Heading out...

Well, the house is down to about 99% packed up and we're preparing to head out of town on Thursday. My last day of work was on Nov. 30th, and since then it's been a mad rush to get the house packed and into storage in time, while trying to spend as much time with friends and family here as possible.
Thursday we said goodbye to our bible study ("link group"), then Friday night we had a going away dinner with Mark & Barbara from my office. Today was kind of a sad day, as in the morning we said goodbye to our wonderful church family. They brought us up in front of the congregation to officially 'send us off' and pray for us. The boys shared in all 3 services about what we will be doing in Africa. There is not a shy bone in any of their 3 little bodies. They raced to see who could get up on stage first, and then fought for "mic-time"! Both Pastor Ron and Pastor Tom prayed for us at the 3 main services. It was so nice and comforting for us to be sent out in this manner, with the prayers of nearly a couple thousand people, many of whom are dear friends.
Right after the last service, we packed up the car with our cat Kitty and her things and headed to Klamath Falls to drop her off at cousin Molly and husband Ryan's house. They have graciously agreed to keep Kitty for us while we are away. They have 3 young children close in age to our boys, so Kitty should feel at home. Kitty seemed to love their house, as there were lots of places to hide and window sills to look out from. But, saying goodbye was hard, since we've had her for 11 1/2 years. Alisha and I got her the first few months after we came to Medford in 1996, less than a year after we were married. The boys were pretty sad, and Alisha had a hard time saying goodbye too - but we couldn't have found a better place for her to be, (cousins Molly and Ryan were so kind to offer to keep her) so that's comforting.
This week will be pretty hectic - moving is always a big chore, but moving out of the country is on a whole other level - I've said it's almost like we're ceasing to exist in many ways, since we're not just forwarding everything to our next home.
One exciting thing to report is that we found out yesterday that we have renters! We are so thankful that God has taken care of this detail now too! We were really hoping to have it rented before we left town, so that was very exciting news to receive!
Ok, back to packing, or bed, or whatever else is on the schedule.
Our lives are in such dissarray at this point, we keep asking each another what we're doing at that moment and what we're supposed to do next! We're hanging in there, but the physical stretching is definitely making the emotional strecthing a little more tricky to contend with!
So thank you for all your prayers - we'll need them these next several weeks as we say more goodbyes to family and friends and transition from life in the U.S. to life overseas.
We fly out of SFO on Jan 27 and arrive in Entebbe, Uganda on the 29th.