This is it! It is our last night in the US, at least for a while. Tomorrow evening is our flight to Morocco, and we expect that flight to be the next time we sleep. I highly doubt we will get much tonight! It’s so exciting that we are finally at this point. At the same moment, it is rather scary to be stepping out into the unknown; not that the last two years have been what would be considered by most to be “normal”.

We are staying these final couple of days with our good friends Scott & Dominica Miller (and their baby girl, Liesl… yes, it is pronounced like weasel, but with an “L”) in Peekskill, New York. It’s not too far from JFK, and it was good to get a short calm before the storm, as it were. Danielle’s mother brought our luggage down to us, which saved us a bundle by eliminating the need to rent a van to transport it all. We have 14 packages in total, plus one carry-on per person. It is unfortunate that the airline rules now limit us to one carry-on (under 22 lbs.) and one checked package (no more than 50 lbs.), instead of the old 70-pound allowance. Thank the Lord for the shipping container that was sent last Spring; I can only imagine what we would have had to carry if not for that!

Tomorrow at about 1:30 pm, we will leave here for the airport, being driven by Scott. That is just one more blessing to add to the growing list. I may be crazy enough to leave everything (well, except for the tons of junk we are taking with us…) and move to the middle of the jungle, but I am in no way mentally prepared to drive through New York City with all of this on my mind. From there, we depart at 8:20 pm and should arrive in Morocco approximately seven and a half hours later. Morocco is something like 4 hours ahead of our time, so we lose those hours during the flight. Around six hours later, we should be boarding the plane for Brazzaville and arrive there by 10:30 pm, their time. We will remain at Global’s guest house there for 4 or 5 days until we fly to Impfondo to begin our service at the hospital.

I have been working on my French, and it’s all coming back. I am continually surprised to remember all of the words that I haven’t seen in so many years. I think I will do just fine, but please keep up the prayers anyway. It can’t hurt! While you are praying, please keep in mind our acclimation to the weather, food, culture, food, and lack of pizza and Mountain Dew! Also, please lift up our family embers who are beginning to cope with our being gone away for a few years. Everyone is excited with us, but parting is still difficult. Another good prayer request would be for the stress that all of this has put on our family. This much stress tends to bring out the worst in our fallen nature, and we can have much shorter fuses at times. We know that adjusting to Congo will be stressful as well, so we pray that the Lord will give us strength and patience as we live and interact with each other in our new setting.

Beyond all of this, we thank you for your continued prayers and support as we step out. We also count on these to keep continuing. God is good, and we are blessed to have all of you invested in this ministry. We eagerly anticipate our fruitfulness together with you. It will be exciting to see what the Lord has in store for us, and it will be our joy to pass that along to you. Until then, the Lord bless you and keep you. Good night, and we’ll contact you from the other side of the pond soon!