Oh HAPPY DAY!!!

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Oh HAPPY DAY!!! Finally, our long awaited passports were returned to us from the Embassy of Zimbabwe with our visa stamps inside. All my calls paid off. The stamps look so official. I remember when Jesse Rose and I went to Denmark 11 years ago for the International Convention in Copenhagen, we had a stopover in Reykjavik, Iceland. On our way home, Jesse decided that she wanted to become a "stamp collector"...passport stamps, that is! So we sleuthed out the official place where you get them. We excitedly went out the little gate and went up to the window where a rather stern looking fellow was and asked him to stamp our passports. He had a bit of fun with us and made us squirm telling us he'd have to see proof of this, that and the other. Eventually when we were sufficiently disturbed, he stamped our books and let us back through the formidable entrance gate.

Our little contact cards came too and the turned out pretty dang cool, especially since the photos of Sean and I as well as Colin's were not the greatest of quality but I used them because I was in a pinch and I wanted the pictures of us to reflect our true personalities. I think that all of these do just that! Thank you to Jesse Rose for the photo she took of the tipi's on her trip here during the winter out at the Battlefield Trading Post in Crow Agency. Nicholas took the photo on the left on one of his many adventures. I believe that was taken at Mystic Lake a couple of weeks ago. And Colin's stunning photo of the Big Horn Canyon is breathtaking and simply had to be included. The top photo I took with my phone whilst pulled over on the way home to Hardin from a long several days in Columbus working on getting our house there ready to put on the market. It was one of those evenings when in every direction you looked, there was a different set of cloud patterns to gawk at. Jack (our pug) was with me and I was afraid that he'd slip out if I opened the door to get a picture, so I stood on the seats and poked up through the sunroof and snapped away! I wanted a pic that would show what we see in our territory a lot and well, the long open road with a beautiful big sky is very fitting indeed!

We are now 8 days away from driving off into the sunrise...a sunrise on a whole new adventure!

Breathe, just breathe.

Breathe, just breathe. That is what I keep telling myself. As per instructions from the Convention Dept, we mailed off all 4 of our passports to the Embassy of Zimbabwe in Washington DC along with our very detailed applications for visas which give you permission to enter and exit their country. According to the tracking information, they received them June 20th and we have yet to receive them back. I have made repeated calls and keep getting told that "They are being processed." Naturally, that is not what I want to hear. We drive away from Montana a week from Saturday and we desperately need to have those passports in hand at that time.

Today, I called again and finally was able to really talk to someone long enough for them to understand that we are arriving in Zimbabwe way earlier than most other delegates and that we have to drive to our departure city in advance of our leaving the country. So this nice man, David, went away for a long time and came back and said, "Ok, your passports are on their way. Sean and Beth Williams, right?" I said, "Yes, and Nicholas and Colin Williams too." "Nicholas and Colin?" he said. "Yes." Then he excused himself again saying he would call me back. So...here I sit waiting for that call, hoping that all is well and that all of our paperwork will be on it's way back to us soon!

Why "WeBe"?

You may be wondering why the odd name to this blog. Let me explain. Back in the day, in early 1989 when Sean and I were courting, a very good friend of ours in Thermopolis, WY kept telling us that if we got married, it would no longer me MeBe and YouBe but WeBe! He said this so much that it became one of those things that we would playfully joke about throughout what will soon be (Sept 9th) 25 years of "WeBe"...so it only seemed appropriate, since the initial spark to embark on this African Adventure was our anniversary trip to call it WeBe!

At the time, the 2014 International Conventions had not even been announced yet. But we had decided that for our 25th, we would not spend money on each other or on something that was only beneficial to us but rather we wanted to take the funds and carve out the time to go to a completely different continent, into a totally different culture, to give of ourselves in helping out in a congregation there, making new friends and having that sort of life-altering experience together...as WeBe. How thrilled we were when the Internationals were announced and Africa was on the list, the very place we'd spoken of going!

Eleven years ago, Jesse Rose and I were delegates at the "Give God Glory" International Convention in Copenhagen, Denmark when she was 17 years old. That indeed was an amazing, unforgettable experience that is still etched into our hearts. It was life-altering! Nicholas is now 18 and just graduated from high school last month and Colin is now 16 and will graduate within the year, so it is the only good and proper thing to include them on began as our anniversary trip. Now it can be their graduation trips as well.  It has been a huge amount of work up until now to bring us to this point and the preparations are not yet complete, but ready or not...the count down is on, just 14 more days until we leave!

Well, here goes nothing!

Well, here goes nothing! That I certainly turns into something because I have a lot riding on this blog to work and serve as an online place for our family to share our great big African adventure with all of you out there who wish to keep up with our shenanigans!