<\/p>\n
Friday, October 19, 2012<\/p>\n
After more than 9 months of being transient in the states, we have officially arrived back on African soil!\u00a0 <\/span>There is just something to be said about waiting for what feels like eternities to return to a place that has stolen, and will forever hold, a place in our hearts!\u00a0 <\/span>I can’t explain the feeling of stepping off of our plane in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia and for the first time, naturally jumping into the mix of customs patrol, getting visas, communicating in our “African English”, which really is just a more concise and condensed version of English.\u00a0 <\/span>We are no longer “first time” missionaries!\u00a0 <\/span>Which is weird and exciting all at the same time.\u00a0 <\/span>Although we had never been out of the airport in Ethiopia, we knew exactly what we were supposed to do.\u00a0 <\/span>This is our third international move in 3 years, and while each country is a little different, at the same time, it’s exactly the same.\u00a0 <\/span>Driving around the roads in Addis, watching the (what I would consider) stressful life of driving in a 3rd<\/sup> world country, Blake and I looked at each other and without spoken words, knew what each other was thinking, welcome back Berry’s, we have been waiting just for you!<\/p>\n Being back in the states for so long was exactly what we needed, but the first day driving around I realized how much I truly missed Africa.\u00a0 <\/span>The regular smell of cooking fires, the unspoken rules you are to follow (like although it’s a 2 lane road, as long as you don’t hit each other, that’s more of a guideline), the cows that randomly cross the road, in the middle of the busiest part of the CITY, during the busiest part of the day, and MY personal favorite the non-existence of noise ordinances, just to name a few.\u00a0 <\/span>The other thing I missed so much about Africa, and the ultimate reason we are here, is the friendships we have made along our journey.\u00a0 <\/span>Within hours of arriving in Juba and getting our new phone numbers, we had one of our old friends e-mail and ask for our new number, and within seconds called just to greet us and welcome us “home”.\u00a0<\/p>\n It’s only been a week since we have arrived in Juba, and although we are currently staying in a guesthouse on the compound while we finish the house we will live in, it already feels strangely familiar, like I have arrived\u2026uhhum\u2026home.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Friday, October 19, 2012 After more than 9 months of being transient in the states, we have officially arrived back on African soil!\u00a0 There is just something to be said about waiting for what feels like eternities to return to a place that has stolen, and will forever hold, a place in our hearts!\u00a0 I can’t explain the feeling of…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-100","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.berry1.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.berry1.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.berry1.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.berry1.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.berry1.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=100"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.berry1.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.berry1.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=100"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.berry1.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=100"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.berry1.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=100"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}