Almost February

Hello!

In exactly 4 months, Lord-willing, we will have all of our earthly possessions organized and packed. What we are leaving in Port Alsworth will be snuggly stored in totes, tucked into a corner of the loft in our shop. We may have up to 20,000 pounds (tools, generator, bikes, school books...) packed in our 20' container. The remainder of our things will be distributed between our 30 pieces of check-on luggage and some odd carry-ons! Phew! We have a lot to do between now and then, but we are looking forward to doing it and I, for one, am looking forward to the few days where everything will be organized and in it's place!

God is continuing to provide for our needs. We are very excited and grateful to tell you that we have 100% of the original estimate for our outgoing expenses!!! Any outgoing support we receive now will roll-over and go toward our monthly support, which we still need to raise a bit. Now that we have our outgoing expenses covered, we would like to start a vehicle fund. We actually had one for awhile on the AIM website, but it has disappeared. It was empty though, so no worries!

January has been a whirlwind of travel for us. Leo and I returned from Washington for his mom's memorial service, on January 1st. On the 13th, my mom, sister and I flew to San Francisco to spend the weekend with my sister, Chandelle, and my precious nephew, Israel. We had a wonderful weekend together. I returned to Port Alsworth on the 18th and Leo left the 20th for his week in California. He went to work on a Navajo (twin engine airplane) my dad is purchasing to add to the Lake Clark Air fleet. He just got home yesterday, in time to be in on the tail end of the strep throat outbreak in our house.

Two of the children had already been treated for strep throat and we got the culture results for another 5 of them yesterday. They all tested positive, so we were able to get antibiotics for the six who hadn't been treated yet. We just got the medicine today and I'm praying it'll kick in by tomorrow. Samuel and Malachi are pretty miserable right now. I told Leo we should get a picture of all the kids holding their bottles of pink medicine! One day we'll be able to look back at this time with fondness...

I recently told someone I feel like we are in "the calm before the storm". There is so much to do, but not a lot of it can be done yet. Elizabeth is scheduled for a tonsillectomy the end of February and we have to stay in Anchorage for ten days after the surgery. We are planning to take the whole family to town, as most of her recovery will be during spring break. While we are in Anchorage Leo hopes to get the trailer ready to sell (anyone interested in buying a travel trailer? It's awesome!) I've also scheduled one last dental appt. for each child and we are finally in the process of getting Malachi's paperwork to get his new passport, etc.

In the meantime, our house is starting to resemble a warehouse. We have next year's school books piling up, shower curtains and household items for our house in Entebbe, along with sandals, skirts, t-shirts and other warm weather gear we are stocking up on. Living amongst the piles these last few months will make me appreciate our few days of being organized even more when the end of May rolls around!

We are looking forward to a long weekend (no school on Monday) and hope everyone is healed up by then. Thanks so much for your prayers and encouragement. We kind of feel like the guy on the cell phone commercial that has ALL the people behind him when he makes a phone call. Anyway, the point is that we have a great team and are so thankful you are a part of it!

Much love~Leo, Menda and Crew