home again, home again

My goodness, we have been home nearly a week, and I am finally getting back to the blog.

We had a wonderful trip from Italy to Joburg, marred only by Bell catching her pinky in the taxi door at the airport. Very painful. No ice. And every time we went through a security check, she had to dump her bottle of cold water (for soaking it) and refill on the other side. Odd sidelight: we flew Rome-Milan on our way out, had to go through immigration in order to sit in the airport awaiting our flight out to Emirates. A few folks in front of us had single entry visas and weren't allowed "back in"--and they hadn't even left Italy yet! Inscrutable are the ways of airport personnel.

We had a lay-over in Dubai from midnight to 4:40 a.m. so we were entitled to a meal at the Emirates restaurant. It remains our preferred airline, for obvious reasons. That airport is like rush hour at all hours. It bustled even in the wee morning hours.

The rental car Phil arranged for us was perfect and on our arrival in Joburg we drove up to Tshipise (6 hours) for a refreshing conference with our South African and Zimbabwean TEAMmates. Wonderful to see everyone again. They spoiled me on my birthday, too. We have a very special group of people there--the kids are really cool, too. I'm missing those chats in the warm baths under the starry skies each night.

We came home last Saturday. So why haven't I told you before? Well, we had to unpack. And the kids had to organize their end of this school year. So we are back on track with studies. If you enjoyed the European travelogue, don't stop coming to the blogl I intend to write snippets and reflections and even post photos now and then. As I look back, I realize I'm learning more in retrospect than I could at the time. Maybe I'm a slow learner, or just slowing down. Whatever, I have a great teacher up there.

Catch you in a few days! Thanks again for all our prayers--we weren't seriously ill or robbed the whole time.