Week One in Tanzania!!

All the praise goes to God - we made it to Tanzania safely and have had an amazing first week on the ground!!  Our last few days in the U.S. were indescribably Spirit-filled.  Thursday (10/3) was Megan's THREE YEAR BIRTHDAY of following Christ!!! AND that night our home church (White River Christian Church) kicked-off its Missions Weekend....so we were able to celebrate how God has been leading us these last three years, hear an invigorating message by Claude Hickman, and get prayed over before going back to our hotel for a few hours of shut eye!

We left for the airport at 3am on Friday morning....huge thanks to Dan Crosley for driving us and our luggage and for putting up with our constant chatter as we were more than excited at that point :)  We arrived in perfect time to weigh our 7 bags - and THANKFULLY they were all 50.5lbs!  After some tearful goodbyes and closing our time in the U.S. with prayer, we headed off to security and our gate!

After a 2hr flight to Washington Dulles, a 13.5hr flight to Ethiopia, and a 2.5hr flight to Tanzania we were greeted at the airport by our teammates Mike & Joann Noel!  Praises to God - all our luggage arrived!!

!!FINALLY IN TANZANIA!!

We enjoyed a meal with Mike & Joann, then excused ourselves to get some sleep....and sleep we did!!! That first night we woke up after 15 HOURS of sleep....and about 15min before we had to leave!

Here's a quick overview of Week 1:

• Sunday - Mike & Joann introduced us to our language tutor who will be teaching us Swahili these next three weeks.
• Monday - Our first taste of shopping in Tanzania....an all day affair!!
• Tuesday & Wednesday - Our entire team met together for our Fall Meeting.  We discussed ministry visions and goals - so encouraging!
• Thursday - The morning we helped in the classroom with the children of our church planter trainees.  SO ADORABLE!!  Spent the rest of the day unpacking and getting settled - we don't do too well living out of suitcases!
• Friday - Shopping downtown to get produce, meat, notebooks & translation dictionaries.
• Saturday & Sunday - Catching up on emails, Facebook, blogging AND spending some awesome time with Jesus!!

Thanks for the continual support and encouragement!  As we venture into this next week of beginning to learn a new language, we would greatly appreciate prayers that God will be glorified in the way we learn Swahili, how we treat one another during this time, how we handle frustrations, and the way we convey love and respect to the Tanzanians even when we may be fumbling through sentences!