Thursday, August 21, 2008

WE'VE MOVED

Not only have we moved to Ethiopia, but we have also moved our blog. Our blog has moved to www.paulandbecca.wordpress.com Please come and join us there. We promise pictures of Africa!

Goodbye blogspot!

Monday, August 18, 2008

Hello? Is this thing on?

We have asked our friends in Dallas to post this information for you. We apologize for the lack of input on this blog since we arrived in Ethiopia, but it appears Ethiopia has blocked many blogger sites and we are unable to access the site from Soddo. We are in the process of setting up a different site and will post the new information on this site and in our next mailed newsletter as soon as we have the information. Thank you so much for your patience and looking forward to sharing our experiences! As of now, we are doing well. God has been merciful and kind to us and we are settling in.

Paul and Becca

Sunday, August 10, 2008

We Made It!

We have made it safely to our new home! We are in Soddo, Ethiopia.
We have been settling in and Paul starts at the hospital on Monday.
Most of the things packed in our really heavy bags seems useful,
however we did not bring enough warm clothes. When we got off the
plane it was 59 degrees and it has only broken 70 one day. But trust
me we are NOT complaining after hearing Dallas was scheduled to 107 a
few days ago.

The trip went well and after arriving in Addis Ababa we spent a few
days there buying appliances and meat and cheese. We are 8 hours
ahead of central time and we are over jet lag. Nathan did great
switching his clock to African time.

We are having trouble accessing our blog and have had our good friends
Dan and Diedra post this for us. Hopefully we will figure it out and
be able to access it soon, but we do have reliable email, so feel free
to email us at paulandbecca@gmail.com

Thanks for the prayers and encouragement, they have helped a lot.
Please let us know if there are things we are missing out on in your
lives, so we can be praying for you.

love, Becca, Paul and baby Nate

Monday, August 4, 2008

Peope, people, everywhere

I'm thankful that God has arranged a little time for reflection before we fly to Ethiopia. As Becca mentioned below, we are currently in Washington DC and will be departing for Addis Ababa tomorrow evening. We arrived at the hotel via shuttle with our quarter ton of luggage so we aren't going anywhere except back to the airport tomorrow afternoon. Perfect!

It has been a long time of goodbye's. God has blessed us with so many wonderful people that it takes a long time to say goodbye to only a fraction of them! Wonderful parents who raised us and taught us to be the people we are today (Mom, JD, Dad, Kim, Patty and Steve, I'm going to miss you all big-time). Amazing grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins. Close and endearing friends (today I talked with a very dear friend, Chad, a surgeon in Dallas). They are all over the world. Due to our layover here we had the opportunity to spend an evening with one of my long-lost and much-admired uncles, Uncle Dan. He lives here in Washington and works for the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. He's a brilliant lawyer, one of the smartest people I know. The congressmen may talk about their laws, but Dan is the one who writes them. I haven't seen him in over 10 years and, thanks to this trip, we had a great dinner and I got to show off my wife and son.

It makes me think of all the places God is putting people. I recently talked with an old roommate and friend from college who is leaving for the mission field in Angola as a church leader and pastoral educator. As we talked, we realized that three of the seven of us guys who shared a suite in college will be living in Africa! In addition to the two of us, our other friend is working for the US government in Nairobi, Kenya. One of my best friends from medical school is living and working at a mission hospital in Cameroon as a family practice and obstetrics doctor. My sister-in-law and her husband, two people dear to my heart, will be leaving for the mission field around December this year to work with Wycliffe Bible translators, likely in west Asia.

For an introvert who has often struggled with people skills, God has put a lot of awesome people in my life! I realize I'm kind of rambling, but it's late and I've had about seven hours of sleep in the last 72 hours. I say all that to say this: it's people that really matter. I thank God for the people I've met and known. I'm going to miss all you people, but it's for people that we're going. I'm also excited about the new people we will meet and befriend. Looking forward to sharing them with you.

Paul

Half Way There...

Well, we are in Washington DC and although it is not technically half way to Ethiopia, we are very thankful we have made it this far without any hassles. In fact, at 4am this morning in the Houston airport we had the nicest ticket agent. She was such a hidden blessing. We were afraid they would give us a hard time about having 7 huge bags, but she was so friendly and helpful and even let us board early with Nathan. Now we just have one more flight from DC, USA to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. It is a direct flight with just a stop in Rome to refuel, but we won't get off the plane.

We leave DC at 8:30 eastern time Monday and should arrive in Addis in the evening on Tuesday. Which will be around midday central time. We hope to be able to blog from Ethiopia in a few days, to let you know we made it safe and sound...