⎨Au revoir⎬Days 17-18

Saturday was our last full day in this town with Treven and Melanie and the kids.

We spent some time taking family photos (here's a sampling of a couple of my favourites).

And then we spend the afternoon with another family living in the neighbouring town. We got to hear stories of their ministry and just spend our last day relaxing and connecting together.

When we got back home in the evening, there were a few kids outside so we figured that we would give

 away some candy that we had brought along. Stephen handed out a couple of them and then word spread really fast because children came running from all around. One little boy that was being carried by his older sister got really scared of Stephen and would cry and scream if his sister brought him too close. 

Mmm... suckers.

On Sunday morning we went to the airport and said our goodbyes. We are sad to be leaving and to have to say goodbye to our friends. They have been such gracious hosts and have showed us so much of their lives and ministry here. We are grateful for their kindness and friendship. Thank you Treven and Melanie for inviting us into your home and allowing us to do life with you. Thank you Tiana and Micah for laughing and playing with us and letting us take over your house! 

And now, after 2 flights (we stopped unexpectedly in another city) we are in the capital city once again. We were immediately struck by how green everything was! There is grass! It is such a contrast from the North where we have spend the majority of our time. I almost can't believe we are still in the same country - from desert to rainforest in an hour flight. It's also kind of weird that we are no longer in an area where I have to wear a veil. It's a completely different culture in the South and we hope to be able to experience a bit of it today.

We are staying in the capital city for 2 nights before we fly out to Rome on Tuesday. It's hard to believe that our time is coming to a close. It feels like it flew by and I can't even really remember all that has happened right now. We hope we will be able to use this time to really reflect on our experience and let everything sink in. I hope to write some reflections in another post.

Until next time,

Carlin (& Stephen)

Tidbits:

- 28ºC yesterday. It is significantly cooler here and it's kind of weird to not be sweating all the time.

- At about 6PM a huge thunderstorm blew in that knocked the power out. It was pretty phenomenal. Thunder and lightning and torrential downpour. 

- Yesterday (May 20) was this country's independence day. There were parades in the towns and there were supposed to be fireworks in the capital, but they likely were cancelled due to the storm. The parades are made up of all the kids from each school dressed in their uniforms and marching through the street. We got to see one group practicing for the parade earlier in the week, but were flying when it was actually happening.