Our blog isn't exactly a "Captain's Log" is it? OR "Wow, time flies even when you AREN'T having fun at our age!"

My, my, my - It's been since Hawaii in November that I've written a blog post.  I'll bet you're all glad I'm not your mailman (postman for our UK influenced friends).

So, what's been happening.

We went to Red Bay in the early part of December.  There actually wasn't too much to fix on the Trekker this year when our year-end Maintenance Session came up.  Obviously we had already been there in July for our driver's side hydraulic slide not being able to come back in.  So, we only had to stay about 10 days to get the list taken care of this time.  We also found that if you come in December, there aren't near as many people there to get repairs.  I guess being between Thanksgiving and Christmas is kind of a rig repair "Sweet Spot."

Following our yearly trek to Red Bay we headed to Durham, North Carolina for Christmas with our kids.  Well 5 out of 7 of them anyway.  Getting our family together can be challenging since we have 7 kids spread from Toronto, Canada to Florida to Tucson, Arizona and numerous locations in between.  So Christmas is a time to get as many of them together as possible.  The last time we had our whole family together was for my mother's 80th birthday in September of 2009.  So, even getting together with most of the family was great.  Seeing grandkids is always a highlight of any family visit.  They are all growing up.  The corollary to that statement is that WE are growing O-L-D.  Our oldest grandkids are now 9 and our youngest is closing in on 4 pretty quickly now.

After Christmas with the kids and grandkids it was back to Mission, Texas where we had decided that our "Experiment in Downsizing" was a pretty abject failure.  So, we purchased a new home.  This one has 4 bedrooms, though one is my office and one is going to be Irene's crafting room.  The extra space gave us a good sized closet to store all of Irene's VBS material in also.  Plus, this one has both an RV Port for the trekker AND a garage for the Ford Expedition we now us as our Tow Vehicle.

Being home this year was all about trying to get Irene's health issues addressed.  Since we were on the road following her heart attack, she hadn't actually gotten in any structured Cardiac Rehab.  So, while we were there she got about 1/2 of those rehab appointments taken care of.  Not wanting to turn this blog post into WebMD, we will just say that she's had appointments with 4 different specialists as well as our Primary Care Physician in the last six weeks.  I was feeling so ignored I went and got a shot in my eyeball just to get some attention! LOL.  She's making some progress for which we are very thankful and want to thank all of you that have been praying for her recovery.

In February we made a swing west from Mission to visit to see the western part of our family.  We have a son that lives in Tucson, Arizona with his family and another one that lives in Odessa, Texas with his family.  These were the 2 of our kids that couldn't make it to Durham for Christmas so we had to go see these grandkids too.

As I sit here now typing this posting we are in Cape Town, South Africa on what has been for me a virtually yearly mission trip since 1984.  Irene's been here about 15 or so times over that 34 year period.  At the end of this post I'll going to put the schedule of our stay here.  We will be here 7 weeks.  Much of the last 2 will be doing some "sightseeing in Namibia's Caprivi Strip.  We are also going to go to Livingstone, Zambia to see Victoria Falls which are near the headwaters of the Zambezi River.

On the map of Namibia above you can see the arm that extends to the east, south of 

Angola and Zambia and North of Botswana.  That is the "Caprivi Strip."

We arrived on the 7th of March and will return to the US on the 24th of April.  During our mission trip in South Africa and Namibia Irene or I will teach (or I will preach) at 5 different churches and the Cape Bible School.  Below is the schedule for our Mission Trip:

2018 South Africa/Namibia Mission Trip Schedule

March 5^th – April 24^th 2018

March 5th - Monday
5:40 PM – 7:15 PM	AA 5772	McAllen	DFW
10:15 PM	AA 78	DFW
March 6th - Tuesday
1:10 PM	AA78		London – Heathrow
6:10 PM	BA55	London - Heathrow
March 7th - Wednesday
7:15 AM	BA55		Johannesburg
10:35 AM – 12:45 PM	BA6409	Johannesburg	Cape Town
6:00 PM – 8:00 PM	Wednesday Night Study	Athlone	Adult Bible study
March 8th - Thursday	CBS (RJ)	Athlone	Young Adults
March 9th - Friday		Athlone	Youth
March 10th - Saturday		Athlone	Elders & Deacons
March 11th - Sunday	Morning Bible Study	Athlone
	Sunday Morning Lesson	Athlone
	Sunday Evening Lesson	Atlantis Sing a Long??
March 12th - Monday
March 13th - Tuesday	Men’s Class	Jones’ House	Book of Jude Overview
March 14th - Wednesday	Wednesday Night Study	Gugulethu	Walk By Faith Not Sight
March 15th - Thursday
March 16th - Friday
March 17th - Saturday	CBS	CBS	Authority & Silence
March 18th - Sunday	Morning Bible Study	Bellville
	Sunday Morning Lesson	Bellville
	Sunday Evening Lesson	Gugulethu	Lesson from Mark
March 19th - Monday
March 20th - Tuesday
March 21st - Wednesday	Wednesday Night Study	Gugulethu	Walking Wisely
March 22nd - Thursday	CBS	CBS	Understand Bible Alike
March 23rd - Friday		ATHLONE - REDUX
March 24th - Saturday
March 25th - Sunday	Morning Bible Study	Thicket Rd	Forgiveness
	Sunday Morning Lesson	Thicket Rd	Worse than Saul
	Sunday Evening Lesson	Thicket Rd	More than David
March 26th - Monday		Thicket Rd	You’ve left the church
March 27th - Tuesday		Thicket Rd	Brethren let you down
March 28th - Wednesday	Wednesday Night Study	Thicket Rd	Be faithful till death
March 29th - Thursday
March 30th - Friday
March 31st - Saturday
April 1st - Sunday
	Sunday Morning Lesson	Gugulethu	Great Is Our God
April 2nd - Monday
April 3rd - Tuesday		Soup Kitchen &	Men’s Class
April 4th - Wednesday	Wednesday Night Study	Gugulethu	Keep Walking In Truth
April 5th - Thursday	Leave for Namibia	CBS (Malan)
April 6th - Friday	Arrive in Namibia
	Friday Night Classes	Keetmanshoop	Forgiveness In Christ
April 7th – Saturday	Saturday Night Classes	Keetmanshoop	Rohan Jones
April 8th – Sunday	Sunday Morning Study	Keetmanshoop	Restore Us Again
	Sunday Morning Lesson	Keetmanshoop	Brethren Let You Down
	Sunday Evening Lesson	Keetmanshoop	Faithful Until Death
April 9th – Monday	Leave for Windhoek	FLY or DRIVE (TBD)	Arrive in Windhoek
	Protea Hotel Fürstenhof	4 Dr. Frans Indongo St	Windhoek
April 10th – Tuesday	Protea Hotel Fürstenhof	4 Dr. Frans Indongo St	Windhoek
April 11th - Wednesday
9:35 AM – 11:05 AM	AN133	Windhoek Eros	Katima Mulilo
	Protea Zambezi Lodge	Ngoma Rd. Caprivi	Katima Mulilo
April 12th - Thursday	Protea Zambezi Lodge
April 13th - Friday	Protea Zambezi Lodge
April 14th - Saturday	Protea Zambezi Lodge	CBS (Malan)
April 15th - Sunday	Protea Zambezi Lodge
April 16th - Monday	Protea Zambezi Lodge
	AN134	Katima Mulilo	Windhoek Eros
	Etango Ranch Guest Farm	B6 – Opposite Airport	Windhoek
April 17th - Tuesday
5:30 AM – 8:10 AM	SAA73	Windhoek	Johannesburg
10:40 AM – 12:20 PM	SAA48	Johannesburg	Livingstone, Zambia
	Protea Livingstone	Mosi-O-Tunya Rd	Livingstone
April 18th - Wednesday	Protea Livingstone
April 19th – Thursday	Protea Livingstone	CBS (Malan)
1:00 PM – 2:40 PM	SAA49	Livingstone	Johannesburg
5:45 PM – 7:55 PM	SAA359	Johannesburg	Cape Town
April 20th – Friday
April 21st – Saturday
April 22nd – Sunday
	Sunday Morning Lesson	Gugulethu	Our God Is Awesome
	Sunday Evening Lesson	Gugulethu	Boasting In The Lord
April 23rd - Monday
5:00 PM – 7:00 PM	BA6422	Cape Town	Johannesburg
8:45 PM	BA54	Johannesburg
April 24th - Tuesday
6:55 AM	BA54		London
9:15 AM – 1:25 PM	AA51	London Heathrow	DFW
6:40 PM – 8:21 PM	AA1129	DFW	McAllen