Last minute

My brother and Carin were married this past saturday.  Carin is a great addition to our family. The wedding was beautiful and now they are off on their honeymoon! Congratulations Justin and Carin!
This past week has  been soo busy and focused on the wedding that we have been able to sit back and pretend we didn't have one thousand things to do before we leave.  We were able to just spend time with family and do wedding stuff.  Saturday night, as soon as the wedding was over, leaving became a reality to me.  Walking around saying goodbye to family friends started the emotions flowing again about leaving.  Yesterday our church prayed for us and we spent time saying goodbye to our church family.  So many people had such encouraging words for us and we were so thankful for what an amazing Church family we have.  After saying goodbye to one campus we then headed over to our other campus where Nick was able to preach one last time.  We spent time after that service saying our goodbyes again to some more friends.  We are so excited to get to Arusha but it is still so hard looking at our friends whose kids are our kids' friends and realizing they won't be playing anymore.  My friends who are in the same stage in life and who we have invested into their kids; knowing we won't be a part of their life was hard to imagine.  We have been soo blessed with amazing friends for our girls which makes this process a little harder. 
Last night we tried to get everything done so we could just enjoy today without needing to do much but even after working on our room for 4 hours we still have quite a bit to figure out how to pack! So, it looks like today will be lots of packing, running around to do the last minute errands, saying goodbye to some more friends, and hopefully some time with just our family. 
Thank you so much to everyone that has helped make this transition smoother.  We are praying for easy travel with our girls.  Last time I (Heidi) flew I got very sick.  We believe it was motion sickness so we are prepared this time but praying it will be different than last time.  Also we have been told that we will not be getting our visas in time.  We will need to buy our tourist visas when we get into the Kilimanjaro airport and wait to do anything until we have received our student/work visas.  Please be praying those will be processed soon. 
We love you all and can't wait to share our life in Tanzania with you!

So thankful for our family and friends

Monday night we had an amazing going away party.  Our amazingly thoughtful friends put together a memorable party that made us feel so loved and appreciated.  We are so thankful to everyone that came and spent time saying goodbye.  We are getting closer and closer to leaving and it is such a bittersweet feeling.  Thank you again for sending us off with such a thoughtful party. We will miss you all

Final Vacation with families!

Over the past month we have gone on 3 different vacations to spend some time with our families before we leave.  We were able to go to Seattle with the Forrest Family, to Bend with the Stevens/Forrest/Getsinger family, and to Lake Roosevelt with the Stagge/Pell family.  We are so blessed with the families we have and were so thankful we were able to spend that time with them.  Hannah and Hailey did great traveling everywhere, sleeping in different rooms (they did okay with that part:), and playing with all their cousins.  We are back now and are realizing there are soo many last minute things to do.  We have to get the girls their last shots (yellow fever and typhoid), cancel a lot of our accounts, pick up last minute things to add to our baggage, go through and weigh our baggage again to take out what we don't need and add what we need, etc.  So many things are running through our minds it is overwhelming and exciting at the same time.
 Right now Nick is in Oregon preaching at a church that is supporting us and then at night presenting at the church we went to in College.  We are praying that more connections will be made and we are excited to see what the Lord will do this weekend. 
This tuesday it will be 3 weeks til take off! It is coming soo fast and I find myself getting more and more excited about getting there and settling in.  Now that we are officially out of our house we can focus on the other things without the weight of that on our shoulders and I am realizing how amazing this is that we get to go serve the Lord in Africa.  I am in awe of what He has done to get us closer and closer to the dream He gave us years ago.  We cannot wait to see what is in store.  Thank you for all your prayers thus far.  Here are some prayer requests for those of you who are praying for us.
-All the lose ends to be wrapped up before we leave and nothing forgotten
-Visas be issued in time so we don't need to buy other visas
-Nicks grandpa is battling cancer and his grandma is battling a lot of sickness
-The remainder of our financial support to be raised
-Arusha's in a drought- pray for rain!
Thank you!! We cannot begin to thank you all for your support.  We feel so loved and supported throughout this whole process.