Journeys

We left Pèdè last Sunday morning and drove to Parakou. We spent two nights there so that we could have our "End of Term" appointment with our Personnel Coordinator (and friend, Lee) and so that Marc could meet up with a mechanic to talk about getting our car properly fixed at last while we're away.

Tuesday we had a taxi drive us down to Cotonou. Unfortunately the A/C wasn't working, but otherwise all went smoothly. We saw the usual aftermath of accidents like this one on the way into Cotonou, with the lorry blocking 3 of 4 lanes:

As always we wonder how on earth they managed to end up like that!

We then had one and a half nights in Cotonou, getting up in the middle of the second night to be at the airport by 3:35am. We then flew to Morocco, where our airline paid for a hotel for 24 hours because they'd changed our flight times (fortunately ahead of time so we knew it was going to happen).

Enjoying the hotel ... and watching "Casablanca" in Casablanca!

We finally arrived in Manchester yesterday (Good Friday) afternoon, and were very happy to at last get to my mum and dad's. It's a treat to be able to celebrate Easter here.

Finishing up...

Our last month at home in Pèdè was very busy! Full but fun! We're leaving for a Home Assignment of 4 months, and so lots of people wanted to see us before we left. We also had Léa (our short-termer) with us, and other missionary visits, plus the Ladies' Bible study I'd taken on for our last 4 Sundays.

Léa's time with us was rich and rewarding, both for her (she says!) and for us. She came at everything with such enthusiasm that together we got a lot of work done. She also got on very well with our kids, and even did some dance lessons for Benjy and Eve. Benjy had to for school, and did it reluctantly, but Eve loved it so much she asked for extra lessons once the obligatory ones were over!

Léa is staying in Bénin for a couple of weeks longer than us. She'll be visiting other translation teams and helping out with some more English-French translation for the SIM Benin-Togo office, so we hope all of that goes well for her!