Leaving and Arriving--The Process

Often when I've written about our travels I've referred to the stages of leaving. That's because it's a rather involved process. Other people's trips may be simpler and more straightforward (probably just because I'm on the outside looking in), but ours generally feel rife with busy schedules, pressing last minute things to do/get, and that daunting task of packing 10 suitcases of stuff into a mere 4 suitcases.

Oh yes, and after all that, to get a good refreshing sleep that last night before the 40+ hour relatively sleepless journey to Africa. Yes, rest is important.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. We're back in Africa now but since it's been over a month since I updated my blog, let me get you caught up on what we've been up to.

First, and most importantly, in June we returned to Edmonton (from our B.C./Seattle trip) to attend our daughter's graduation from university. Two years ago she graduated with her B.Sc. in Biochemistry, and this year she graduated with an after-degree in Education. These 6 years in university were intentional since from day one since her goal was to become a high school math and chemistry teacher, and she was advised that this was the best way to prepare herself for that. It's been a lot of work for her but she remained committed to the end and has received her reward--graduation (with distinction as any proud mom would add), and a career ahead of imparting vital knowledge and inspiring young people to learn.

Grad ceremony at the Jubilee Auditorium in Edmonton

 

A moment to pause for a family photo at her grad banquet.

Hot on the heels of her grad was the annual Care A Thon which we attended. A portion of the funds raised at this event go toward SAM Ministries' school feeding program in Mozambique so it's a real privilege for us to be able to walk with these committed walkers. After the walk, Dwight shared a challenge with all those attending. You can find his message in PDF format at the bottom of this blog update on the SAM Ministries website.

 

 We were pleased to be joined by volunteers who share a love for Mozambique and her people.

Left to right: Suzanne, Dwight, Matthew, Andy (missionary in Mozambique), and Andrew. It was a great day with them and many others who participate in this event each year. And we were so glad it didn't rain!

One of the last minute things to do (for me) was to visit Emmanuel Foundation's warehouse and what a blessing it was to walk out of there with donations of medical supplies!  If I could have taken the desks, chairs, hospital beds, etc., I would have. But they would have complicated the packing process considerably :)

 

Donated medical items, along with suitcases to hold it all, stuffed in the back of Janette Stone's car. 

I was so glad Janette was able to be with me for this event, she kept us from getting hopelessly lost finding the place and it was great having the time together. She's due in Moz for a time of volunteer work there starting in October.

One of the donated items: an infant scale. 

Interestingly, earlier in the week one of the health workers emailed me saying how much one of the health posts needed an infant scale. I wasn't sure where I'd find one given the time frame we had. But voila, there just happened to be one at Emmanuel Foundation! "Unfortunately it's not electric...it needs batteries." the man said apologetically when he  brought it to me. I told him that was perfect for us since we don't have electricity anyway. How perfect. What a miracle.

Then of course was the job of packing all the donated items. Not only these medical supplies but other items donated throughout the course of our furlough. Thankfully there are a number of volunteers on their way out to us soon so I parceled out some of the excess critical items and hope they will find some space in their luggage allowance to bring it out!

 

 For our own flights, we were only allowed 1 piece each, 50 lb per suitcase on Air Canada...not much when you have so much that has to go so far. With a fair bit of sorting, squeezing and with a bit of excess luggage, we got what we really needed ready to go.

Two of our four suitcases, buckled together and duct taped as added security (hey, it's better than nothing) against the significant amount of theft that reportedly happens at Johannesburg's  O.R. Tambo airport. (Thankfully everything arrived intact.)

 Leaving Edmonton where everything was summertime green and lush.

Our route took us through London where we had 10 hours to either stare at the airport floor and walls or hop on the tube to see something interesting...so we opted to go see the Westminster Abbey and the sights in that immediate area.

 

Then we hopped back on the tube to get back to Heathrow to catch our 10 or so hour flight to Johannesburg, South Africa. Once we'd collected our buckled and duct taped luggage (no mistaking it was ours, that's for sure) we picked up a rental car to get to Whiteriver where we were to meet team members Tony and Leila who drove our pick up down from central Moz for us.

But first, because there's never a lack of things to do upon our arrival or departure to or from anywhere it seems, we needed to pick up a bunch of boxes of leadership training materials. Turns out the rental car was rather small to cope with our 4 suitcases, 2 carry-ons, 2 laptop bags, cameras, etc. plus 12 boxes of books, so it took quite a bit of rearranging and pushing and shoving to get it all to fit.

But in the end, we triumphed and boy were we tired! (Many thanks for the help from our friends and the staff at Hebron Theological College.)

 

In Whiteriver we met up with Tony and Leila and have been getting last minute things here tended to. One of those was the purchase of books for the mission's primary school's library...oh what fun it was to pick these up and think of the delight on the kids faces as they see them and learn to read them! I look forward to where these kids' educational path may lead them. If all they do is learn to read well and do math, most will be far ahead of where their parents are. But who knows, I may attend some of their graduations from university one day.

 

And with that, I think I'll declare that we've arrived at the end of this post. That's been quite the process too! 

I'll leave you with a series of photos I took of a baboon we saw in Kruger Park. I thought his expressions rather captured how we were feeling after the past very good but also very busy 6 months on furlough.

Zzzz.

Bye for now. There'll be more to tell once we arrive Moz and as soon as the dust settles.

PS: For more mission news, check the SAM Ministries website blog.

Signs and Directions

Since I wrote last, we've been north, south, east, and west, either by air, by rail or moving sidewalk (ok, just in airports but that counts too), but mostly by car, guided impeccably--at least most of the time--by GPS.

The pace has been hurried and time has been limited, which means there has been little time to write. So allow me barrage you with some of my favorite (albe-they rather odd) photos take over the past month.

A sign on a restaurant door en route from Colorado to Kansas.
It was very windy that day. Apparently it's often very windy there.

A sign in a parking lot in small town Alberta.
Apparently I'm not the only one who backs into things occasionally.

I discovered Banff in Phoenix, Arizona. 

No mountains, little water, lots of heat.

While on a walk in Atwood, Kansas, we came across this little fella.

There was no sign saying "Do Not Touch The Snakes"

and my husband, as usual, couldn't resist the urge to pick him up.

There was also no sign saying "Do Not Break Into Vault" at our friends' bank either.

Not that we could have, even if my mom, sister and I had actually been trying.

Interesting mailbox at a home in Phoenix, Arizona. 

All the yards have a desert theme (since Arizona is mostly desert), 

so I thought this fishing-from-a-(dry)-riverbed theme was very creative.

The print here says Bear Spray (or something to that effect).

It also probably says "Make sure you are upwind before spraying."

But who reads directions?

The bear spray was for our forest walk in Fort McMurray

with Pastor Glen and Lois Forsburg (foreground),

Janette Stone, Amanda Lagore, Dwight Lagore (left to right in background)

Beautiful trees.

And no sign of bears.

Heading back to Edmonton on the notorious highway 63.

Traffic is busy, and heavy, and the highway isn't much wider than our main highways in Mozambique (which are equally dangerous).

Then it was back to Edmonton to prepare for SAM Ministries' 10th annual banquet (held mid-May).

On display on the tables were crafts made by women in Mozambique plus child sponsorship cards.

Busy with preparations in the SAM office.

Patti Green, Ruth Trekofski (my mom), and Amanda (our daughter)

It was a great evening with just under 120 people in attendance.

Then it was west, and south, into the U.S.

Sumas Border Post

As we neared the B.C./Washington border post last weekend I gathered our passports and car documents in hand ready to hop out and go line up as we do in Africa. But then I remembered, that's not how it's done here. Here, we have drive-through border posts. Oh, if only.

Ruth and Royden took us to visit a Japanese Garden while we were in Seattle. It was very pretty, and we got to feed the Koi in the pond. Here, a duck jostles for position amid unashamed gluttons.

And last but not least, a photo of Dwight and my parents as we prepare to hit the road for B.C. for our last stint before we head back to Moz.

Despite the fact that I was born in B.C., my parents are B.C. residents, and we've made the trip countless times, they consult the GPS for directions. *smiles* Yes, we do know the way, really. But checking directions is probably good too. At least most of the time.

Until next time, most probably from Africa.

PS: Lots has been happening so be sure to check the website for the latest news updates too.

Huh, Eh?

For those of you who thought Americans and Canadians are one in the same, well, we're not. I admit that we're not vastly different since (by my definition) we're from the same basic tribe. But still, we do have our differences.

For one thing, Canadians say "eh" and Americans say "huh". That's one sure-fire way of telling us apart. Another difference is that Americans generally enjoy a warmer climate than we do so they serve their cold drinks with LOTS of ice.

We have lots of wonderful friends, family and supporters in the U.S. so we were quite excited when we left Edmonton for our Minnesota-Wisconsin-Arizona-Kansas stint a few weeks ago.

The U.S. is more populated than Canada is which means there is more of just about everything. That's always one of the first things that hits me when we cross the border...more people, bigger buildings, heavier traffic.

 

Our first destination was Minneapolis and once we managed to navigate our way through the airport, we had to find our rental car in the sea of rental cars in the large parkade. "You'll find your car in stall #10, row G," (or something to that effect) the rental agent instructed us.

After a bit of traipsing, sure enough, we found it where he said. We were a bit jet-lagged and in a bit of a time/culture/whatever else warp and I was still musing at the differences between Canada and the U.S. when I noticed the license plate on the vehicle assigned to us:

To help remove all doubt, eh? :)

And as we expected, we discovered wonderfully warmer weather further south!

(Me with long-time friend, Nancy)

Until the next day, that is. For some reason, on night #2, there was a snow storm. "Sideways snow" as the news put it. This was the view from the window in our room.

Huh.

"Well, at least it's beautiful."
(Seems the Americans use the self same-comforting technique
Canadians do when they get huge snow dumps in the spring.)

As we headed south from Minnesota to Madison, Wisconsin, things greened up a bit. Had to get this picture of a truck passing a tractor passing a train.

Being friendly is very American. 

Here I get a friendly wave from the train's conductor as they pass by.

On our agenda this trip was visiting churches and meeting with people who share a passion for the needs in Mozambique.

Meeting with some of the board members from partnering organization Mission X International.

Our departing flight out of Madison was booked for 5:04 a.m. and we had to be at the airport about 1 1/2 hours before departure. We gave ourselves about an hour from wake up time to the airport, so you do the math to figure out what time we had to be up. ...ok, I'll just tell you. We had to be up at 2:30 a.m.! Sort of begged the question "why go to bed at all?"

We arrive 3 minutes before the counter opened and the airport was otherwise essentially empty.

Huh.

We're now in Phoenix, Arizona attending the International FCA conference. We set up our booth in the display area. The only spot to put our pull-up banners was on top of our table. The idea struck me as being a bit audacious initially, but turns out they didn't look all that overwhelming in the huge ballroom.

And anyway, the faces on the banners represent needs, both big and many, on the ground far away--so it seemed rather fitting.

Tomorrow, we head for Kansas and thankfully our flight is only at noon. We will be meeting up with my parents and sister (who will also just be arriving from Canada), as well as more great friends and supporters for the weekend.

And thus we will wrap up this trip to the U.S. On Monday, we return to Canadian soil and culture...eh?

PS: For the latest news, check out our website's blog at samministries.org/blog/

Old Hat, New Sights

It seems time, and lots of it, got away on me since my last post. So let me catch up up on what's new.

First, Dwight returned from Moz safe and sound. Shortly thereafter came down with the prescribed bout of malaria but we treated right away, so he recovered quickly.

Second, we've been doing lots of traveling. But that's not news since we always seem to be coming or going on some or other trip regardless of where we are in the world. One day I'm going to add up all those miles!

So anyway, this is what I've seen a lot of this past month...

Lots of the dashboard, windscreen and highway.

Three weekends ago, we headed out on a trip about 5 hours north to the Grande Prairie/Sexsmith area of Alberta. When the weekend was over, we came back to Edmonton then turned right around and did the same thing the following weekend to visit another church in the same area.

Two round trips at 10 hours each = 20 hours (give or take) in a 10 or so day period. Some people here refer to this as a lot of traveling, but since we're used to 36+ hour round trips, it didn't seem bad at all. Besides, there are divided highways with no pot holes and you can get decent coffee (or whatever) at every stop. Aside from the mild monotony of mile after mile after mile of smooth asphalt, the trip isn't too bad at all.

It snowed the first weekend so that added a bit of excitement along the way. For one thing, poor visibility keeps you more attentive. And for another thing, it makes me dig out my camera because it's pretty and I can't NOT take pictures of snow.

On our way to a rural church in Canada to tell them about the exciting things
that are happening in rural Mozambique right now.

On our way home from our first trip, Dwight thought he spotted horses running in a field. Turns out they were moose so we had to pull over and watch them for awhile. And yes, out came the camera again.

At home we were greeted as we always are by our family and by Mom and Dad Lagore's little dog, Sasha. Even though we come in and go out the front door A LOT, she always greets us excitedly as if it's been years!

While we were home midweek (sometime mid-March), it decided to snow even though the season is already officially Spring. It snowed for about 24 hours.

We had even planned to have a family "braai" (South African term for B-B-Q) which is usually done outside with everyone sitting around in lawn chairs...

Oh well.
Our consistent family theme seems to be "If there's a will, there's a way".

This is on our 2nd trip north. I had to take this photo in a hotel where we overnighted because I was amused by the fact that all the pick-ups back into their parking spots.

So we did too (smaller vehicle far left of photo).

I later learned that these are oil company trucks and it has something to do with company policy. I guess that would explain it.

More interesting things along the highways...

I love noisy, rumbling trains that shake you to the core as they pass by :)
This one's a double decker.

Just about everything is photo-worthy to me.

This week the SAM Ministries board got together for a business meeting and to get an update from Bill and Dwight on their trip.

Dad and Mom Lagore come early to set up every single time.

And everyone enjoys the chicken and her fresh baked buns every time too.

Even though I have a new camera, I found the timer button on it.
Here we all are.
(Left to right: Dwight Lagore, Bill Cairns, Janette Stone, me, Gunnar Myrholm, Patti Green, Mom and Dad Lagore, Steve Lagore, Bill Green, Bob Guzak, Chris and Gary Peckham.)

In Moz, things are full steam ahead as per usual. Work on the airstrip is underway again, new orphans have been added to the program, school is back in full swing, building projects are making progress, people are busy studying, moving, being fitted with reading glasses, and health visits are being done. (Catch up with news here. Also, check out Heather's blog, and Francois' too.)

Oh, and a short term team of 2 (Rick Cogbill and John Topham) are due to arrive in a few days. They will be busy with vocational training, woodshop work, and maintenance facility construction.

And we, here, will be traveling some more. That's old hat, but that's ok since there is lots of good stuff to share about and there always seems to be something interesting or new along the way.

Yesterday's photo: Hats placed on fence posts surrounding a farmer's field.
Company policy?

PS: On Facebook? Check out SAM's new Timeline layout.