We made it!!!!

Hey friends and family! I am FINALLY sitting down to try out this blog thing! Please have mercy on the beginner! :) We left our hometown of Wynne, AR on Tuesday, March 31st headed for Zambia! The kids did great on the plane rides. The Lord blessed us on the long flight over. Delays caused a nearly empty flight and we each had our own ENTIRE row to ourselves to stretch out on and sleep! When we were taking off, Emily asked me if they would have bubble gum in Zambia. After assuring her they would, Taylor wanted to know if they would have chocolate! (THAT'S MY GIRL) We arrived in London for a 7 hour layover. We enjoyed looking around the shops and we dined at the Girraffe Cafe. 

We arrived in Lusaka, Zambia at 6:00am on April 2nd. All of the 10 pieces we checked had made it! PTL! We were greeted at the airport by many missionary families that had come to make us feel welcome. Many came with their kids at 6am!!! We felt so blessed! Even our own Randy Presley was there to greet us! (I still think he just wanted to stop and buy cokes!) :)

We came to the Baptist Mission Guesthouse where we have been staying and they had a breakfast for us! The guesthouse is really a blessing! We are staying here till we go to 40/40 in a week. The yard has a huge playground built into and under a big tree! The kids have really enjoyed playing with other missionary kids they now call "cousins".

The morning after we arrived, we left for Lake Kariba Inn in Siavonga. It was the missions annual meeting where they all get together. It was a great blessing to have a team from Wynne Baptist come and lead our worship and time in the Word and to have a VBS for the kids. Needless to say....Taylor, Emily, and Micah had a blast making new friends, swimming in the pool, and trying new foods! I think my kids ate Nshima with every meal. It is a very bland dough-like porridge made from ground cornmeal and water. They even tried fried Kapenta which are the lake's specialty...."fried minnows". They ate them eyeballs and all! :) We spent a few nights without electricity. Thanks to my dad's idea to buy each of the kids a flashlight for their backpacks, we were able to see to shower and brush teeth. Thanks dad!

What a wonderful mission family the Lord has provided us! Everyone is so loving and warm. It really hit me one day as I listened to them weep over some who are leaving that I just left my "family" in the US...those who wept with me just days before! Thank you Lord for providing me with even more family...a mission family... to love me, pray for me, weep and even laugh with me! 

I PROMISE not all my blogs will be long but wanted to update you all some! Will try to think of some funny things the kids have done/said to post!