Beach pictures

We are having a wonderful time, finally sleeping well and relaxing. I'll let the pictures speak for themselves.

Point Noire or bust

The next phase of our trip was passed in Brazzaville. We spent two days with Orcxance’s sister and her family. While there, we enjoyed catching up with everyone, watching some kids cartoons and introducing Aravis to her cousins. We experienced extreme sleep deprivation due to the heat and crowded sleeping arrangements.

Esther and I also went shopping.

We were invited to Hotel Bravo to have dinner with the missionaries that are currently living there, reconnecting with people from our Impfondo days as well as a missionary couple who helped us with Aravis when she was sick.

We also got to visit some old friends Jeannichelle and Talia.

Monday evening after the visit we got a taxi to the airport to wait for Margaret. It was a happy reunion!

After some scrambly packing and rearranging of bags, we got ready to leave early Tuesday morning.

We didn’t get a place at the first bus station we tried, but God provided an even better option, and we got places on a very nice bus with AC and we were able to spread out since there were empty seats. We only paid for 4 seats and planned to hold the 3 girls on our laps but there was enough space for both Molly and Eileen to have seats so it worked out beautifully.

Unfortunately Eileen got sick the second day we were in Brazzaville and Molly started feeling sick the morning we left for Point Noire but she recovered. Aravis also is dealing with some kind of eye infection and Orcxance had been feeling poorly for several days.

On top of all that, I had forgotten to pack several important things and then forgot even more in Brazzaville (we can get it on our way back but there were things we needed for the Point Noire time). I was only getting about 4 hours of sleep each night since we left home and it definitely contributed to my brain blanks.

We arrived safely in Point Noire after a day on the bus, and were welcomed by long time CMA missionaries David and Teresa Bill, who are wonderful hosts to strangers and stragglers. A nice dinner, enough mattresses for sleeping and warm showers marked the start of the real vacation.

Family Vacation

We are officially on vacation! This is our first time ever taking a special trip/time off as a family. In almost 5 years we’ve never done this, and this time we are going to the beach! We started off with an 8-hour drive to Brazzaville, which involved lots of stops but was made much better by the fact that we were using a borrowed car and chauffeur. I also forgot several important things but Esther reminded me that this is our first time doing something like this and I’ll get better at it as time goes by.

Even without the misery of the bus it was exhausting and nothing really went as planned. We ended the trip with a search for a bank with an ATM so we could get money, and a search for a restaurant selling hamburgers.

After trying several banks we were finally successful on that front, and we did eventually get a hamburger, pizza and ice cream. But the restaurant event (we took the food to-go) left us frazzled and stressed out which diminished the enjoyment of the cold food we ate once we got to my sister-in-law’s house which is where we are staying for the first part of our vacation.

We had a terrible first night but hope the second night will be better. Esther and I have plans to go shopping and visit friends and family while we await Margaret’s arrival on Monday night. We are extremely sleep-deprived and this might be much less restful than I anticipated but I’m determined that it can still be fun. It depends on one’s attitude.

Stay tuned for the next phase: Margaret’s arrival and the beach in Point Noire.

Finally celebrating Aravis and saying goodbye to Esther

Our new baby tradition is to have a special dessert, which is what my parents did in our family growing up. However, I chose s'mores (roasted marshmallows, chocolate and graham crackers/cookies) for our dessert to welcome a new baby. These supplies can't be found here, but fortunately I've had a sister come for two babies and the middle one was born in America, so we've been able to keep the tradition going. We also substituted cookies for Graham crackers. The celebration was a combination of Aravis arriving and Esther departing. The neighbors had a great time and it was so fun getting to show everyone something new that they enjoyed so much.