We are finally back from our prayer retreat and vacation. Thank you so much for your prayers while we traveled! We left on December 26th and started our trip with a sad goodbye to our Baptist colleague and friend Carol. She is now in the States living it up in the snow with family, friends, and good food. We miss you Carol! We had a great time at our prayer retreat in Johannesburg. A church from Lyons, Georgia came to help with it and minister to us. They were such a blessing to us all! You never know how much you miss being with other believers until you’re away
from it for so long. Worshipping and hearing a message in English is such a wonderful thing! The conference was about “Remembering.” The pastor challenged us to remember God’s character, what He has done, what He is doing, and what He promises to do in the future. It was sooo good and refreshing to hear. It was so fun to look back on our lives and remember God and we are so happy to have had this conference to spur us to do this! A huge highlight of the conference was when the Pastor’s wife talked to the missionary women. She shared from 2 Chronicles where King Jehosaphat hears about several armies coming to invade their land. Then the first thing that he does is drop to his knees and seeks help from the Lord. Then he says “Lord we don’t know what to do but our eyes are on you.” This was such a good passage to hear as we think about how to wrap up our ministry here and as we plan to go home with all of the unknown. We really don’t know what to do, but our eyes need to be on the Lord and seeking Him for help. That is great comfort for us! So as we are facing so many unknowns and decisions in the near future, pray that we follow in the footsteps of Jehosaphat! 
After our prayer retreat we took a little break and visited some parts of South Africa, (mainly the Garden Route) that we had never seen before. We started in Port Elizabeth where we stayed with a wonderful family of believers. It was a “mom and dad” with 8 mission kids from various parts of the States. They were so hospitable and gracious to us to let us stay with them. We had such a great time with them all! The fellowship was so sweet and we felt like we were in college again with so many fun, active youth around us!! It was really neat as well because one of them was from Utah. You don’t meet a whole lot of Christians in Africa from Utah so it was pretty cool. Her name is Lindsay and she is coming to visit us along with another missionary, Joey, to learn the True Love Waits program. This is a total God thing for us to meet up with them the way that we did and now to have them coming up to visit us next month is such a blessing! We are excited to see TLW spread to South Africa and be implemented in the school system there.
After Port Elizabeth we made our way to Jeffrey’s Bay and to Knysna. These places are known to have some of the largest waves in the world. This part of the Garden Route is so beautiful. The scenary is all mountains and ocean. The total drive is about 8 hours, but there is so much to do and see along the way that it usually takes days to get through everything. We loved it. Before heading off to Cape Town we stopped in a strawberry field to pick our very own fresh strawberries! It was a very fun and delicious activity! We then drove to Cape Town where we celebrated our third anniversary! It was such a great time as we enjoyed each other, the ocean, the beautiful scenery, a superb train ride, and great seafood. We can’t believe three years have already passed but we thank God for the blessing of bringing us together and for each moment we have had together! It has been an awesome experience to be in Africa every day together at such an early stage of our marriage! We wish everyone could experience this! We wouldn’t trade it for the world!
We stayed a couple more nights in Fish Hoek at the same place where we stayed with Jenni’s parents when they were here. It is such a beautiful place and we totally recommend it if you ever want to travel to South Africa. This time we took the coastal route train and we loved it! We love Cape Town and consider it one of the most beautiful places you could ever visit. 
So after relaxing, enjoying God’s creation, being refreshed, being cold, drinking fresh milk, eating fresh fruit and veggies without bleaching them, eating at a variety of yummy restaurants, savoring root beer floats, and frequenting Micky D’s, we packed up and headed back to the extreme heat and humidity of Mozambique. It’s amazing the difference of temperatures there are from two neighboring countries. Once we got back to Nampula, after a 9 hour delay in Maputo with Mozambique Airlines (yeah that was a nice welcome home treat!), we have been extremely busy and constantly on the go. There is so much to do in just a couple of months before we leave that it is becoming a little overwhelming. We think we will be back in the States somewhere between the 21st and the 23rd of March. We will let you all know once we find out. We are so excited to be coming back and to be able to see all of our friends and family again! We have missed you all so much! Speaking of which…thanks to all who thought of us during the holidays! It was really fun to come home to Christmas packages and cards! You made us feel loved, so thanks for the effort and money to send stuff to Africa! It was very special to us!
Please pray for: 1) Wisdom and clarity as to how we should wrap up our TLW ministry. 2) Pray for the two missionaries, Joey and Lindsay, from Port Elizabeth as they plan to come next month for 2 weeks 3) Guidance as we prepare to return to the States. Both of us need to be able to get jobs quickly, buy a car, and get settled in somewhere 4) Guidance for our final 2 months here in Nampula
