welcome home

Yee haw!!, back in Africa. A 7ish hr trip from Montreal - Zurich, followed by a 8ish hr trip from Zurich - Dar es Salaam took me into Africa again. I grabbed a taxi [they ripped me off >:(] and drove to the Holiday Hotel for the night. The sights and smells of the poverty of Tanzania shocked me. I have been away too long. I had forgotten a little the severity of poverty. After checking into my room, I get a knock on the door and guess who...........Paul Adams, who arrived in Dar es Salaam the day before and hunted me down. Good stuff. We catch up and head into Mozambique together the next day.

I hit the ground running in Pemba when I arrive. The regular Iris staff all are going to Maputo for a staff retreat, so Kylene and I are put in charge and given a host of duties to see to. I immediately get put on key duty at base 1, work duties for the missions school, and distribution of donations and gifts directed towards the children and student pastors. I also am generally in charge of the 50 or so guys that are coming is as students for the missions school. It has been fairly busy indeed.

But enough about crazy busy time, here are some funny, interesting things that have happened since arriving about 5 days ago:
-- we go to town to buy some fruit, etc and get followed around by this demonized girl who is stripping in front of us and stuff. It was interesting all right.
-- I come home my first night and am greeted by an enormous hairy spider on my floor. After a 30 minute battle, I spear a Croc at it and injure it enough so that it falls off the wall. I finish it off with the other Croc. Victory!!!........and peaceful sleep!
-- I go outside to check up on my unfinished kitchen and an even BIGGER spider (pictured) has taken up permanent residence. My friend Paul grabs a loooong stick and whackes it, but it doesn't die. The thing is huge!! He squishes it with his shoe and ends the life of this terrifying creature.
-- I am awakened saturday morning at 6:15am by a text from Kylene saying some guy had lost control of his car and had rammed it through the wall of our water house (pictured). I walk the 15 minutes to base 2 ans sure enough, some guy had lost control of his car and had rammed through the wall of our water house!! So, we have to manually move 700 (1.5L x 12) boxes of water out of the room so they would not be stolen. It was a heavy duty move job.

I can't really think of much more now cause it's late and I have to go to bed. A lot has gone on in the last few days and rest is a GOOD thing. Staying close to Jesus in these busy times are also a GOOD thing, the very best thing, in fact. There will be many more stories to come, be sure. Internet is accessible here, but not a whole lot, so I will update as God allows me to. Sleep time.