At last we are on our way! We fly on Tuesday the 16th August, a short hop to Heathrow, then an overnight flight to Jo'burg followed by another short hop to Maputo. That's more than 24 hours in airports, so quite how our four boys will cope is anyone's guess. The last few weeks have been frenetic with farewells to be made, boxes to be packed, paperwork to be sorted out, and a hundred and one little jobs. But it's good finally to be returning to Africa.

We have booked some rooms at a guest house in Maputo but one of our first jobs will be to look round for a suitable house or apartment. We also need to purchase a vehicle although we plan initially to rent one at the airport. It feels strange moving to a city where we literally do not know a soul. We have been put in touch with a few friends of friends by email, but we could really do with one or two people willing to show us the ropes in the first couple of weeks. God will provide, but it's going to be challenging, to say the least!

Once we are settled we will begin language study in Portuguese and we anticipate this needing about six months. Thereafter we aim to move up to Tete and to commence a work among the churches there. Although we will home school the boys in Tete, while we are in Maputo the older boys will attend an international school, leaving Sharon and me free to concentrate on our language study. We have already made some progress with a Linguaphone course, but we still have a great deal to learn. Without a good grasp of Portuguese we will be able to accomplish very little in Mozambique.