Stepping into Africa....

Well Peter, (Mary's husband), picked us up from the airport two nights ago and we had a very adventurous, fast, and bumpy drive to their house! (There are no enforced speed limits here, people walking everywhere, cars that don't use ANY lights at night, and they drive on the opposite side of the road than us along with the opposite side of the car!)

This is Mary Street! My bestfriend and the missionary that has lived here for six years.

To the right is Peter, Mary's husband, and their sweet baby Hope Elizabeth! Below is one of 6 HUGE turtles that are found in their YARD!!! lol Yes, those are mom's glasses posing on top! :-)

It's AMAZING here!! We made it safely two days ago, yet left my iphone in the Houston airport, (which someone turned in-Thank You Jesus!), and also my main suitcase w/all my clothes somehow didn't make it past Amsterdam, but they brought it to the house this morning! Fun Stuff!! lol (Above is a normal everyday sight you'll see while driving down the road.)

Peter and Mary's yard, two of the four guys that work at their property everyday.

This was a restaurant they took us to tonight, these are Tanzanian "Pizzas"!! :-)

It's SO beautiful, and Tanzanians are so friendly. Today Peter took us to hike Mt. Kilimanjaro, we hiked in the rainforest of Mt. Kili. How cool is that?!! It was AMAZING! Once you get to a certain point, there is noone that lives above the river, so it's clean to drink-very good water! He works with the water system here, they build pipelines on Mt. Kilimanjaro to provide clean drinking water for the people that live there!! YES, that's right, people LIVE on that mountain! I had no clue! So today we hiked with his buddies on a trail that noone gets to hike on except the workers there, it was SO amazing! Very muddy, rocky, filled with ticks (that seemed to like me more than the others!) and Tanzanian ants (which are HUGE, and bit me!), but we also saw the beautiful scenery and these incredible monkeys that I'll have to get back with you on their names, but they have fluffy white tails!

Drinking the water!
Mom and Peter looking at monkeys I think!
Climbing in the rainforest up the mountain! (A beautiful rainforest is set in the mountains)
This was our way up the mountian! Better than any four wheel ride you could ever go on!
Today I saw my friend Goudy that I love and have been looking forward to seeing since the day we said good-bye! We met 2 years ago at Mary and Peter's wedding in San Fransisco. She is Tanzanian and she lived with Mary for four of her teenage years. Mary and her old roommate Jill taught Goudy many things and raised her up in the ways of the Lord. She is an amazing WOMAN of GOD, and is now happily married to an amazing man of God!

As we were driving back down the mountain, there was a sweet family standing close to where we were and as we stopped, they handed us four of their HUGE avocados that they grow and sale, and they wanted to just give them to us. It was so sweet. We got out and made friends with them, Oh my gosh, I could just spend so much time with them! The wife was 20, dad 24, and cute baby girl was 3.
If you look close enough into these clouds, you can see Mt. Kilimanjaro!!! Can you spot it??!!!

Well this has been such a blessed time. Thank you to everyone who is praying for mine, moms, and Lesli's time here. Peter and Mary's baby Hope is so much better, she had malaria last week for those of you who didn't know, and 104 fever, but she's ALL better praise the Lord! God bless you and have a wonderful week! Please pray for Tanzania, it is 70% Muslim.