flew to the US for a week to visit with family and friends before the big trip.

We visited my family’s church in PA this morning, and were honored to give the message during the service and took the opportunity to thank the congregation for all their support that started a few years ago with the “Talents for South Africa” program. It was a rewarding time to reflect on that as well as give the church a picture of what life for the next 5 months will be like for us.

After a nice lunch with Tim’s parents, we rushed up to Connecticut in time to make the evening service “Sanctuary”. This is were Natasha and I met over 7 years ago (and got engaged!), so it was a fitting place to visit and share this next stage of our lives. We introduced the trip to them and were very blessed by their partnership and enthusiasm. We look forward to seeing what will come of it. Thanks Josh!!

We will be here for a couple of days visiting with some very dear and close friends before heading back to PA to spend some quality time with family!

Being Prepared

By Natasha

Ok, well we know that Africa is going to be a time without our westernized luxuries and in actual fact we look forward to it.. but little did we know we would be loosing them all so soon.

On Monday we were informed that our phone line was disconnected a whole 3 weeks early. Not a big deal to most in this day and age when we all depend on our cellphones more than landlines... but this line was connected to our internet, our landline (to make free calls internationally) and our Skype phone (for others to call us internationally for free)! So all of a sudden we just felt so disconnected from everything and didn’t get to do all the communication we had to do to organize our move this week and the details for our trip.

Luckily the phone company agreed to provide us internet in the form of a “dongle” (a dial-up USB plug-in), but then the service provider just could not figure out how to make it work on my laptop. I’ve recently updated my operating system and they just couldn’t work out how to make it work in conjunction with their existing software. Most of Tuesday I was on the phone with someone in India for over 4 hours throughout the day and 2 hours in the store! We finally got it to work that night sometime!

They’ve been filming this Clint Eastwood movie across the street (with massive spotlights), and so on Wednesday morning we woke up ready to tackle all the to-do’s on the net only to discover that our power was down... seemingly as a result of the massive amount of power being used across the street. So we had internet, but no power to charge up the laptop or cellphones! LOL! All good and well as the next goal was to pack up for the movers.. but don’t know if you’ve heard, but it has been freezing in London lately. Our power controls our boiler which in turn controls our heat and hot water.

As a result packing was a slow and cold process. So we actually had to pull an all-nighter to get it all together for the movers in the morning. They came and in what seemed like no more that 20 mins, they packed up everything including bedding and kitchenware! That night we were left with a very empty, freezing flat.

Then on Friday we had to return our car to the lease company on Tim’s last day of work. So we had to drink our tea and coffee out of our Nalgene water bottles and slept under thin covers since all our camping stuff was packed up over at Nick and Lana’s.

We just had to laugh the whole time... this was not even a glimpse of what life without those luxuries are like. So truthfully we had nothing to complain about.. instead we were just made aware of how much we rely on these silly things. And thanked God that He is so gracious to take them away one at a time instead of all at once!!

Events and Appointments

By Tim

The time has been flying by, but we’ve managed to fit so much in. From route planning all the way down to Lesotho, visiting the mechanics at Foleys to see our partially-finished Land Rovers, to an all-day First Aid course in London, to the Living Hope fundraiser in Wimbledon – we’ve been very busy!

Last week we had a very productive meeting to flesh out the route we will take from Ethiopia to Lesotho. It was amazing to see that the rough route we had previously planned was nearly perfect, as most of the mission sites and organizations with which we will be visiting or working fell on the outlined route! It was like a simple exercise in “connecting the dots.” Now our prayer is that the routes themselves will be that simple to traverse when we are there during the rainy season! Wishful thinking.

One of the most exciting events thus far was to see our Land Rover for the first time. Partially finished after having returned from Zambia just last month, it still smelled of Africa – probably due to all the dirt and dust that covered it inside and out! Our trip will be the third time this Land Rover has been driven to Cape Town from London. But this time it’s getting some upgrades: external roll cage, bull bar on the front, chequer-plated side steps, and new suspension and six brand new BF Goodrich tires. After seeing what 20,000 miles of African roads do to the tire treads, I am grateful for the last item on that list! It is hard to believe that this Landy will look like new in just two weeks’ time, when we pick it up. But Foley’s can do it!

Last weekend (Sat), was our full-day First Aid Course in London hosted by St John Ambulance. So there we got our fill of CPR, ABCs (Airway, Breathing, Circulation), and wound dressing techniques, among other helpful tips. Our instructor, Winston (a Barbadian!), really made the experience worth it. We were in a class of about 12 people, yet he made sure our questions (that often diverted from the main course topics – like snake bites!) were answered. What a great guy. Thanks Winston!

That night we had our fundraiser for Living Hope at Cento bar in Wimbledon. A good time was had by all. We managed to get the DJ to play songs that were danceable! We had a decent turnout – about 30 people. Our hope is that it will be just the start in our aim to raise awareness for the Living Hope DAD (“Dollar A Day”) program (See the “You” section for more information). The amount raised that night was equivalent to one year’s worth of DAD support! Thank you again to all who came!

2010... Here We Go!

By Natasha


Alright… so it is officially 2010! It always seemed so far away, but now with 2009 already being such a blur.. I can hardly believe it, but it is actually here! It wasn’t that long ago when the four of us met – at a Christmas party 2 years ago – and hit it off like a house on fire. And it wasn’t long into our newfound friendships (and I say friendship”s” because we all get along with each of the other 3 in our quad in a unique and special way), that we discovered that we all have the same dream of taking a journey through Africa!

The overall vision of what it would look like varied tremendously, but the desire to travel overland to see and experience the true Africa was undeniable for all. Even though Lana was raised Zimbabwean and Nick and I are South African… we all still have a desire to experience the real Africa… the Africa unspoiled by western civilization, rugged, rough, wild and authentic. And Tim by default being married into Africa, has been lured into the dream as well. Once we discovered that we all shared the same dream, we would talk about it often as a “wouldn’t it be nice” scenario.

Then somewhere in the beginning of 2008 while watching an episode of The Long Way Down – a very popular documentary series about actor Ewan McGregor and his friend Charlie Boorman’s journey through Africa on motorcycles from Edinburgh, Scotland to Cape Town, South Africa – that the “wouldn’t it be nice” all of a sudden became a “why the heck not”! We realized, like Tim said in his previous blog, its now or never for all of us. And so the dream started turning into a “maybe”.

The boys dove head first into the challenge researching what it would take to make such a journey happen by watching endless YouTube videos and reading tons of blogs. Before you knew it they started making shopping lists and even going as far as looking at buying Landy’s! It was during one of their (what seemed like daily) searches that Nick found a miraculous deal on a Defender 110 that had just finished a journey up from Cape Town to Jersey Island… it was just unreal… a must buy in a sense. Not only was the Landy in reasonable condition considering the things it’s seen, but it was fully kitted out! So they bought it… and from that moment on I knew the trip had officially begun.

In what felt like a blink of an eye… we were also the proud owners of a basic, somewhat rusty, spider-invested 110. These boys couldn’t have been happier… they were loving it and looking for any excuse to take the Landies out for drives. I’ve always loved Land Rovers as I have fond childhood memories of climbing up the ladder and onto the roof of my uncle’s 130 to pick plums from the trees which gave it cover. And then as a teenager my dad owned a similar 130 that we would drive onto the beaches in the Western Cape for crayfish diving. We would camp out right there on the beach, cook up the fresh crayfish all the while listening to either Peter Tosh or Bob Marley (during my dad’s rastafarian stage) playing on the crappy… ahem I mean “vintage” tape deck. I truly felt alive.

However, even though having the cars made the trip seem like it was becoming a reality, I think for Lana and myself we were moved more to find ways to incorporate all our dreams of doing missions work with orphans, the widowed and the sick of Africa with a journey down. We all then started making it our mission and goal to do this trip for a purpose greater than just our own personal journeys of discovery. The idea that is now Change Thru Hope was born.

Several hours (I’m not sure if hundreds are fair… but I can’t be far off), tons of calculations, and a mountain of xcel sheets later… Tim came to the conclusion that (sadly) it would work out to about 3 times as much to kit out our Landy and to get it travel ready (with insurance, maintenance and carnet just to name a few) than it would be to hire a vehicle for the journey. Early on we connected with Foley, the very resourceful Land Rover specialists/outfitters (run by two brothers) who helped us prepare our Landy to be exported to the US and who are currently working on Nick’s Landy. So we eventually decided to go ahead and hire through them as they take care of all the details and have a ton of connections.

Gosh, and it seems like just yesterday when around Christmas ‘08 we started telling people about this trip through Africa that we want to do in 2010. It was so funny to us how everyone was like “Oh that’s nice” when we first told them about it. But then when people started realizing that it was actually a big possibility that it might happen, they changed to “Are you crazy?” “Oh my gosh this is huge” and even “Are you seriously going to go through with it?” My parents and grandparents respectively sat me down when I was down in SA in July to try and talk me out of it! They even threatened to call Tim and to try and talk him out of it since apparently I’m “too stubborn and Tim will listen to reason!” Too funny!! But shame, they were just doing it out of care and concern.

Tim and I went back to SA to spend Christmas with my family this year, and we were truly amazed. The family went from sitting me down and trying to talk us out of it, to genuine interest and involvement. We were so blessed by a tremendous amount of very thoughtful and practical Christmas gifts of gear and goodies for the trip. On top of that we spent about R8000 on safari/4x4, camping and first aid gear to bring back with us. In our preparation and research we realized that South Africa is known for having the best outdoor gear in the world and that with the exchange rate it would be so much cheaper to get the majority of our gear there. We will also be able to take advantage of the cheaper tools and spares available in the US during our upcoming (quick) visit to the States.

So here we are… tons of gear in boxes and bags in Nick and Lana’s spareroom, most if not all of the needed vaccinations under our belts, most of the visas taken care of (except for the Libyan one that is still proving VERY tricky.. so please pray), Land Rover Driving trained, packing in anticipation of the move, wrapping up life in London, 40 days before we depart… and just reeling to get going… after we finish all the 236 items on our to-do-list of course!! BRING IT ON!!!