After a week’s stay on Zanzibar, we have returned to our community of Buguruni in Dar es Salaam. It was a good week, and a nice change of pace. We stayed with a host family that was Muslim, and the mother of the family was getting ready to go on her Haj trip to Mecca. They were very hospitable, and we built a good friendship. They showed us a few of the nice spots on Zanzibar, and we were able to do a bit of snorkeling in the clear, blue waters. We had the most fun in the late afternoons at Forodhani Gardens, where the kids played, we talked with locals, and even joined some of them in diving into the ocean from the boardwalk.

The purpose of going to Zanzibar was to study Swahili in an intensive course at the University of Zanzibar, and while the course lasted for two weeks, we came back after one because we needed to attend to several matters as we prepare to move to a permanent home in Dar, and as Eric prepares for the pastoral training workshop he will lead in northern Uganda in a few weeks. We were able to grow a bit more in our Swahili, although it is a long, slow road. We returned from Z-bar on Sat. morning to find no power in our house, which remained powerless until 11pm that night. In the increasingly warm and humid weather, as we sat and sweat, more than once we all wondered why we had left Zanzibar, with the clean air, fun night life, and electricity!

Our homeschool helper, Melissa, has headed back to the States, and we are thankful for her assistance through this transitional time. Along those lines, PLEASE PRAY that the kids will be admitted into HOPAC, the local international school, soon. They are hanging on, but are deeply in need of building some healthy relationships with other kids with whom they can communicate.

Lots more to share, but I’ll try to put an update letter together soon that will give a better picture of what has been and will be going on. To God be the glory, great things He has done!

Pressing on, Eric