just like coming to africa... we're stuck here!!

so here we are, all stuck in libreville! surprise! air maroc is on strike once again. we were supposed to fly out late last night but couldn't... they told us we would fly out tonight instead but now that hasn't happened either. now the word on the street is that we will be flying out tomorrow afternoon and arriving in new york on sunday afternoon. if everything goes properly i should be home on sunday night! pray that it goes right!!

this extra day and a half has made me want to leave and get home though. before i didn't feel like i was ready. now i do... even though i would love to stay here too. but, all we are doing is sitting in hotel rooms playing rummy! which is fun, but not what i love to do here. i just have to accept that it is time to come home and that i can come back sometime in the future!! i am absolutely in love with this place!

here we are in the restaurant racking up our bill for air maroc!

partying it up in one of our hotel rooms playing rummy... and eating ice cream and cappuccino's... again on air maroc!

here is lindsay and i with our 'air maroc hate page'
(just after we found out we weren't leaving again tonight)

baby shark doo-doo doo-doo-doo-doo

for our last day in gabon we did another medical clinic! and what interesting thing did we see today? 2 dead baby sharks! not sure how far out they caught them... let's just say i'm glad this happened on our last day!

dead baby sharks...

the whole gang!

hope house farewell

today was so hard to say goodbye to all of those kids. needless to say, there were tears - lots of tears. they were told that today was our last day too... so when we were saying goodbye they clung to us and didn't want to let go. i didn't want to let go!!! it was a perfect last day though! those kids are perfect :)

naomie

boomba, josue, masunda

pointe denis

we had our last beach day today... and we went to the best beach of them all! the sun was scorching hot... i don't know if i have ever experienced such intense heat! i didn't burn though :)

melissa leaves

and now we're down to all the interns (minus torey) and tim & meredith! i can't believe that we all go home in only 3 days! where did the time go?

danielle, leanne, zach, tim, christian,
hannah, marley, melissa, lindsay, meredith

dan & alicia and allegany leave

we said goodbye to our last team and dan & alicia tonight. it is going to feel so quiet around the house now.

olivia, anita, jacob, scott, heather, ben, and matt

alicia and dan

caravane medicale

today we split up the allegany team - half at the job site and half at the medical clinic. i was at the medical clinic. we had an amazing day even though there weren't many patients who came. after lunch we had an awesome time of prayer. we started off with the gabonese sharing their personal prayer requests and then the americans (and canadians) chose one gabonese and prayed for them. then we switched it... we shared our prayer requests and they prayed for us. then we prayed for the allegany team and dan & alicia who leave tomorrow... and then we prayed for melissa who leaves on monday... and then they prayed for us interns that leave on thursday... and then we prayed for the presidential election... and then we prayed for the medical team! i was so overwhelmed with emotions while they prayed for us leaving. part of me wants to leave to see family and friends but today a larger part of me didn't want to leave at all. i have a feeling this last week is going to continue to be very emotional :(

the medical team gave dresses to the girls and shirts & shorts to the guys! they're too nice!

torey leaves ='(

it's a sad night around the stmo center. we had an intern leave tonight. we will never be complete again! torey left a week earlier than the rest of us and so we had a very tearful goodbye and took our last intern photos of the summer. of course that means that we will do our makeup and our hair! (i found out that when i straighten my hair it goes wavey and when i curl my hair it also goes wavey... i guess i'm just stuck with wavey hair!!)

zach, torey, marley, hannah, danielle, leanne, and lindsay

this is more of an accurate representation of what we're really like...

funny story... one of our vans died when we were on our way to the airport. so we all jumped into one van and this was the turnout...

langley leaves

langley was our team that was out here for the longest. like all the teams we've had this summer it was sad to see them go. there were some tears at the airport that hopefully means we will all remember this trip and how God changed us and used us here in gabon.

jenna, mike, shelby, jason, shannon, and tasha

august 4-7 - back to okolassi

after digging the foundation with the faith team, we headed back to the site to pour the footers with the langley team! it was cool to be back there and continue the work that was started. we also got to hang out with the kids again which was awesome! they are such good helpers. this is the church where the whole church (besides maybe 5 people) are children.

moving dirt to make the ground flat

jump rope break!

dirt delivery... that turned out to be clay...

church at nzeng ayong

we went to church at nzeng ayong, where we spent the week working on the new church. during the service they presented us all with gifts. the boys got shirts made for them and all the girls got dresses made. it was so unexpected and i was overwhelmed with how much they care about other people. i really felt like i didn't deserve anything! after the service they put up a tent and made lunch for us. we even had servers! and they all wore matching patterns. they were so cute! they said this was all "a little something" they could give us for all the work we did. really, i think they made the bigger difference in our lives.

our african 'mama' dresses

the lunch thrown for us

our matching servers!