After 50+ hours in transit, we finally arrived in Lusaka, Zambia. We left Seattle on Saturday, August 2nd on a red-eye to DC where we had a 12 hour layover. Thankfully, we got to hang out with Sharon and Andrew Simpson and see a bit of DC (The Simpson's live in Nairobi and were in DC visiting family before heading back to Kenya).

Next, a 16 hour flight to Johannesburg, where we spent the night and left the following evening, a 24 hour layover in Jo'burg - I guess there weren't any earlier flights to Lusaka! The two-hour flight to Lusaka was a breeze (compared to our other flights).

We arrived at 9pm Tuesday, August 5 to find the World Vision staff waiting for us! What a relief! And, all our luggage made it with us as well (although South African Airlines really dinged us for excess weight; United let us take excess bags with no additional charge).

We have a furnished, four bedroom house (plenty of room for guests!!) with 2 1/2 bathrooms. It's in a lovely, quiet neighborhood. Every house is behind a large, solid wall, so I'm not sure we'll ever see or get to know our neighbors. I just heard from a co-worker that our area - called the Woodlands - is one of the original British settlements which is why there are so many tall trees in our neighborhood.

The kitchen is fully stocked with a microwave, stove, fridge/freezer, and a small stand up freezer. We have one small 6" fry pan so we'll have to be creative about how we cook!!

We're in the middle of winter and although it's sunny out, it's a bit chilly in the mornings and evening, but lovely during the day. The sky is a beautiful blue! But the windy season is just starting where the red dirt will get kicked up and blow everywhere! Having grass in front of our house will help keep the dirt out of the house.

Here are some photos of our trip:


Hanging out at Sea-Tac airport at the start our journey:

Classic photo of the kids in front of the White House (John was holding himself back from jumping the fence and expressing his feelings towards George W!):


Sophie and Peter with Joel and Joshua Simpson eating ice-cream in DC:

On the LONG 16 flight from DC to Johannesburg. In spite of the variety of movies being shown on the monitor in front of their seats, the kids eventually broke down to sleep a bit!

At the Johannesburg Airport, checking in with all our luggage (10 checked bags and 3 carry ons):

Our new house on Msuzi Road (note small pool on left which is quite dirty at the moment):

The living room - the TV is hooked up to a dish with a gazillion channels (we go from a house in the U.S. with no cable to a house in Africa with hundreds of channels) !!! We're able to watch the Olympics any time of the day or night...No need to wander down to the local pub (not that there is one!) to catch the games.

View into the dining room:

Peter is starting his own baseball team with our housekeeper, Virginia's, three sons: Muteli (12) - left, Mwansa (6) - center, and Billy (10) - right.

Some interesting tidbits:

• We live "around the corner" from the President's House (known here as "The State House"). So, it's a pretty safe neighborhood and one really great benefit is that we won't experience the same level of power outages as many other parts of the city. I have found a nice running route that takes me right in front of the State House - amazingly, I feel very safe running alone in the early morning hours - although being at 4,200 feet, my lungs are hurting! Or maybe it's my old age...



• Our housekeeper's name is Virginia. She has been working at the house for the past three years for two different renters and seems to be really nice, hard working, and very trustworthy. She is married with 3 sons: Muteli (12), Billy (10), and Mwansa (6) and Peter is SO happy there are other boys to play with. Virginia's husband lives in another part of the country and is studying to get his degree, but he should be home on leave this month so we'll have a chance to meet him.



• My boss here said that having a housekeeper "takes a day to get used to and a lifetime to get over." I can already tell that will be the case for us. Virginia cleans, does the laundry, keeps the yard tidy and said she'd be willing to keep up the vegetable garden so we can have fresh lettuce, tomatos, broccoli, etc. (all which grow year-around).



• Because it will be another 3 months before our stuff arrives (via sea) and we only came with the bags we brought with us, Virginia has been kind enough to share some of her stuff with us: pots and pans, knives, dishes, glasses, dish towels, toaster, etc. We're surmissing they're all things the past tenants didn't want to take back with them...What a blessing for us!



• We went to church yesterday with one of the RAPIDS workers. It was quite the experience! Lots of LOUD singing (a 20 person choir with microphones) and dancing with a guest preacher who was your classic fire and brimstone preacher! (It's ironic that the pastor of the church is a very soft-spoken preacher). Peter's comment was, "wow, that was really different from our quiet, stiff church service. I liked it!"



• When asked about the differences between Zambia and the U.S., the kids mentioned: 1) they drive on the other side of the street, 2) the grocery stores are different (and smell different) and 3) the people seem very friendly and nice. When I asked them if they noticed that the people were mostly all black, they said, "no, not really." How great to have children who are color-blind!



• I got my new World Vision car: it's a bright blue Toyota Avanza. It's not one of those "blend in with the rest of the cars" kind of color...Driving on the other side of the road has been a test on my hard-wired brain. I still reach back over my left shoulder to get the seat belt. Having wheels has allowed us to drive around Lusaka to explore...freedom!



• School starts on Wednesday, August 13 with a new student orientation tomorrow (Tuesday); it'll be good to get the kids into a schedule and meeting new friends.



• We're finally over jet lag - and feeling really good. The first morning here, we all woke up at 3am - somehow both kids ended up in our bed during the night (it was the usual "I'm scared line that got them there). We forced them to stay in bed until 5:30am when we finally got out of bed!



• Grocery store shopping. Living here, one realizes that the U.S. has a ridiculous number of options for food - and a huge number of choices per food type! Here, there is one kind of milk: whole milk - no low fat, no buttermilk, no half and half, no lactose-free, etc... One brand of yogurt. No luncheon meat as we think about it, instead they are thicker, round, slabs of either ham or chicken (no turkey).



• Shopping: we've learned that one grocery store is particularly expensive; the one close to our house "Melissa's" is ok priced (it was packed when we visited it!). There is a local farmers market on Tuesdays that I'll visit tomorrow with Virginia. We still have yet to find coffee beans, they're into tea and instant coffee (yuck). I just learned that the director of CARE grows coffee and sells it, so I hope I can get on that delivery route! We are slowly running out of the one package of coffee we brought and are starting to panic!! :-)

• I've started working and it's been great to meet some really intelligent, committed staff. I will continue with orientation in both offices (World Vision Zambia and RAPIDS) next week, then I will have an opportunity to visit some of World Vision's projects in the following weeks.

All in all, we are really adjusting well. It hasn't even been a week yet that we've been here, but it has been such a blessing to move into a furnished house (even though we shipped our goods and furniture expecting to move into an unfurnished house! John is uniquely suited to take on the challenge of getting rid of the stuff we don't need). We have a wonderful housekeeper who knows the house and what's needed - we're glad we didn't have to go through the interviewing process since we wouldn't even know what to look for. We have a car - and John is working with our World Vision transportation manager to secure one for himself.

We appreciate your prayers for continued good health, school friends for the kids, and an opportunity for John to get connected. We miss you all!