Then there were three

After waiting seven months for the team to be here it’s hard to believe they’ve already come and gone. It was harder than I expected to say goodbye to them at the airport yesterday. Being on the other side has been an awesome learning experience and has given me plenty of ideas and reforms for the future, but that’s a whole nother conversation.

To catch you up, last Wednesday I traveled out to Arandis to join that half of the team. I visited the high school and the Hope’s Promise families, helped as a bouncer for the dance program, served brunch to some seniors citizens, hung out with some of Pearl’s dance team in Swakop and at the dunes, played guitar with Pearl at the Saturday night performance, and had some awesome conversations and many laughs with the team. And that’s just the Reader’s Digest version.

Monday we reconnected with the Okahandja team in Etosha for debrief. It was my first time there with a camera which adds a whole new dimension to it that I never realized before. The very first morning we were incredibly blessed to see this leopard not 30 yards away, my favorite of the big cats. You’ll have to check out the other pics when I get a chance to put them up on Flickr.

After dropping the team off at the airport yesterday things suddenly got very quiet - a long ride home with an empty kombi, my first meal alone. I spent a large part of today catching up on my journaling and wrapping up loose ends from the trip. Tonight we dropped Toivo off at the Ark after coffeebar, so now it’s just Nate and Germaine who are staying through next Saturday. Since I’ve been running on adrenaline and activity for the past two weeks, one day still hasn’t been enough to catch up. Tomorrow we’ll head out again, back to Arandis for the weekend, then up to Ondangwa to visit with Boniface and Saara, a couple running a Bible school who we’ve sent teams to in the past. So it seems like sleep is in sight…but not this week.

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I got my first package today! (Thanks Meegan) It was a 2008 Patriots Day-by-Day calendar, a little late, but I can still get 7 months of good use out of it. Out of curiosity I checked the postmark date…Feb 22. So basically, if anybody’s sent anything after June 19th, I probably won’t get it, but thanks for thinking of me!