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Arrived Johannesburg


I spent the day with Dr. Dean Carlson, a career missionary and Africa Regional Director for One Challenge--a organization focused on resourcing African church leaders for church planting, mobilization, mentoring and leadership development. I met Dean in college, and it was wonderful to reconnect after 25 years, and to see how his work strengthening indigenous African Christianity (I want to reflect more on what I learned from him today at a later point on the journey).

I arrived in JoBurg last Wednesday, and Trinity, Monique and Dennis arrived yesterday. The rest of the team arrived tonight, and now we are all together and staying at the Africa Centre Lodge--a clean, safe, quirky, family style Hostel near the airport.

After checking in, we walked about .75 miles to a strip mall of restaurants, and we chose just the right one for our first meal together in Africa: Dreus Beef House. After 24+ hours of transport from home to the Africa Centre Lodge, everyone was surprisingly energized, giddy and ready to celebrate our first day on the Continent. We thoroughly enjoyed what will probably be our last world class meal before returning home, and we savored every bite (Don and I both had Hake and calamari).

Rise and shine will be at 6:30am, to get back to the airport by 8:00 to fly to Lilongwe and on by minibus to Mzuzu where our mission begins. Tonight, we all are safe, tired, excited, feeling well, and in good spirits.

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