We have arrived safely !

It is surreal to realize that is was about 36 hours ago that we were dropped off at the airport by Laura, Andrew, Kim, Jeff, Ryan and Anneloes and Elise at around 3:15pm on Monday afternoon. Thanks again everyone for your support and thoughtfulness. We really appreciate that a lot and words just can not describe that properly. And now we are in the office of Every Orphan's Hope in Lusaka!

Before we left our house Tom and Grace dropped by to wave us goodbye which was very nice. The drive to the airport was uneventful and we got there around 3:15pm. We dropped all the luggage off and checked all our bags in. All except for one were called "HEAVY" since they were slighty more than 50lbs. We made sure that we got the maximum amount of stuff packed and taken along with us and we still left some things at home. After an emotional farewell to everyone and Anneloes and Elise in particular we went through security and waved goodbye for a last time.

We boarded the plane on time and landed in London at about 6:00am. Since Lucinda and Machteld didn't get too much sleep on the plane we decided to stay at the airport. We first had a breakfast at The Giraffe (where else would we go!) and after that we looked for some comfortable chairs to sit and sleep. Lucinda slept the most. The flight to Lusaka was supposed to leave at 6:55pm but was delayed till 8:00pm. It was a full flight but we all had some descent sleep before we arrived at 8:00am local time in Lusaka. The temperature was already 22C and quite humid. I am sure that it will take some time getting used to this kind of weather, especially after the snow we had the last few weeks.

We just got back from our first quick grocery shopping at Arcades and changed some money. As of January 1, 2013 they have new money in Zambia which means that they took 3 zeros (000) off all the amounts and banknotes. It's a bit confusing at first since it took us a few trips to finally figure out an easy way to translate Zambian Kwatcha amounts into Canadian dollars. I am sure that soon we'll be used to this again. In about 2 hours mama Margaret will arrive from the US and we plan on joining the team to pick her up from the airport. It is great to see everyone again and we already have a nicely set up bedroom at the office for the next little while.

We have a lot to be thankful for and we praise and thank God for His provisioning as part of His plan for us. And what about waiting in line for immigration and seeing a lady in front of you with a package of Kanis & Gunnink coffee. So they must be Dutch we figured so we started talking with them and as it turns out, they are here for 6 months to do construction work for Jehovah Witnesses in Lusaka. We'll let God take the lead and guide us when we start working on building relationships with the local people. We look forward to getting settled and getting started.

Now we'll take a quick nap before we go and pick up Margaret.

We serve an amazing God!