This past week has been a whirlwind. After speaking with the missionaries from Angola on Monday, we decided we need to head to South Africa to hand in our paperwork for our visas in person, as well as stick around to make sure they process.  If we do that, it should cut the process time to one week as opposed to one month, and we can still make it to Angola by the middle to end of February.

What that means is that we are leaving Mozambique tomorrow.

This news was shocking. We thought we would have almost a whole other month here. We were  not prepared to begin our ‘Goodbyes’. Nonetheless this is an opportunity that we cannot pass up; it is the open door we have been praying for.

Our schedule looks like this:

Feb. 1 – Drive to Pretoria (Stay at Operation Mobilization base)

Feb. 2 – Hand in visas at the Embassy

Feb. 3-4 – Get our vehicle tuned up and ready for Angolan roads

Feb. 5-8 – Drive to Botswana to visit Mike and Heather and watch Superbowl with them

Feb. 8-12 – Drive back to Pretoria. Wait on visas and buying things for life in Angola, which includes being prepared to live in tents for months at a time.

Feb. 13 – Drive back to Botswana

Feb. 14 – Drive to Namibia (Happy Valentines Day!)

Feb. 16 or so – Drive with missionaries to Menongue Angola. Stay about 4 weeks in their shared missionary housing.

Mid-March – Drive to Luanda and visit Operation Mobilization missionaries and current running programs. Stay about 4 weeks, most likely in tents.

Mid-April – Drive back to Menongue. Stay about 4 weeks.

Mid-May – Drive back to Mozambique for at least a couple of weeks.

If we decide to partner with Operation Mobilization and them with us, we will need to leave Angola for 3-6 months to wait on our long term work visa, which will then be good for 2 years. That time is a little up in the air right now, but we trust that the Lord will guide us as He always has.

For now, “Goodbye” Mozambique. Who knew we would grow so attached?

We can look back over our time here and see nothing but the hand of God. I am humbled beyond belief. I feel like we have grown leaps and bounds in a mere 7 weeks.  It makes me excited to see what lies ahead.

This week has been __________ for me. Humm… I am without a word to fully describe it. Horrific. Hard. Beautiful. Stretching. Traumatic. I have blogged a few times about this week, and I do not feel the need to rewrite it here. You are welcome to read about it at: www.africangypsy.blogspot.com

This morning we said our “Goodbyes” at the hospital… well we spent four hours with them, but eventually said “goodbye”. It is hard to leave them.  I stayed in the hospital visiting with the women, while Jon was able to wrap up his relationships with the men by going to church with them at their home church, a neat opportunity. Boy are we going to miss them…

Here is how you can pray:

  • Pray for safety while traveling
  • Pray that our visas would process quickly while we are in Pretoria
  • Pray that our vehicle gets in perfect condition without spending too much
  • Pray that our hearts remain open to God’s will. We want to hear clearly from Him, and not just decide based on desperation. We are asking for a ‘Yes’ from God rather than not a ‘No’.