Hotel to House in only 46 hours

Tuesday, June 12, 9:30 am.  Our last breakfast in the USA with our parents was complete. All 13 checked bags had been weighed and re-weighed; each was just under the 23 kg limit. Our 4 large carry-on bags were packed and pretty close to the 8 kg maximum. Personal carry-on bags full of child entertainment items? Check.  Time to load all of it into Grandpa Jay's pickup for the drive from our hotel to the Seattle Airport. By 10:30 we were unloading and checking bags at the Lufthansa counter. Grandmas Holly and Janet kept an eye on the kids as we processed the totes and bags holding almost everything we own.

Our Checked Luggage is Loaded!

Breakfast Hugs!

 All the activity of the morning had kept our minds from the inevitable final goodbyes. Now with only our carry-on items we lingered at the entry to the secure area to take some photos with our parents and have our last hugs. Now it's real. We are going to Africa! 

Bye Grandpa Scott!

Bye Grandpa Jay!

Bye Mom

Bye Grandma Janet

Grandma hugs are the Best!

Grace's New Friend

Of all of us, Grace seems to be the most excited. She sits down at the gate and immediately makes friends with a family from Montana who is on our flight and bound for Paris.  She is delighted when she finds out that the mom's name is Karen!


Tuesday, June 12, 1:30 pm. We board the plane and are ushered to our seats. Now here is a pleasant surprise! We had extra room  in our row that allowed us to stand up in our row and to let the kids walk around.  Karen had called the airline a few weeks prior to request a child bassinet for Tim, but was denied. Since she could not have the bassinet, she asked the agent if she could do anything for us. The agent told us she would give us seats with extra room. We did not realize how much room this afforded us. Truly it was God's blessing to have all this space for our kids on our flights.

Look at all that legroom. We were able to play with the kids on the floor!

All Ready to Go

Wednesday, June 13, 8:30 am, Frankfurt. After 10 hours of flying and losing 9 hours to time zone change, we disembarked from our aircraft and cleared customs. As planned, we had a long layover to sleep before our flight to Johannesburg. We feel pretty disoriented as we wander through the huge Frankfurt airport, but we do manage to stop for some German soft pretzels. Grace and Tim devour them as we make our way onward to the in-airport day room.  Too bad we only have 3 of our 4 carry on bags as we leave the shop.  Who needs that pesky roller bag when there are pretzels to eat?

Pretzels!

Wednesday, June 13, 6:00 pm. Good thing we got some sleep, because as we gather our bags to check out of our room, we finally realize that our bag is missing. We are certain that we left the bag at the pretzel stand, so we retrace our steps as best we can in our jet-lagged state. It's a race against time because our flight is at 10 and we need to re-clear customs, get through security and get to our gate by boarding time.  At last we find the pretzel stand. The girl behind the counter texts her co-workers and they tell her that that the police took the bag a few hours earlier. There's hope! Off to the lost-and-found. Too bad it closed at 6 pm. We find a friendly policeman and ask him for help. He finds no trace.  Well, time is up; we have to get to our flight. We are again blessed with the row with extra space. 

He's finally asleep and Mom can rest

Sunrise over Africa

We are really in Africa!

Thursday, June 14, 8:30 am, Johannesburg. Our second 10-hour flight is complete and we are in Africa! We are able to text our MAF program manager, Matt, about our arrival. He is waiting for us just outside of baggage claim. All of our baggage is waiting for us and nothing appears to be damaged.  The porters help us load it all onto several carts.  As we pass through customs, the agent beckons us over to the X-ray machine, but as advised, I tell the agent that we are going to Maseru and we have only personal items.  He waves us on. Thank you, Lord! With the help of our awesome porters and Matt we navigate half a dozen elevator rides on the way to the MAF van. Only one more leg on the journey remains; the drive to Maseru. We begin the journey south with Matt and Carolyn.  Why is Matt driving on the wrong side of the road?? After a few miles kilometers, the kids fall asleep. The scenery reminds us a little of Central Washington State, except that we see a wildebeest and an ostrich.   

No, You are not looking in a mirror- Right hand drive cars and left side driving are the thing.

Matt, our Program Manager and Awesome Driver

Thursday, June 14, 4:00 pm, Maseru. Matt tells us that the mountains we see in the distance are Lesotho, and a few kilometers later we see the sign for Maseru.  We have arrived at the border! Out come the passports and birth certificates. The kids are not happy to be awakened. Matt begins to whoop with delight when he sees that the line at the border is only 2 cars long; the best he has seen in months.  We try to say lumela, ntate (a respectful greeting to an older man) to the border agent. He says all kinds of words back and then tells us hello and welcome in English when he sees our blank expressions. After 5 minutes of driving through Maseru, we arrive at our house. Most of our MAF team is there to welcome us and help us carry in our luggage. A fire is burning in our coal stove. Bryan and Mari make us dinner, do our dishes, and then depart. Beds and furniture have been loaned to us. All we have to do is collapse into bed. Tomorrow we will unpack and begin our life here. 

Border Crossing into the Kingdom in the Sky.

Total trip time from HOTEL to HOME: approximately 46 hours. 

Home!

Thanks to all of you for your all your kind messages over that past few weeks. Above all. thank you for your prayers. The trip went so well; we praise and thank God for overseeing that. We have been supremely welcomed and blessed by our team here in Lesotho. We look forward to working with the team to bring the love and hope of Jesus as we together serve the people of Lesotho.

PS: After just over a week here we are doing great; Joe is driving, Karen has been shopping several times, and we are almost fully unpacked.  We had a visit to the MAF hangar where we were introduced to our team. Jet lag is mostly gone and the kids are sleeping normally. We have begun language training. Recently we tried authentic local food and loved it. Oh, and the bag left in Frankfurt? We are still chasing it down.  Stay tuned for more details.

February: Packing and Clicking

Put the back of your hand close to your mouth and say out loud: "pill." No, really, try it.  OK. Now, with your hand in the same place say "spill."  If you are a native English speaker, you probably felt a puff of air hit your hand when you said pill but not when you said spill. Intrigued? The p in spill is known phonetically as an unaspirated voiceless stop, whereas it is an aspirated stop in pill.  Why is this important? Because many languages begin words using both aspirated and unaspirated p's or t's.  For example, in Thai, p^ha (aspirated) means cloth, but pa (unaspirated) means "aunt."  English speakers have trouble differentiating and saying unaspirated stops at the beginning of words without receiving training. So you could accidentally call an aunt a piece of cloth!  OK, if you're still reading, thank you for being patient, and, you're probably also a geek, so the past two weeks learning about phonetics and other subjects surrounding acquisition of a second language would have been as

fascinating for you as it was for Karen and me. We came away from our Second Language Acquisition training with CIT (Center for Intercultural Training) both with an appreciation for the challenges of learning a second language and with a plan and a set of tools to meet that challenge head on.  We also learned a bunch of awesome terms like fricative, alveolar, labiodental and schwa. 

If you've been following our blog you know that we will be moving to Lesotho in Africa in June. The language spoken there is one of the African Bantu languages. English is widely spoken in the capital city of Maseru where we will be living. However, to effectively communicate with the hearts of the people, especially those in the mountains, we will be spending our first months in the country learning how to speak Sesotho with a language tutor.  In order to take the most advantage of the tutor and to speed our acquisition of the language, we attended the SLA program at CIT in Western North Carolina. Both Karen and I came away with a detailed plan to learn Sesotho, a plan that fits our situation, our learning style and our aptitudes.  We are looking forward to putting these plans to work when we arrive.

How to Learn a Language Domain

One of the challenging aspects of the Sesotho language is the alveolar click which is not a sound made in English. Though we aren’t good at making the click yet, our phonetic coach helped us start making the noise. If you want to hear it, go to this video.  We were really impressed with the how the training program also had a structured lesson set and personal instruction for Grace, to help her to acquire language learning tools so she can learn along with us in Lesotho. 
It wasn't all work in North Carolina; we had weekend getaways and the kids had a great time. First the big news: Timothy is now a mobile crawling boy. He is also a scientist who is carefully investigating gravity by dropping his food from his high chair after he is no longer hungry. After being freed from the high chair, he takes up the task of exploring and finding treasures of food that he earlier dropped (yuck). Grace, as always, made several new friends, young and old. She also loved going to the "castle" (the Biltmore estate in Asheville) and to real bat caves where we saw an underground river and experienced total darkness.  Parents also forged good friends and enjoyed fellowship with our class of 18, all of whom are headed to other continents with the calling and the heart to share the love and hope of Jesus with people of another language and culture. The quiet of the Smoky Mountains of western North Carolina gave us opportunities for quiet walks and good rest.  Babysitters let us get away and spend time with friends and as a couple.  We felt refreshed and blessed by our time there.

Biltmore House in Asheville

About to enter Linville Caverns

Linville Caverns Interior

Almost 10 Months!

As I write this, we are at 38,000 feet on

our way back to Portland. We will be there for just 3 days as we pack up the last of our goods and move out of our apartment. Fortunately we have sold and sorted almost everything in the first two weeks of February before heading to language training. The chaos was real, but now the end is in sight.  On March 1 we begin 10+ weeks of training with MAF in Nampa Idaho, that will culminate in our commissioning as field staff in May.  After we spend a little more time with our families to say goodbye, we are departing for Lesotho in June.  We appreciate the support

The Depth of the Chaos of Moving (it's better now)

and prayers of so many who have gone with us on the journey. We are blessed beyond our comprehension to be going with a purpose to do what God has called us to do.  Thank you for your continued prayers. 

In Portland!

The house shrank as I backed the van toward it!

All our stuff in the van

We have had a really busy week.  Last Saturday, some good friends showed up to help us with final packing at our old house in Pullman.  By the time the day was up, almost everything was in boxes.  On Sunday we rested a bit and said some more goodbye's.  On Monday, Karen's brother drove me to Spokane to pick up the van. Then Karen's other brother, my uncle and my mom helped us load the van (thanks, everybody!).  

The really big van. At first it looked like we would never fill it up, but somehow we managed. It was nice not to have to pack it very carefully, because we had plenty of space.  With all the help, we were done loading by early afternoon.  Our friend Ruth came over to help with cleaning and we had an empty, clean house by 5 pm.  

Empty!

Goodbye Pullman!

Karen and I decided to start the trip to Portland and make it to a friend's house in the Tri-Cities in order to break up the journey.  First we stopped in to say hi/bye to Gracie at Grandma's house.

On the road in the truck: Mt. Hood and the Columbia River

We arrived in the Tri-Cities about 9:30pm. Thanks, Michael and Lettie for letting us crash at your place! Tuesday we were off by 7 am. Grandparents and Gracie set off from Pullman in another vehicle about the same time.  The race was on: we had a 140 mile head start but we were driving the slow moving van. The drive was beautiful and pretty stress free. We arrived about around noon, an hour ahead of the rest of the crew, had some lunch and got our apartment keys.  The unpacking of the van started around 2.  
When we signed up for it, it seemed like a good idea to get an apartment on the third floor.  After about 20 trips up the stairs with boxes, that seemed like less of a good idea.  Plus, it was over 90F outside.  All of us were dripping with sweat, chugging water and Gatorade. Karen's mom took care of Gracie and we just soldiered on, up and down, up and down. We finally called off work for the evening and went to eat.  Here is the tired crew:

Heroes!

Wednesday was mop up of the last few remaining items, and unpacking. The crew left Wednesday evening.  A massive thanks goes out to my parents, Karen's mom and Karen's brothers for their help.  We could not have done it without all of you.  
We are now on our own in Portland. We have been unpacking, exploring the neighborhood, making address changes, working on resumes--all the myriad of details that surround moving.  

Gracie in her new apartment

Please know that your prayers for our move were answered; it really could not have gone any better. Your prayers are much appreciated. 
The next step for us is to get jobs. For Karen, this involves applying for a waitress job (she's already gotten her Oregon food handling permit!)  For me, this involves finishing my CFI (certified flight instructor) and then getting a job as a CFI. 

Moving This Week

The time has come. The boxes are packed (well most of them). We will be loading the moving truck Monday morning and driving it to Portland on Tuesday. The past few days have been busy ones; full of decisions on what to pack, how to pack it, what to keep and what not keep. We have been busy trying to get rid of excess stuff for the past six months but still I'm amazed at how much we have. This is the stack of boxes in the front room that is ready for loading on Monday:

The other thing we have been doing a lot of in the past few days is saying goodbye. Almost every day this past week has included a visit with a good friend who we will be seeing less frequently. Then there were the group goodbyes at work and at church. Today we had our last visit to my parents' farm, where Gracie had to say goodbye to her beloved "ba-ba's":

A big thanks to all of those who have helped us get ready to move and who helped us pack. We couldn't have done it without you. I will post an update on the move as soon as I can after we get settled in Portland. We also appreciate all the warm wishes we have received and the prayers we know you are sending up for us.