Why hello there! This is Katie writing to you about today's adventures.
We started our day off by packing up and saying goodbye to everyone at Tudor Village. It's amazing how much baggage we had! After a group picture and sadly not ever seeing Mt Kilimanjaro, we were off to Moshi to tie up some loose ends at St. Joseph's. We were blessed with great news! Because of Hope Ministries and all they have done for St. Joseph's the children of Light in Africa will be able to receive free medical care there! Praise The Lord!
We were then back on the road and heading to Arusha. As we neared the city we started to see more and more police on the road. As you can probably guess we got stopped! The man made as pull over and after lots of talking made Freeman get out of the vehicle. When we returned he was very upset! He had to pay 30,000 tsh if he wanted a receipt or 20,000 tsh if he didn't for doing absolutely nothing wrong, obviously he didn't need a receipt. When we arrived in Arusha we exchanged money and went to buy some Tanzanite Jewelry (can't wait to pick mine up next week!). Then it was back to the mattresses. Gayle, Julilus, and Paul were dropped off to buy new mattresses for the children at Light in Africa. Freeman then escorted us girls to the Maasai market. We window shopped and wrote down the numbers of different booths as we aren't buying anything til Gayle is with us so we can get "Mama Gayle prices". We laughed lots and had fun checking everything out. I think we are all ready to go back with Mama Gayle and get some treasures. After checking the booths out we hung out with Freeman and Faraja in the van and had interesting conversations about the difference in cultures. Finally after at least 4 hours at the Maasai market we got the call to go pick up Gayle and Julius. We saw them on the corner and Gayle's face didn't look very excited. What started out to be a wonderful task of getting new mattresses for Light in Africa ended up being a nightmare. After all the sizes of mattresses were sorted and one truck was loaded and they decided they would not all fit and then were unloaded and loaded again. Gayle and Julius tried to maintain a sense of humor. Then they had to find a fundi that could make some plastic covers for the mattresses and an hour later he couldn't figure out that we needed all different sizes. Oh well another afternoon of shopping for Julius and Gayle. Big project but badly needed for the kids. Thanks Diane and Dennis Smith for your donation for this project. You would not believe how badly they needed these.
Back in the van we went to "Walmart". We purchased fresh fruits and vegetables as well as rice and oil for tomorrow while trying to not get hit by anyone riding a bike "down the aisles". Too bad we don't get to see chickens randomly running around our Walmarts! Tomorrow we will pick up our slab of beef fresh off the hook.
Now we are at Ahudi Lodge. I've heard lots about it from Amanda and Jaclyn, I see why they kept talking about it. Beautiful place! We had supper and chatted with the owner Erica after checking in to our rooms. Following that we made up 200 baggies of candy to hand out the the kids tomorrow.
Good night and thanks to all for your support and prayers for us during this mission!
–Katie
