T-Shirts!

By All

We got our T-shirts! Woohoo!! And just in time to take with us on the trip.. so we are very excited! A special shout-out to all* who made it happen! It says “There is Hope” and then have “Hope” in different African languages.

Alex, our US “representative” slash “ambassador” and team mate, has been marketing and selling them at our Connecticut church community Sanctuary to help raise awareness for the trip and the mission.

However, we’ve been getting plenty of requests to make them available in other parts of the US, in the UK and even SA. So here’s the deal, if you’d be interested in buying a shirt (with the above design) to help with raising funds and awareness for the projects we will be working with, then email us by clicking here and tell us how many you would like and we can see what we can do to get them made in your area.

*Check out Special Thanks Blog!

Last Minutes

By Natasha

This week just flew by.. what a blur? It started out hectic with being delayed by 2 days because of the snow, having to rush around the city to apply and get 2 visas(the last we can get before the trip), pick up, prep and start packing our Landy, and move out completely and clean our flat before the new tenants moved in today.

It seems God is really preparing us to be flexible for this journey. Plans changed and we have to adjust quickly and roll with the punches making the most of it all. He’s just reminding us that He is in charge and that our schedule, time and expectations are now His. Afterall, that was our prayer.

Not only did we have no idea how much we still had to do to get ready for this trip, we also couldn’t even try to fathom how far the 2 days of snow would set us back. And on top of that, being so sick didn’t help either. We kept postponing our Scotland trip till later in the week, but unfortunately we had to go ahead and cancel the trip altogether when I wasn’t getting any better and we were afraid we weren’t going to get out of our flat in time.

I am incredibly sad since we’ve been planning this week for months and we were really looking forward to go visit one of my dear friends, to meet her youngest and to say goodbye (for now) to them all! I had to move past the sadness and realize that getting healthy and ready was more important and that we will stay in touch and visit them again soon. We’re also having to trust that nothing mechanical will go wrong (just yet that is) since we didn’t get to give the Landy a proper run-in just yet.

We are all moved out and all of our earthly possessions are either in boxes in a container somewhere on the Atlantic ocean on its way to the US, in storage, in our Landy... or in Nick and Lana’s second bedroom! And pretty soon all that matter will be with us in the back of the Landy packed tightly and organized in such a way that we can pull out things quick and easy.

Had a great, awesome time of visiting and praying with dear friends last night and praying for some more good quality time before we head out in 2 days! Please pray for our health that we will get well soon and be able to leave in great spirits and energized. And also pray for more time.. that God will just stretch our time to get everything we need to get done done and can leave feeling ready and prepared. We’re treasuring every last minute!

Picking Up... What's Its Name?

By Tim

We landed this morning about an hour late... then rushed home to pick up our applications for the Ugandan visa. We had to make it into the city by or before 12pm. On our way there we had to stop by the tube stop by Lana’s work to pick up their applications (and a quick hello) as well.

Anyway, after a morning if rushing around... we were finally on our way to Foley’s by train to go pick up our long-awaited (still nameless) Landy! They picked us up by the station and took us to meet our home on wheel for the next 5+ months!

I am impressed by how quickly Foley’s turned around what was an African Dust Bucket (this vehicle has done the journey twice before), to a gleaming, mean, green machine!!

It feels great to finally have the keys in hand.. and as tired as we are right now, it was surreal to think that this trip is finally starting. The truck runs great and look forward to filling in to the brim with our life.

Snowed In!

By Tim and Natasha

Well, the original plan was for us to fly out on Fri 5th, but our flight was cancelled due to a massive snowstorm that hit the US and started just hours before our flight was scheduled to take off. They bumped us to the same flight on the following day.. but that one was also cancelled!

We got around 20 or so inches here, but apparently they got around 32” (just under 3 feet) south of here - where 3 of the 4 airports we can fly out of are located. So even if we wanted to, we couldn’t leave before tonight’s flight. We’re hoping that our new flight out of another airport doesn’t get cancelled as well as we need to get back to London, pick up our Landy and head north for Scotland on our “test drive”.

In the meantime we’ve been able to spend more time with our family, see more people at Mt Zion, get some more shopping done and just have fun in the snow. Tim and his dad spent the largest part of the day yesterday clearing out the driveway and church parking lot. And although under the weather, Natasha was able to go outside and play in the snow for a bit as well.

Hopefully we’ll be on our flight tonight to get back to London to start the Landy packing and final planning for this epic adventure!