Day 1

The trip has not started out as smoothly as we would have hoped, but we're doing fine. We woke up this morning at 2:30 am and a gracious friend took us to the airport around 4:30 am. By the time we cleared security, our flight was 10 min. delayed - set to fly out at 6:10 am. Then it was 7:10 am. Then they started putting people on other flights. All in all, our plane was delayed over 5hrs., but was still the first available flight to JFK, New York, with Delta Airlines. We missed our connecting flight, which only flies once a day, so we'll arrive in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania 24hrs. late. While waiting for our flight out of Detroit, we amused ourselves by watching the three House Sparrows trapped in the terminal (we sympathized) and listening to the interesting conversations amongst Delta representatives. Here are some quotes that instilled great confidence in this airline: "Are you the flight attendant?" (to a passenger), "What happened to the flight crew?" "Welcome to a Canadair jet" (on a Comair plane) and, best of all, "Is he the one supposed to be flying the plane?" These are all verbatim! Now, some useful statistics. In our first 24hrs of travel: 2 hrs. of packing and getting out of the house, 9 hrs. in airports (2 hrs. spent waiting for Delta to confirm our identity and figure out what planes we were supposed to be on), 12 hrs. in a hotel, and 1 hr. in a plane. Hopefully tomorrow is more sucessful; we'll do our best to leave the country this time! Especially since Tony didn't bring a coat, not predicting we'd have to walk through snow and wind in New York...!

The Day Before

We leave for Tanzania tomorrow! So today I am doing some last minute laundry, making sure all our bills are paid for the three weeks we'll be gone, and finishing up the packing. We were trying to get away without checking any baggage, but the airline we're using only allows one carry-on per person, so we decided to check one small suitcase. Although much of the paperwork required for the trip has been a stressful headache for me, I'm finally beginning to realize that by this time tomorrow, we'll be on a plane flying over the Atlantic Ocean. We will fly from Detroit to New York, stop briefly in Dubai (United Arab Emirates, or UAE), and finally arrive at Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Since we won't be taking our laptop on this trip, we will not be able to post pictures while we are in Tanzania, but we'll be sure to get some up as soon as possible when we get back to the U.S. Thank you again to everyone who has emailed and called, as well as for the many who have prayed for us; our church blessed us with wonderfully sincere prayers last Sunday, and we certainly feel very loved and covered in God's blessings as we set out. By the next time I write, you'll have a friend in Africa!

New Cabinets

When we first started house-hunting about 4 years ago (before we were even married), the goal was to buy a fix-'er-up-er, remodel, and then sell it for a profit - God willing, of course. So, we've completely redone the kitchen and moved it to a new location in the house. Most of the work is done; our latest project was putting in new cabinets, so I'm posting pictures of the process below.

First, we unpacked the boxes.

Then we started on the wall above the refrig.

And moved our way along the wall, ended with a great pantry.

We also have a peninsula with the sink, dishwasher, and cabinets that open from either side of the peninsula, but we don't have any really good pictures of that yet. It's wonderful to have cabinets!!!

Background

Greetings and welcome to our first blog posting! We invite you to follow along as we prepare for and eventually embark upon a move to Tanzania! We are currently in Michigan, U.S.A.; over the next few months we'll be finishing up some remodeling on our house, raising financial support, and putting our house on the market. Before actually moving to Tanzania, however, we'll be spending three weeks in the capital, Dar es Salaam - we leave in just five days! Maybe we'll be able to post some while we're there, but before that we may load some pictures of the house remodeling. Enjoy!