Hi All,

Sorry for not writing.  The past few weeks have been hectic.  I had final exams to prepare, give, and grade.  Leslie spent two weeks going to Zanzibar and Mikumi National Park with Virginia Holt, another ECUSA missionary stationed in South Africa.  Virginia came up here for her holiday and Leslie showed her around Tanzania.

Now we’re on our way to Musoma and Tabora.  I have to leave my computer behind, which may kill me.  We don’t have room in the car, because we’re taking three of our neighbors, George Okoth and two of his children, to their home in Musoma, where we’ll spend Christmas.  If the roads are good, we’ll drive from Musoma to the Tabora region to spend New Years with a Danish missionary family, the Andersens.

I just bought new tires yesterday, and I have two extra inner tubes.  (Yes, there are still car tires that use inner tubes.  They are easier to get repaired here, because there are very few proper tire machines in Tanzania.)  So, we should be good to go.  The only really dicey part is the two hour trip from the city of Tabora to the village where the Andersens live.  The key to that will be how much rain they get over the next week.

Speaking of rain, when it rains it pours here, literally.  We’ve had buckets of rain over the past month.  It went from desert to a green place.  Not a jungle, but very green.  Grass is growing on what was baked hard clay where I would have sworn nothing could grow.

Anyway, it’s time to put the laptop away.  If you need to reach us over the next two weeks, my cell phone number is (in Tanzania) 0752 069 569 (International) 255 752 069 569 (from the US) 011 255 752 069 569.

Merry Christmas!
Kirk