Getting Settled

We've been at Catherine's house for a week now, which seems kind of crazy, but we still have a long way to go!

On Tuesday we hung out most of the day, Catherine had to go pick up some church people from the airport and take them to the border so they could have their own adventures getting into the Congo. So she was gone most of the day and we hung out with the family here and just did random things. Then on Wednesday we did laundry. A simple process you would think, but we were new to it and they found the way we did it, VERY funny and Catherine kept saying, no no, that's not how you do it and she would laugh. Sigh. We took turns and by the end it had taken us both about two hours to wash, rinse, and hang up, but we're learning...

In the afternoon we went to Margaret's house-she is very active in the church and will be heading the orphan program down here. The two pastors of the local congregations were also there and we discussed what we can do to help them and then what the next steps in the orphan program process will be.

We ended up with quite a few things on our plate.
Sundays we will be helping out with Sunday school for the kids and then of course the service. Then in the afternoons we will be putting together a youth activity for one of the congregations.
Mondays and Tuesdays will be our planning days as well as the days we work on the survey materials. Wednesday we will hold a bible study, Thursdays we go to a women's group, which we experienced for the first time yesterday and it was similar to a bible study. Friday's are for planning as well. Then Saturdays, we will be going to a youth activity from 10-3 every saturday. This weeks topic is preparation for dating and marraige..so that should be interesting..

We've been runnning into many cultural differences that are causing a bit of stress..but it's all in the experience I suppose. And we're slowly figuring things out, though there are many things I don't think we'll ever understand :)

Yesterday we went to the immigration office to get Ashley's visa extended, they only gave her two weeks (me they gave four weeks..no idea why..) and told us to just get it extended when the time runs out. So we walked to immigration and sat there forever until someone showed up (most of the time we have no idea what's going on....) but then they said, nope come back tomorrow because her visa doesn't really expire until Sunday, but they will be closed, so they want you to come on the day closest to the date on the passport. So we went back today and got everything taken care of.

We did go to the women's group in the afternoon and it was lot of singing (songs we don't know) and then it was similar to a bible study and then they had announcements and things got kind of heated. All in a different language, so we just sat there, again, having no idea what was really going on..but as I said..that's typical. We watched Meet the Fockers with the family last night, and then our soap opera. Scandal! has become our favorite...it's quite horrible.

Today, like I said we got the immigration stuff taken care of, and we don't have much else on the agenda for the rest of the day.