Hi from Africa

Well it is Saturday at 11:45 am in the morning. Jill and I are at Sean and Gena's house. It is a girls morning. Sean and Andrew (their son) went out to a shooting tournament. It is Gena, Jill, Stephanie, Hannah, Nikki and myself. We have had a nice relaxing morning drinking coffee and hot chocolate and slowly getting dressed for the day. Sharyn is going to pick me and Jill up in an hour or so.

We found out this morning that the other team that is flying in from the states today was not able to leave Atlanta yesterday due to the weather. It looks like William, Mark and Brad will not return from JoBurg until late Monday night. We are trusting God through this. One thing is it gives the two of them more time with William. We do need to pray for the other team trying to get here. They were supposed to go into Mozambique on Sunday but now it looks like they will not be able to go in until Tuesday.

Please continue to pray for our team as they should arrive in JFK in an hour or so. (I think it was around 7:00am New York time.) They will have a long day of travel ahead of them. They are due to arrive in San Angelo at 8:29 pm tonight. I know that they are tired. The travel part of the trip begins to take a toll on the body. We left the village of Chilefu on Tuesday morning at 8:00 am (woke up at 4:30 to tear down camp). We traveled to Xicumbane (base camp in Mozambique) around 4:00 pm. We showered, ate and went to bed. On Wednesday we were up again at 4:30 and we left at 6:00 am. We got to the border at 9:00 am. The roads in Mozambique are very rough dirt and sand roads. When we crossed the border we drove in Kruger National Park to the Mopani Lodge where we stayed for the night. We had a nice dinner in the restaurant. The restaurant overlooks a small lake that has crocs and hippos in it. On Thursday we got up a t 6:00 and had breakfast in the restaurant. We left the lodge at 10:00 and drove to Polokwane (town where Samaria Mission is located). We arrived there around 3:45 and went to the mall and then to our hotel for dinner. We had great steak. Friday we got up at 5:30 and had breakfast and the team left around 7:30 to go to JoBurg.

While we were driving through Kruger we saw elephants, giraffes, zebras, hippos, crocs, monkeys, impala, buffalo, wart hogs, lots of different birds, wildebeest and a few other animals. It is always amazing to see all the different animals God created.

There is so much to update you all on but it takes me a while to process everything and put it into words. I will try over the next few days to highlight some of the great things that happened while in the bush. God is so good and the people are so hungry for the truth in that village. Right now there is not a local church for the people and we are praying that a man that we meet last year by the name of Osvaldo will continue to meet and teach the people. Samaria Mission is going to spend some time praying and make a plan for future ministry in this area. Please pray for the leaders in Samaria Mission as they continue to reach and serve the people in Mozambique.