team retreat

I am a slacker in posting about our team retreat a few weekends back. We went (6 adults and 6 littles) over on the puke boat which I DID NOT YAK ON...close though.... but thank you Lord for drugs especially since the ride took an hour longer than promised since some of the engines on the boat were broken! After arriving at the port we headed to the grocery store to stock up on some favorite treats we cannot here (namely bacon and special cereals) and then headed to the house we were staying at (an empty for the moment house about 45 minutes with traffic from the city center). The rest of our time there we hung out, took the kids to a park at the beach nearby, went to a Western mall, and spent the day at the water park there. The water park was an adventure as always and we almost had the place to ourselves the day we went. The "rules" are a bit loose there and the guys had fun trying to push the limits of the water slides and Anni even went down one of the big slides with us (see video for some of the mayhem). As a team we had time to reflect a bit, talk, share about our lives, pray and worship, and just be together although it may be a while before we want to be stuck in the back of the team van with 6 kids in a traffic jam it was a great chance to be together without the distractions of everything here. Here are some pics of our time in Dar:

too many people in 1 car...Oh Vey!

a rough night and an early morning...poor J :)

It was good to be away from home but we were ready for our beds after a couple nights

Ah, cool water!J & Anni had a blast on the water slides

all day in the sun & water is exhausting...
for both girls

there was some "only in Africa" moments...like an open power cable hanging over a kid's slide...choking and electrocution...awesome!!


Anni loved being with her friends 24/7

the place we were staying had a trampoline...holla!!

a nice team dinner bila ya watoto

(some friends of our team leader babysat so we could have a night out)

Anni liked shopping at the mall
repeat after me....."ice cream is goooood. Really good!"

on the trip back to the island we discovered the new ferry company waiting room
maybe we are easy to please but it was a highlight of the trip:

it had air conditioning & free food (we loaded up) before our trip back home