The Lawrence the world sees...

In all his Marriott finery. 

We are so grateful to have received his work authorization card a couple of months ago, and grateful to have a good friend who owns several hotel properties. Lawrence is thoroughly enjoying learning the American hotel industry, and interacting with guests from all over who find his accent 'charming'. 

The one I get to see...

Nothing could be so sweet as coming home to this every day. 

Our own little corner of the world

For the first six months of marriage, we were newlyweds with no place to call home. Being on the road and living with people was a wonderful experience, but challenging all the same. Over Easter weekend, we moved into the Eaton Place, a historic hotel that has been transformed into an apartment complex. 

We truly love having our own space, and being downtown in the middle of everything. We have eaten breakfast at Old Mill Tasty Freeze, sipped chai at Meade's Corner, and I have a regular circuit that includes walking past the Lord's Diner and the new Open Door resource center. Not to mention that we are directly across the street from my favorite thrift store! 

Below are a few pictures of the view from our place. The first shows our proximity Intrust Bank Arena. 

A park they used to call "homeless park" is right below us; there are still occasionally a few people who don't have many other places to go that sit on the benches during the day, and they keep things real for my perspective, for sure. However, because of the great landscaping work that has been done as part of the revitalization of Old Town, there are photographers that come almost every single day with high school seniors, newly engaged couples, and kiddos for photography sessions. This is the view directly out the window of our apartment...beautiful, huh?

Now called Eaton Place, corner of St. Francis and Douglas. 

Home sweet home.

Five months and many, many miles

Lawrence and I celebrated our 5-month wedding anniversary on Thursday night by eating supper with our pastor Paul and his wife Janelle. It may seem like small potatoes to celebrate five months, but we waited a long time before God brought us together, and we have not taken even one day for granted.

We spend a lot of hours in the car, and so this past couple of weeks have been a welcome change of pace as we have had the opportunity to house and cat-sit for two dear couples from our church.

The odometer hit 150,000 on Simba as we started our journey today and so we pray that God will give her another 75,000 or so more before we'll have to think of traveling with anyone besides her.

I am so thankful for such good friends and family, who constantly reach out and support both Lawrence and I, and the ministry we are working so hard to provide for. We are lucky to be surrounded by a church family like Woodlawn, and the amazing board of Grassroots Ministries who has labored on behalf of the angels in Tanzania for much longer than I. The state line sign below reads pretty accurately, I would say. Life, is good.

Three years strong

Yesterday marked three years since our van rolled into Tarime, Tanzania, and Goldland Hotel. I was aware that I was embarking on the journey of a lifetime, with my work, but I could not have been able to fathom to what extent exactly. As we piled out of James' van, the Goldland staff greeted us and scrambled for our luggage, so very happy we had decided to stay there while looking for a rental house. And the manager Lawrence, overseeing it all, was so sweet!

I remember, over the course of the next couple of weeks, going downstairs late each night 'to buy a bottle of water' and sitting in the lobby talking to my new friend, this young manager from Nairobi. I didn't realize how much I was enjoying his company until one night when I reached the lobby to find out he had already gone home. I was SO disappointed.

He took such great care of us while we were guests at the hotel. And was very intentional about making contacts in the community for us as we were building the orphanage and then later the school. He helped us move into our own house, translated for us when the need arose, cooked for us and taught his staff how to cook American food for the days we visited the hotel. Gradually the taking care of 'us' became taking care of Holly. And I won't forget. Though we are here in America and in my world now, where it could appear that I am the one taking care of him, I am reminded often of how we started out. He was the one that took care of me and my colleagues for the first two years, and I am so grateful that he is still taking care of me now. God is surely good to have answered my prayers in a way that is immeasurably more than I could have imagined.