2014: The Last Quarter

October, November, & December went by so quickly. More quickly than I even had planned. We just wanted to give a little update on our lives these last three months.

October: We started the month apart - with Chandler & Kristen in South Africa & Trey headed to the US to start vacation. The girls then made a 16 hour flight {that is 16 hours… in the air… on the same plane… with a toddler!} to meet with Trey for vacation. We had a great time with family & friends - splitting our time between Pensacola & Panama City. We were even able to get in a FSU game while we were there.

November: We returned back to Benin to the end of rainy season and the beginning of dry & hot season. Thankfully we had a few more rains before it completely stopped. Our friend Anthony joined us for a few weeks in November. We, along with our supervisors and another colleague from West Africa, hosted an evangelism training for Baptist churches in 3 different cities. We traveled the furthest north we've ever traveled in Benin to Parakou. We ended the month with 2 Thanksgiving celebrations - first, at the US Ambassador's house and second, at our supervisor's house.

December: Based on our schedule, we thought this would be a slower month… at least until Christmas. Boy, were we wrong. The first two weeks we were just doing language. But then Trey got sick. He was sick enough for our IMB nurses & doctor to put him on the next flight out to get medical care in a better place. Kristen & Chandler went to spend time with Little Man and our friends in Sakété while Trey spent a week in Kenya getting all sorts of labs & tests done. He arrived back in Benin just 2 days before Christmas. We were thankful for a quick diagnosis! But it did change our Christmas plans a bit. We had planned to travel to Ghana & spend Christmas with colleagues there. Trey didn't get back in time for us to apply for the Ghana visas, so we changed our plans & spent Christmas in Sakété. We missed our friends in Ghana, but we couldn't have asked for a better Christmas. More to come about this in our next post! Trey then celebrated his 27th birthday at the beach! And we wrapped up 2014 with the loudest firecrackers we've ever heard {setting off firecrackers in-between a concrete wall & concrete house will do that}.

Here's to 2015 - a year that holds lots of anticipation, excitement, uncertainty, and faith.

Safari

After our meeting in Kenya, we were able to take some vacation time and go on a Safari. It was incredible. We stayed in "luxury" tents in the middle of a conservancy... meaning, the animals could come to our tents at night. The tents had bucket showers, toilets, & sinks... meaning we could shower, flush the toilet, & wash our hands. After our evening safaris they filled up our big buckets with HOT water so we could take a nice show before dinner. While we were at dinner they put hot water bottles in our bed to warm it up for the cold evening, along with our turn down service. After dark, we had guards that walked us from place to place carrying spears, you know, just in case a lion showed up. In fact, our first night a lion was spotted between tents 3 & 4... we were staying in tent 4. Chandler was fussing and we heard growling outside our tent. We decided it was just a warthog. It wasn't until the next morning that we found out it was a LION! We went out in the mornings and evenings to look for animals. We saw lots of animals!