The End

Well, our African journey is over (at least for the time being!) and our Australian journey has begun. Join us here, if you want to come along.

Leaving

It's a funny old business - this 'leaving your life behind'. In many ways (although I cannot confirm from experience!) I think it must be a bit like dying. Although you know you're going to a better place, it is sad to leave everything familiar - your house, work and friends - in the knowledge that everything will carry on as before, just without you.

However, the difference is that you get to hear all the nice things said about you first :)

I suppose it is appropriate that we are more happy than sad, but I guess it is also important to express some of the sad and not just try to overlay it with the happy (I am particularly good at that - being a bloke and not doing the crying thing...). So here you are - I am a bit sad about leaving Kenya.

But if I am completely honest - not that much :)

This is probably partly because the optimist in me has hugely built up how perfect Australia is going to be - probably my internal way of coping with transition. Libby and I have been joking about how much better parents we are going to be; how much more exercise we will do, and how much better our quiet times will be!

Probably not very realistic because, as we were taught on our pre-Tanzania orientation course, 'you take yourself with you'. Nevertheless, there is something about setting up your life from scratch that does give you the opportunity to establish new routines and habits. Hopefully we will seize these opportunities with both hands, and do things better next time round.

In many ways Nairobi has worn us down (so much for the 'slower pace of African life'...) with the constant battles with traffic, the security concerns - and the extended days to try and beat the traffic (and mostly failing). Having Ruben probably hasn't helped either, as sleep has been a bit scarce for the last 18 months. All in all, almost 8 years of Africa has left us, if not burnt out, very tired. Definitely ready for a change and hopefully a bit of a rest.

So, we are done with Africa (for the time being at least) and more than ready to start a new adventure at the other end of world.

By the time you read this, we should be on our way - somewhere in the skies of Kenya, heading North East towards Dubai; then South East to Melbourne, and finally North to Cairns.

I guess our next post will be from Australia...

Goodbye MAF kids

Tonight we had a special Christmas party/goodbye for the kids. It's so important for them to leave well even though it is sad for them to say goodbye to their friends. We played games, ate cake, received presents and then each child was prayed for by their friends. Such a nice way to say goodbye. I am so happy to have my kids grow up as 'MAF kids'. It is a strong part of their identity and even though we are saying goodbye to this part of our MAF family, many of them we will see again and we look forward to meeting new MAF kids in Australia. 

Ruben and friends

Caleb

On Thursday  Caleb's class took Christmas buckets to the nearby slum. They had over 600 to give out, filled with  flour, rice, beans, sugar, cooking fat, salt and a Christmas gift. His teacher is the tall lady in the middle of the bottom photo.

3.74 cubic metres

After various ummings and ahings, and 'ouches' over the cost, we have decided that we will try and minimise what we ship to Australia. This gives us the interesting challenge of deciding what to keep and what to sell. We have had several sale lists go out, and one yard sale, and we have pretty much got rid of most things we wanted to. The only major things left are one of our sofas, and the car! (Priced to high - will be exploring other avenues...). Also our piano, but until I am able to get this fixed, it will be a hard (and unprofitable) sell. Unfortunately the process of trying to get it fixed (again) is proving very African :(

So our target 'volume' is 3.74cbm (cubic metres - not to be confused with 3.74 meters cubed, which is a whole different ball game!) This is where we are up to so far:

The eagle-eyed amongst you will notice the green markers, which is the outside boundaries of the 3.74cbm (1m x 2m x 187cm, for those of you who want to try this at home!) I think we will be OK, and may even be able to be a bit under - which all helps the budget.

We are trying to get the balance between what we can cope without for 10 weeks (transit time) and what we can manage to fit in our luggage. Once the shipment has left, it will be too late to add anything to it, but until we finally pack our suitcases, we won't know if we have too much!

Australia is also VERY fussy about what they let into the country, so we are having to think about everything that goes into each box as to whether it will get us into trouble. Hopefully we won't send anything prohibited, or forget to itemise anything restricted...

The packers are coming on Tuesday to crate it all up, so we will see how it goes.

The joys of  transition...

Into the 'lasts'

We are moved firmly into 'the lasts' stage of transition. As in "This is the last time I/we will....".

I can never decide whether this helps, hinders or is just an inevitable part of leaving your life behind.

A few lasts:

i) driving my car (now sold) to the hangar
ii) taking Rhum out for her evening 'constitutional' (we took her to her now home yesterday - a bit of an emotional day all round)
iii) Sunday school (next Sunday is the Christmas 'production', and then it stops for Christmas)
iv) play date with Kiefer (Caleb's friend, who has gone to the US for Christmas and Lucas (Joshua's best friend, who has returned to New Zealand for Christmas)
v) Management meeting - not something I will particularly miss...

We also had the 'last night sleeping under our duvet' - as we were planning to ship it. However, after a couple of rubbish nights - one under a duvet cover filled with one blanket (too cold) and one under a duvet cover filled with two blankets (too hot) - we decided that we were just going to have to squeeze the duvet into our luggage somehow. Interesting what things turn out to be important!

We now have a our flights sorted, and will be flying out of Nairobi at 16.40 on the 18th. 5 hours to Dubai, and then overnighting there, before carrying on from Dubai (at around 11.00am) to Melbourne - around 13.5 hours (count 'em). We arrive in Melbourne at around 7.00am Aussie time (01.00 Dubai time, 12.00 Kenya time), have a short turnaround in Melbourne, and then 3.5 hours to Cairns - arriving midday-ish on the 20th.

We would really value your prayers - especially for our final days in Kenya; coping with the 'long leg', and the jet lag on arrival. Other than Libby, this will be our first brush with 'real' jet lag. From my research on the subject, "Travelling east by 6 to 9 time zones causes the biggest problems" - nice :(

Answer to prayer

I am happy to report that as of 8.30 this morning (Kenyan time) we have permission to enter Australia. We have been granted permanent residency, for 5 years (go figure...)

Thanks for all of you who have been praying. We are taking this as something of a miracle, as we were led to believe it would be another month, and according to the Immigration targets it should have been another 6 weeks.

Bethany's birthday and the MAF BBQ

Bethany took her cake to the monthly MAF BBQ as she wasn't having a party.

Visa

We have, in the last week, finally completed the medical processes for our Australian visas. It took 4 trips to the other side of Nairobi (probably a 30-40km round trip each time) to satisfy all the various requirements.

All the results should now have been submitted to Immigration, and as far as we know, we have done everything we need to do, and it is now just a case of waiting for an answer.

We would be very grateful for your prayers that this answer would come soon, as we are in hiatus mode until it does, as we cannot make any further arrangements for leaving, flights or shipping our stuff until the visa comes through.