65 days.
13 states.
6400 miles.
Words escape me to describe what The Roadtrip did for our family in terms of preparing us for life in Africa. Sometimes Bundibugyo is described as "a pressure cooker", which is why we plan to try to leave the district every 6-8 weeks to "re-fuel" our engines. About halfway through our time at training, I realized that 2 kids with snotty noses screaming at the top of their lungs, with Cheerios strewn throughout the car & milk spilled and dried down the car seats, and cell phones wedged in places where you can't reach them, and the inability to have any sort of conversation with your spouse due to the constant chaos of distractions...is sort of like a pressure cooker. And then the a/c in our car broke & we heard God whisper,
"No, THIS is life in a pressure cooker. Are you ready for it?"
Clearly, at that time, we weren't. After a month on the road and 2 weeks of intense Language Training (think bringing your kids with you to college...), we had finally reached the 
end of our reserves. Thankfully, "at the end of our reserves" was exactly where God wanted us for the following 2 weeks of training and remaining time on our Roadtrip. In those 2 weeks, we tackled such things as Personality Styles & Conflict Management, Who You are Under Stress, Grief & Loss, Establishing Daily Spiritual Rhythms, the Biblical intent of the Sabbath (of which I realized I had not observed since prior to my children coming along!), Saying Goodbyes, and many other topics that were really good to dig through before leaving for Africa. These 2 weeks were enlightening and restorative. The friendships we forged with others preparing to serve on the mission field were encouraging and strengthening. The personal council we received from our trainers was immensely valuable. The words of wisdom spoken to us by the child life specialist/MK expert who had personally observed Lucy and Olive, was extremely enlightening and beneficial. There were times of laughter, times of tears, times of frustration, and times of joy, times to play, and lots of time to work :)
end of our reserves. Thankfully, "at the end of our reserves" was exactly where God wanted us for the following 2 weeks of training and remaining time on our Roadtrip. In those 2 weeks, we tackled such things as Personality Styles & Conflict Management, Who You are Under Stress, Grief & Loss, Establishing Daily Spiritual Rhythms, the Biblical intent of the Sabbath (of which I realized I had not observed since prior to my children coming along!), Saying Goodbyes, and many other topics that were really good to dig through before leaving for Africa. These 2 weeks were enlightening and restorative. The friendships we forged with others preparing to serve on the mission field were encouraging and strengthening. The personal council we received from our trainers was immensely valuable. The words of wisdom spoken to us by the child life specialist/MK expert who had personally observed Lucy and Olive, was extremely enlightening and beneficial. There were times of laughter, times of tears, times of frustration, and times of joy, times to play, and lots of time to work :)
Dare I say, we learned to enjoy life in The Pressure Cooker?
And then there were those we visited along our journey. Family who we haven't seen in ages (some who had never met our girls!), friends
who we only get the luxury of seeing every 5 years or so, new friends we made through old connections, new churches to bless us and partner in our ministry... it was overwhelmingly encouraging. Each goodbye held its own heartache, but each heartache cemented that friendship into a special place in our hearts. Thanks to so many of you who sacrificed your homes, your time, your money, your food...all to bless us and love us in unimaginable ways. We could not have written the plot of our Roadtrip any better than how God wrote it for us. And therefore, we remain confident that His writing of this next chapter will be just as telling of His provision and love for us as the previous one. 
Thank you for being a part of Our Story.
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