My husband is SO lucky!

Dan tends to drive with a bit of a lead foot and easily picks up speeding tickets.

This last month Dan was ticketed 6x in the same speed trap about 4 blocks from our house. It is at the bottom of a hill and we were pretty sure that wasn’t legal. He went this morning to renew his license and to ask about the tickets. He got ALL 6 of them revoked since the police hadn’t done the proper paperwork to be at that particular site.

SO LUCKY!

Just after Dan called me with this news, I was driving and saw a similar speed trap which was also at the bottom of a hill. This car was flying down the hill and the policeman actually jumped out into the street in front of the car to flag it over to ticket it since there wasn’t a squad car there…just a couple guys hiding in the bushes with a camera. I was certain he was going to die. CRAZY.



One more ticket story – our Canadian teammate Craig’s middle name is Clinton and on Canadian licenses the first and middle name are on the first line and the last name is on the second. He has gotten out of so many tickets because the police think he is related to Bill Clinton. "How is Bill? Do you think Hilary will win?" Pretty funny!

thanks for your prayers

I am enjoying the few minutes of quiet here at my computer desk since I have so many things whirling through my mind as we are getting closer and closer to our return to the States! We are really looking forward to seeing everyone again and we have only 10 days left till we get on a plane. In those 10 days we are packing in way too many things!! We have a wedding to attend, a trip to Swaziland for short term team planning (we hope to do the trip in one day!!), a massive conference to help with, and ministry things to wrap up before we leave. Our checklist is long, but definitely not impossible. We are taking a mental break tonight and are going to our teammate’s home for a game night.

First of all – Miesha’s visa did come through and we had it in our hands as of last Wednesday. I don’t want to tell the long version of the story because it was excruciatingly frustrating for us…but the short version is – praise God, it arrived in time!

The guys who traveled up to Zimbabwe had an amazing week and said it was on of their “best ever” trips. God moved in hearts, pastors were trained and they said “even though the electricity is out (often for weeks at a time!) God’s fire is burning bright in their hearts!”

This week we celebrated our anniversary of living and working in South Africa for 2 years. Wow! God is good.

Please pray for us as we prepare for our journey home and for safety in our travels until we see you again.

Super Bowl in Africa...

Some friends from church were interested in learning how "american football" is played. (Football everywhere else in the world equals soccer!) They decided they would host the party at their house, but we had to help them make it as American as possible with the proper snacks and inviting a bunch of other Americans.

We had the option of watching a rerun at a decent hour Monday evening, but the 12 of us all decided it would be more fun to all hang out in the middle of the night and watch it in real time. We are crazy, but it was fun to be up from 12:30am - 5am explaining football. They kept saying, "That is similar to rugby when they do..." The game was a great one, but not as much fun as in the states since we don't have your commercials here. Dan and I will go on the internet to look at them later today.

I wanted to write this weekend’s note now since I finally have a few quiet minutes with my laptop and the power is still on!

This Saturday and Sunday, Dan will be helping to lead the “spiritual side” of an extreme sports camp for at youth. A friend from church, Matt Carter, is a paramedic for the camp and together he and Dan will be doing some teaching and leading some worship music.

We were asked to lead a home group at our church and we now have a very diverse group of people meeting with us to “do life together” every Wednesday evening. This last Wed was a wonderful time to get to know one another. Within our group of 10, there are 5 different mother languages spoken and we range in age from 21 up to mid 40s. We were paired together because we all live in the same neighborhood. I think it is going to be wonderful!

Our missionary friends from Cape Town, Kevin and Erica, are staying with us for 9 days, then our house sitters for while we are in the states will be moving in a bit early. We will have people living with us up till the day we fly now. We enjoy hosting, but we’d appreciate your prayers for great communication and that we will still be able to have some family space too.

Please also pray for our teammate Heather Witherow. She has had a really lousy week. Her Aunt committed suicide the first week of January which was absolutely devastating for their entire family. Her Mom’s other sister is dying of cancer and could go anytime. Then last Friday she developed a very painful lump on her neck that the Dr couldn’t identify and she was on 3 different strong medications to try to reduce it. Then, on Sunday, her second son Jake cut his head open on the coffee table just hours before her husband John left to travel to Zimbabwe for the week. Then Monday, her third son Caleb developed a horrible rash called Fifths Disease, so she has been housebound with him. Then, their helper’s son Joseph had a friend shot (critically wounded, but not dead) and another two of his friends were killed when their car hit a donkey this week, so she has been a sounding board for Joseph’s mom Selena. Lastly, their internet completely crashed and on top of that she has to deal with the multiple power outages… Her husband John should arrive back in Johannesburg on Friday evening, but please pray for strength and energy for Heather and family as they face all these things.

Lastly, I am sure many of you are following the Kenyan unrest in the news. It hits a little closer to home for us because we have OC Africa teammates living and working in Nairobi. All the violence there has really impacted them. This week one of the key politicians was shot in an area close to one of their houses. Please pray for safety and wisdom to navigate in day to day situations for the 4 OC families living there.

18 days till we get on a plane!!

Looking forward to seeing you all soon.

Love,
Janell for us 3.