Change of Plans

The Democratic Republic of the Congo has a long, complex and tumultuous history. Beginning in the 1870's, King Leopold II began an exploration into this mineral rich region and slowly began a process to acquire the rights to this country. His reign can only be described as brutal in his attempt to exploit many of the country's vast riches. Once his violent methods came to light, Belgium elected to colonize the country allowing them to continue to utilize the Congo's resources. Eventually, the Congolese people won their independence on 30 June 1960. Unfortunately, the newly independent country began its leadership struggles between the elected president and the first Prime Minister, who was eventually thrown out of office by Joseph Mobutu, chief of the new army.

Mobutu began paying the new army out of his own pocket, whom he later used to overthrow the government, declaring himself leader of the newly named country of Zaire. His years in office were cut off when a coalition of Rwandan and Ugandan armies came in to overthrow him resulting in the First Congo War. In 1997, Mobutu fled when Joseph Kabila and his army marched into Kinshasa, declaring himself the president. In 2001, Joseph Kabila was assassinated and his son (also named Joseph) succeeded him in office. UN peacekeepers worked with Kabila to help the country to settle. By June of 2003 a transitional government was set up and a constitution was approved by its voters. In July 2006, the DRC held its first multi-party elections in which Kabila won. After serving (more than) two five year terms, according to the Congolese constitution, the president is to step down and a new leader will be elected. Recently, a census has been proposed to take place before the next election (a process which could take several years). Due to this, some in the population have expressed their concerns in less than desirable ways.

What does this have to do with our plans? Parliament is set to meet tomorrow morning at 9 AM (3 AM EST) to approve or deny the proposed census. After much consulting with our program manager, it has been decided it would be to our best interest to delay our return to Congo until the results of the decision are known. That being said, we currently have plane tickets for this Tuesday on reserve for us. We will know more when Parliament votes and hope to return without further delay.

In the meantime, feel free to brush up on your Congolese history with "King Leopold's Ghost" by Adam Hochschild, which is the source for much of my above information. If you would like to skip the history lesson and go straight to the news, many news sources are available about the current situation: BBC News, The Wall Street Journal, The Dailymail, France 24 News, Yahoo! News, etc.

Please join us in prayer for the country and its leaders to make a decision on behalf of its people.

The Big Un-Adventure

Boy, when Kevin and I decide to travel, even our un-adventures turn out adventurous! Today was the big day, the day we were meant to go back to Africa. We loaded up all our bags, car seats, babies, baby bags, and carry-on's into the car and headed to the airport. As we were pulling into the airport, Kevin got a text message from the airline that our 2:27 PM departure was delayed for an hour due to weather issues. An hour is not bad but that left us with only a 35 minute layover in Washington, D.C. with two kids and carry-on's. We decided to talk to counter agent about getting us assistance at the gate to get us there on time.

When we walked into the airport we were greeted with a great surprise! Our friends, the Dodd's, had joined us to assist and we were so grateful! Levi helped load all our bags up while Erin and the kids played with our little girl.

While checking-in, we discovered that our plane was delayed an additional hour due to weather, meaning, we would not make our connecting flight at all. The United Airlines ticketing agent felt bad for our situation and figured out a way to help. He got us transferred to US Airways for a flight to Pennsylvania and then to Brussels. So we moved all our bags down the airport and went to check-in. There, we discovered that only the first bag was free, and with additional bags for each person the cost was much more. After getting checked in, we went back to United to see what to do about the additional charges. Once that was taken care of, we loaded our persons up, said our tearful goodbye's, and headed for security.

Security went as usual. Packing, removing articles, getting hands wiped down, chasing little girl down, getting bags singled out due to medications, chasing little girl down, finding shoes, chasing little girl down, and loading bags, after chasing little girl down. We grabbed some food and sat down for our short wait. While waiting we heard the announcement that all flights to Pennsylvania were being delayed, both in and out. So even though we were delayed, it wasn't by that much. The time went quickly, we loaded the plane with no problems and began to back away from the gate. Unfortunately the dreaded announcement came..."Ladies and Gentlemen, we are experiencing some technical issues and will be heading back to the terminal." Not only were there problems with the plane, the delayed flights to Pennsylvania were being pushed another hour and a half.

Our poor little girl lost it. She wanted to ride the airplane. She cried at the window looking at the airplane, while we tried to determine what our next options were. The next part was a blur of ticketing agents, phone calls back and forth, research, calls to our HQ, calls to their HQ, and all this while we were on our phones looking for connections. During this time, we had a hungry baby, a poopy diaper, an Adah who thought I was another person and ran screaming after them shouting "MOMMY!" in a panic, a meltdown or two, watching our luggage being loaded on another plane while we were in the terminal trying to find a new plane, a few tears (not saying who did that), getting our luggage held back for later, and an overtired screaming baby.

We tried every flight combination we could think of - through Paris on Air France, through Istanbul on Turkish via London Heathrow, Johannesburg on South African Airways, but to no avail. The end result? The exact same original flight from Knoxville-Washington, D.C.-Brussels-Kinshasa, at the exact same time, tomorrow. Whew!

Overall, we were very thankful for kind and patient agents who worked hard to get us on flights (or tried to) and got us refunded on our original luggage as well as a little upgrade on our first leg tomorrow. We were very grateful for having many hands to make a light load this morning and the distraction. We are blessed. And tired. But mostly blessed.

The Talented Mr. Daddy

We have our departure date, tickets, passports, invitation letters, and VISA's. Our departure date is this Wednesday, January 21st and we are cramming in family visits! This past week has been of whirlwind of normalcy mixed with feeding our possible food cravings, and a few good-byes. Now that the countdown is in the single digits we have been doing everything we can to get our bags packed. Here is just one of many examples of what we are doing in order to get as many things as possible in as few bags as possible...

I think the photos explain for themselves what a talented daddy we have who worked hard to get this small tricycle to be even smaller!

The Christmas Dress

Since being back in the United States on maternity leave, Kevin and I decided that we needed to put our little girl in a preschool program our church does on Tuesdays and Thursdays. We placed her after Thanksgiving and she loves it! Her vocabulary has shot through the roof, her confidence has increased, and her ability to play with other children has bloomed! But today was the last day of classes before Christmas break. As sad as this moment was for us knowing our little girl might not be able to experience such a wonderful program again, there was a bright side. The teachers put together a musical performance with each of the age groups (2, 3, & 4).

Once I found out that sweet pea would be doing a Christmas music program, I wanted her to have a dress. Not just any dress, but a Christmas dress. I decided to hit Facebook and ask anyone if they had one they could donate for the cause. I received three immediate responses! One dress I was able to pick up two days later. That dress was super cute, but a little too long. Luckily, it will fit her next year in Africa without being too hot. The second dress is super dressy so I was worried about her ruining it at lunch before the program. So it is the third dress I wanted to talk about.

There is a ministry partner family of ours that we have befriended who lives in another city. They are a wonderful couple and when I got a response from them, I was expecting a silly joke (the usual). :-) Instead, I was blessed with the news that a dress for our little girl was in the mail and on its way. When the dress arrived, I was floored at how cute it was and there was a note attached telling me of its story. The family had ordered a dress online but had received the wrong size (2T, girlie's size) by mistake. When they contacted the company to see about getting it returned and a replacement sent, they were told to keep the incorrectly sized dress and use it to bless someone. And not too much longer, they saw on Facebook that I wanted a dress, size 2T. This wonderful family knew it was meant to be for us and blessed us with this dress and we are grateful! Thank you so much Leta and Ron Holland for your blessing this Christmas.

Without further ado...sweet pea...in the Christmas dress...

P.S. For those of you curious and want to see girlie in action, here is a link to the video of the program. The program starts around 9:39 with the 2 year old's singing 3 songs. The video continues with the other classes as well and they are all adorable. The school and teachers did an excellent job!!!

PC-12 Dedication

Three months ago, the DRC-West base received a much awaited donation - a new (to us) airplane! A generous person donated the monies to purchase and refurbish this needed plane.

Source: Jocelyn Frey

The Pilatus PC-12 is an incredibly well-designed airplane manufactured in Switzerland. It is pressurized and fast. It is capable of flying at nearly 30,000 feet and roughly 300 miles per hour. It can also carry more than 2,000 pounds of cargo or 10 passengers.

The DRC is over 905,000 sq. miles
(the same size as the U.S.A. east of the Mississippi River) 

These statistics are nice, but what it really means is more opportunity and capability to advance the Church in Congo. Having an airplane that can hold such a large amount of people and/or supplies is very important, especially when travelling long distances with medical supplies. Before, if someone wanted to take our largest aircraft - the Caravan -  across the country, it would take 8 hours each way, meaning a multiple day trip to go over and back. Now with the Pilatus, we can do it in less than half the time, 4 hours each way!

So, welcome to the newest aircraft in our fleet. It has already proven very useful during the Ebola outbreak. We praise God for this awesome tool and look forward to seeing the adventures we are able to take it on!

It's a Boy!!!

Source: Kristi Webb Photography

On November 11th, 2014, at 6:10 PM, Kevin and I welcomed into the world a healthy baby boy. Baby Solomon weighed in at a whopping 10 lbs 9 oz and was 22 1/4" long! We feel very blessed to now be a family of four. 

From the first meeting, Sister has adored having a baby in the house. She loves to help change his diaper, she likes to hug and kiss him, she always asks to hold him, she likes to "pet" him, she even sticks her finger in his mouth when he cries to pacify him. For a 2.5 year old, she is such a big help, even if she has yet to realize how delicate most tasks are. 

Source: Kristi Webb Photography

Presently, we are still in Tennessee. As soon as baby boy's birth certificate, passport, and VISA come through, we will head back as a family to the Congo. This is looking like it will be right after Christmas. We are definitely eager to get back to our team. 

Baby Watch 2014

The other day, Kevin and I had our first OB visit together in the states. The news was good. The baby is officially to term (based on best guesses), and the baby's weight is a healthy one safe for delivery. At this point, we are waiting on nature to take its course and for labor to start. I have already started some minor cramping and irregular contractions, so my body is preparing for its job. We are all very excited to meet the newest Spann to join our family but we want to wait for baby to finish cooking.

In the meantime, we have been quite busy with regular doctor's visits (optometrist, dentist, well visits, etc.), shopping for baby supplies, and spending time with family. Sister-to-be on the other hand has been quite the busy girl herself. She has been to parks, the petting zoo, riding on horses, visiting grandparents, eating lots of different foods, and just being a kid who enjoys all sorts of things!