GOODBYE FAMILY, HELLO AFRICA

After 20 hours in the sky, we finally landed in Johannesburg.  We were met by the Kinghorn's, a senior couple from the Area Office.  After stopping for a hamburger, they drove us to our apartment.  Our apartment is nice and roomy. Considering we have no air conditioning, it stays pretty cool.  We are in a complex called 'Dukes Court' with about 20 other senior couples.  About 10 of the couples are here on a temple mission and the rest have various jobs in the Area Office.
On Sunday morning we went to church. Our ward is 49 kilometers away and it took us about 50 minutes to get there.  Since we don't have a car yet, we are riding with Elder and Sister Lee (whom we will be replacing in a couple of weeks).  We were greeted by everyone and we  felt very welcome.
Instantly I fell in love with all of the cute little children.  Besides us two missionary couples, there were no other white people in the ward.  The reason our ward is so far away, is that they divide up the couples who have cars and send them to various wards in the area so all the white folks don't end up in the same building.
The past two days we have been in meetings with the other 13 humanitarian couples that are working in other countries in Africa.  There have been a lot of new things talked about.  It gets very complicated when talking about choosing projects, getting bids, getting contracts signed, arranging for contractors, site monitors to go back and check up on the projects, when to be able to close out a project and so forth.  I never thought before about all the nuts and bolts of doing a project, some of which can run into the hundreds of thousands of dollars.




Our living/dining room






Our bedroom



Thursday night we said goodbye to all our family.  That was just about the hardest thing we ever had to do.  We've sure got a great family and we love them all so much. 

 

 

 

 

 

We'll miss you too, James

It's still hard to know.

Here's our house-sitters--Welcome!