We made it! We are currently in our new home in West Africa. We want to stop and say thank you to everyone who has helped us get here, and to give you an update on how we are settling in.

God provided 100% of our funding goal in December, and we rushed to meet our departure goal of January 13th. This date was significant to us because we had penciled that date in as our first possible departure date 11 months prior, when God gave us confirmation that He was calling us to go. So we packed up our belongings, said our goodbyes and left Virginia on Sunday the 13th… in a snow storm.
When we left our church’s hospitality house, which had been our home for the last 9 months, there was about 4 inches of snow on the ground and more on the radar. We were safely brought to the airport (thanks to Justin’s brother, and our church’s bus), where we checked 12 bags with no issue, and boarded our plane on time! We couldn’t believe how painless it was! Our flight was going to be about 7 ½ hours long…

Haha…instead 7 ½ hours after boarding the plane, we were still on the tarmac!
Why?…Our plane had been sprayed with a de-icing chemical, but before we could take off, air traffic control got backed up, causing our plane to ice over again! So that meant we had to wait in line behind all the other planes to be sprayed all over again. We are thankful everyone followed protocol for safety’s sake though, and once we were off the ground, the rest of our flight to Africa was without incident.
Our kids were real troopers considering the fact that they sat on a plane for double the time expected (with the seat belt light on for the majority)! Needless to say we missed our connecting flight. But we caught a later flight the same day so we didn’t have to sleep in the airport on Monday. Praise the Lord!

After landing in our new home city we were greeted by our wonderful mission partners, and were they a sight for sore eyes!

The last few days have been wonderfully busy as we settle in and try to get our house in order.  It has been hotter than usual for this time of year so it was a big adjustment to go from 4+ inches of snow to 99 degrees with no air conditioning. But we are all adjusting well and the kids are doing great! We miss all of our friends and family tremendously, but we are so thankful to see a dream come to fruition. This was just step one, and we look forward to all that the Lord has in store. We begin language school on Monday!

Here are a few photos chronicling our first days here:

Taking a taxi into town

Grocery shopping

At the market for supplies

First load casualty

Justin fixing the problem

Rooftop clothes line like the locals

Thank you for your prayers! God is Good!