Almost Home! 930 miles to go...

Back from a restful 4 days on the island of Zanzibar.  Kelly (our youngest daugher) arrived from her missions trip in Rwanda/Uganda and we went to the island.  She'll spend the rest of her summer break with us.

Tomorrow morning, 5:30AM, Sally, Kelly and I head out from Dar es Salaam toward the far West.  We have a little over 1,500km (930 miles) of African roads to travel to reach Kigoma.  I tried to point out our trail on the map.

For over a week now, our house has been being repaired by David and Dorthy Miller and their daughter Cheryl.  We are so thankful for the hard work the Miller's have been doing to get our place ready for us to arrive.  God willing we will arrive on Wednesday (July 6th) before dark.  

Our container of household goods hopefully will be on the road tomorrow from Dar and get there maybe by Friday.  Then the fun begins with unpacking it off the back of the truck as there is no crane in Kigoma big enough to lift it off the truck.

Our path will take us through the middle of Tanzania over a variety of terrains.  For those who have never driven in E. Africa, imagine driving on a two-lane American country road, but with semi-trailers, other trucks of various sizes, busses, taxis, cars, bicycles, cows, goats and people, all sharing the road.  That's what we'll be doing for the next two days.  We expect to have two full days of about 11 hours each of driving.

We are excited about finally getting to Kigoma to begin the ministry that God has called us to there.   We really ask for your prayers for:

• Safety and alertness as we drive, and that our truck will function well.
• Safety of other drivers that we meet along the way. Remember it's 1,500km of two way roads.
• That our container of our 'things' will be able to be loaded tomorrow and arrive safely in Kigoma
• Safety for the Miller family as they head back to Dar es Salaam on Thursday.
• I know that's a lot of requests for safety but the reality is that driving these roads is dangerous.
• That we will enjoy the grace and peace of Christ as we drive.  
• It will be a time to talk with Kelly to get all of her news from the last 10 months.  We also have some great pod-casts from some of my favorite teachers (Piper and Keller) and some fun 'News from Lake Wobegon'

Not sure what the internet situation will be when we arrive there, but we'll post some pics and update as soon as we can.

Daily by His grace,

Larry and Sally and Kelly