We began one year ago with a Bonjour and today is our last day on Congo (for now).  This is going to be quick because, believe it or not, there’s a lot to do when you move from one country to another!  Ha!

Sunday was an amazing day.  At church, the congregation presented us with gifts.  This was the first time I cried about leaving.  This church is in one of the poorest neighborhoods in Kinshasa, with a nearly 90% unemployment rate.  And those that are employed probably make an average of less than $200 month.  The average offering each week is about $10.  So, you can imagine my tears when they presented us with Congolese fabric, after seeing our love for it (we wear it most weeks in some form or another).  The men bought one for Matthew and the women brought one for me.  It was probably the sweetest gesture I’ve seen here yet.  The people also pass along their greetings and love to their fellow brothers and sister in Christ in America!

That afternoon we left Amelia napping at Nick and Jocelyn’s while we took Levi to his first live musical production.  The American school, with one of the MAF wives as the musical teacher, put on Seussical the Musical and it was really fantastic.  Levi was a bit apprehensive at first, but a few songs in and he was loving it.

That evening, after the kids were in bed, we had dinner with the Program Manager and his wife to say goodbye, though we’ll be seeing them again this fall stateside.

We closed out the day at ten pm by going back to our old house and pulling sleeping guinea fowl from their nest, tying their legs together, and bringing them to their new home at Nick and Jocelyn’s.

Yesterday was also a full, but fun day.  Lots of last minute packing, chores, and saying more goodbyes.  For our final dinner, a fantastic lamb cooked by Jocelyn, we hosted a founder/owner of an adoption agency, since our schedules only overlapped by one night.  It was great to meet her, since I have taken a lot of families who use her agency out and she’s heard quite a bit about me.  I love learning more about what goes on behind the scenes in adoption and where the needs lie.  If any of you ever need a job, move to Kinshasa and open an orphanage or transition home run with something akin to American standards.  You’d be serving a HUGE need and it would actually be quite the business.

Anyway, it was fun to meet the ladies and chat for a bit.  A few people stopped by to say goodbye – always hard, and we sat around chatting and holding baby bunnies.  The bunnies were separated and moved to their various new homes, but several came here to live and grow…

Today we will soon take our bags downtown to be checked, say goodbye to the MAF office staff and have one last shawarma.

Our plane is for late tonight – lasts all night – and we arrive in Brussels early in the morning.  Pray for us, ya’ll!

We are just four days from our departure from DRC.  A little (but very much needed) R&R in The Netherlands, and then we hit the grind of complete busy-ness again as soon as we land in Nampa.  While being on deputation (how we will spend the next several months – making people aware of our mission and partnership opportunities) may seem like one long leisurely road trip and vacation, it is actually a very busy time – we will need your prayers!  Being homeless with two little ones and no regular routine is something we’re excited about…and scared of…all at the same time!

But, first, we need to say our [temporary] good byes to the people here in Kinshasa that we’ve met and befriended over the last year.  Saying good bye to our ex-pat and missionary friends is easy because this is the fourth major move for Matthew and I (Seattle -> Alaska, Alaska -> deputation, the US -> Africa, now Africa -> deputation…”deputation” = homelessness), so we’re getting good at it (oh, maybe that’s sad).  But saying good bye to our Congolese friends has been…educational.  The Congolese we have hired and invited into our home are special to us.  They helped shape our views of the culture here and how we can be part of it.  Even, sometimes, how we can affect it by living as Jesus did…or at least trying our best.  We’ve really enjoyed their company and appreciated their help to us so much.  But, saying good bye is hard, not only because we will miss them, but because cultural habits of asking for one more thing come out.  It could end on a sour note if we let it, but we’ve tried to find the sweetness amongst it.  And some are worse than others, so it hasn’t been all bad – and we don’t hold it against them!  Actually, we do the same thing in many respects, but it’s hard to learn such a lesson as we’re saying good bye.

Some of you have asked about the many people we’ve hired and had in our lives, and if they’ve found other work, so I thought I’d pass along an update:

Alex, our sentinel, was working for the family whose house we’ve been using all this time, so he will await their return by working at the house and keeping it safe.

Mosengo, our other sentinel, is one of the best workers in all of Kinshasa, so Nick and Jocelyn are hiring him to work at their house until the next new MAF family arrives this fall.

Papa Willy, our house cleaner and tortilla-maker-extraordinare, also will begin working for Nick and Jocelyn on the days he used to work for me, twice per week.  He, too, has skills that are valuable and no one wants to see his talents go to waste!

Pepe, my driver once per week, has a steady stream of work, and while no one has specifically hired him for Wednesdays, I have no doubt he’ll be out of a job for long!

MaCele, my nanny for the past three months, has a temporary job for a friend, but then will be looking for work.  She is a hard worker and very timely (a hard quality to come by here), so I do pray that she finds a job, especially one working with children!

Faustin, the tailor, does have work from other families regularly, and I have also created a catalog that I will soon post for adopting families to be able to get in touch with him and order with ease, despite the language barrier.  I hope this system works well – Faustin was quite excited when I showed him the catalog.

My two vegetable providers, Papa Joseph and Mama Victorine, do not have new customers specifically and were quite disappointed when they learned I was leaving.  I sent them with a little extra income for the month and pray that they will soon recover the lost income with new families.

As for a personal update, we are now staying in Nick and Jocelyn’s guest house and loving the freedom to know that the house we’ve been using is nearly empty of our things and ready to return to its owners.  We also love the last few days with our dear friends, though it does make saying good bye harder!  Levi and Amelia have already adapted quite well into sharing a room with Mom and Dad, a skill important to a traveling family who will be staying in other people’s homes a lot this summer.

You can pray for us in so many ways.  While we tried to stay ahead of the game, there are many last minute details to wrap up, as well as last minute plans in place.  We hope to leave rested and prepared for our upcoming busy weeks.  There is no immediate downtime once we land stateside, so we are really looking forward to the brief layover in Europe to regain our footing in a Western World.  We have already booked half of our tickets to Alaska (YES!) and have a road trip planned, with details being confirmed daily, all the way through the end of July…and that’s only the first half!  So, yes, please pray for us – pray that we will be ready and excited to share about our past year, that the questions and answers and stories never get old, and that the love of Christ and our passion for seeing it fulfilled in the Congolese hearts, minds, and culture will show through our words!

Yesterday a going away party was held in our honor.  It was so fun to have so many people come and say goodbye.  Even more fun was that they accidentally came in shifts, so that we could spend quality time with each group, instead of having a mass of people all at once.  We will miss this team here and hope to encourage each other long distance as we travel this summer.

Since the original day for the party was 3.14, it was pie themed, but chaotic schedules had it moved to St. Patty’s Day, but keeping the pie theme, of course.

Today is Matthew’s last official day of work – the rest of the week will be spent closing up the house we’ve been borrowing for the last year, packing, and tying up those loose ends.  I do have one more shopping trip with adopting parents on Wednesday, which I am looking forward to as a mental break from the packing and keeping the children sane (HA!).

And, lastly, two really cute pictures of this ridiculously adorable girl that we get to raise!

Posing

At church yesterday, she wanted to sit next to someone else…this is her new smile-on-command

We leave Kinshasa on March 26th – two weeks from today.  We are still torn between sadness, excitement, and denial.  Mostly the latter.  We return to US soil on April 3.  That extremely long layover is something we are quite excited about.

Seven years ago, though I can’t remember exactly how or where, I began communicating online with a lady in The Netherlands.  We were both engaged and got married within a year of each other.  We chatted about wedding stuff (her English is flawless).  Then, in 2008, we both remodeled our houses and discussed the pros and cons of having chickens in our backyard.  In 2009 we both welcomed our first kiddos, hers, a girl, and my little Levi.  In 2011, within weeks of each other, we celebrated our second kids, each of us having the opposite.  And, finally, in 2013 we get to meet, in person!

We’ll overnight in Brussels with a missionary family that is truly awesome for taking us in, sight unseen.  Then we’ll take the train up to The Netherlands where Nicolien and her family will pick us up and we’ll spend the next five days getting to know them and their country.  We are so stinkin’ excited!  We get to be in The Netherlands for Easter weekend AND tulip season!

Our excitement over The Netherlands is doubled by having a new friend here in Kinshasa who is Dutch.  Rick began coming to our Tuesday night Bible study sometime late last year and we’ve enjoyed hearing about his country (the Dutch are very proud of their heritage and their country – and we cannot blame them!) and his awesome accent.  Rick is also very tall. That might sound petty, but he’s literally the tallest person I’ve ever met.

His tales of his culture and country have made us even more excited to see it in person.  He also said it was an honor that we chose his country as our first European stop.

So, while we are excited to rush to the US, we are also excited to be traveling in Europe for the first time, meeting new old friends, seeing an amazing country, and, not to be left out, being in Europe without jet lag – not something many Americans get to experience!  The Netherlands is in the same time zone as Kinshasa!

And, of course, I’ll do my best to blog about our experiences there.  Meanwhile, there is some packing to be done and goodbyes to be said.