Trying to Catch Up -- By Meg

WOW! I have a TON to catch you up on. So much has happened since I last blogged. 
I so wish I could just say everything that I wanted to say. But, I can't. 

But, I will try to tell most of the bigger things that have happened. 

We had planned to leave our house in Nampula on May 25, and drive down to the capital city of Mozambique, Maputo. Then plans changed. So, we quickly bought plane tickets flying out of Nampula going to Maputo on May 28. It was a really good call, because I don't know how we would have gotten everything done in the amount of time 
that we originally had. 

Because we had a few extra days to get ready to leave, we made one last quick trip to Nacala.
This is Emma and I and the Journeygirls.

Our last Sunday was a BIG one. 
We had planed to eat lunch at church after the service. But, our national brothers and sisters had planed to give us a big goodbye service 
full of songs and goodbyes along with lunch. 

Benjamin (a.k.a. Megamind)

Dad was asked to preach his last sermon for this year. 

We had a VERY full church....probably because everyone heard there was going to be food. 

It was a very cool day!
Our blind friend Alfonso (the guy the in the black vest pictured above), who runs a blind school in Nampula,
was able to bring a couple of his students and friends to church.

Pastor's Son, David

Offering

Then, the church called our family to go up to the front of the church to 

shake all of our hands to say goodbye. 

It is hard to see, but they are putting a wrap skirt and head wrap on my mom. She was crying her eyes out, and the women did such a great job of making her feel loved!

We finished up the service, and waited for our food to come. 

While waiting for the food to arrive, the church sang songs. 

It took forever for the food to be ready. 

But then it arrived! We had rice, beans, chicken stew, beef, french fries, and grilled chicken.
It was so good!

The food arriving.

The table inside the church for our family, the deacons, and the pastor.

Lilly 

Mom

Dad

Lilly, Meghan, and Emma

The kids eating

Some of the youth

Dad, Claudio, and Montinho

Dad and Benjamin 

Alexander

Elsa

Some of the girls

More of the youth

Waiting outside

Emma and Sarah

Mom and her sweet friend Isabel, with her little girls, Linha and Sarah

Our family

Dad and Pastor John

Mom and the cooks

We then had to say goodbye to some sweet friends!

Our sweet friend Flora

Our houseworker Anita

We then had to leave our home and head to the USA.

Our luggage

Our house was all packed up

At the airport

One of our guards, one of our youth at our church, and our
houseworker, came to see us off at the airport.

Claudio, Albano, and Dad

Airplane food

We had 4 plane rides. Our longest flight lasted 19 hours.......it was awful. 

Sadly, I ate something that made me nauseous for the whole 19 hours. 

But we did make it! Our first stop in the US was D.C. We had Dunkin Doughnuts first!

Arriving in DC

When we arrived in Charlotte we had our grandparents and 
some sweet friends meet us at the airport. 

Sadly I don't have any pictures.

For lunch we had Chick-Fil-a! It was so AMAZING!

We also got almost 4 dozen doughnuts from Krispy Kream!

We did many fun things our first week! We also got to see many sweet friends!

I was able to go to a Taylor Swift concert with some sweet friends of mine! It was so fun! 

We have been having so much fun!

Hugs,

Meg