More Pictures

As it turns out, our little tablet has a panorama shooting mode.  This is the view from the balcony on the top of our house.  You can see St. Peter's there in the right half of the photo, and everything on the ground past the large bush on the left is part of the Cannosians' campus that our house is a part of.

Below is a bonus picture of the two of us in our room.  Tim's beard is starting to get gnarly!

Finally, We Post Some Pictures

Just wanted to share some pictures with you all.  The first two are of St. Peter's from the Piazza San Pietro (St. Peter's Square, which is round, go figure) and the third is also St. Peter's, but it is taken from the balcony of the house in which we are staying right before we went to bed.  Stay tuned for more pictures soon!

First Day in Rome

We finally made it to Rome!  We are in the VOICA volunteer house along with three other volunteers.  Today, we will start learning French (and Italian).  We already had a cooking lesson from Rosa, the sisters' cook, and a lesson about St. Josephine Bakhita (story about halfway down the page), an important figure in the Canossians' history.  We will be having lessons both in spirituality and foreign language five days a week, a cooking lesson once a week, community building and prayer daily, and lunch with the sisters every Saturday.  We will have a bit of free time every weekend to explore a little bit.  We visited St. Peter's yesterday and took some pictures.  We should be able to post some by this evening, so keep an eye out for that.  Time is short, so we need to run to lunch and then to our next lesson.  Ciao!

Coffee + Free Wireless = Blog Post

First off, we've landed in Ireland!  We've been awake now for ~30 hours, so we're sitting in a hotel bar drinking coffee and trying not to look like zombies.  We'll head off to Rome Tuesday morning.  Just wanted to give a quick update to let everyone know we're back on the ground safely.

Off We Go!

    So here we are, the day before we leave, scrambling around trying to take care of all the last minute details.  How do you even pack sufficiently to be gone for ~15 months anyway? Lots of underwear and socks, at least.
     The last couple months or so have been so busy, but in a good way.  We have been wrapping up jobs, fundraising, getting immunized, buying plane tickets, making sure we have our documentation, and running around all over the southeast trying to spend some time with as much of our friends and family as possible.  We haven't had barely a spare minute and it has been exhausting at times, but it has also been a really enjoyable time.  We have been referring to it as the Whirlwind Farewell Tour, and it has certainly lived up to this moniker.
     This time tomorrow, we'll be on a plane and officially underway for this adventure!  We'll stop over in Dublin, Ireland for a couple of days before moving on to Rome for 2 months or so.  From simultaneously learning Italian and French in Rome to finding our way around to trying to get mentally, emotionally, and spiritually prepared for our year in Togo, we will be very busy.  We'll do our best to keep in touch with everyone via this blog and email; we will truly miss all of our family and friends (and dogs)!  Keep us in your thoughts and prayers, and drop us a line every once in a while!
     As we prepare to leave on this journey, we would like to take an opportunity to express our gratitude to everyone who has supported us and continues to support us in this difficult and exciting endeavor.  Family, friends, and fellow parishioners have all been overwhelmingly generous and we have been blown away and humbled by the volume and intensity of financial, emotional, and spiritual support.  We have exceeded our fundraising goals, and the majority of our personal expenses have been defrayed by all of your selfless provision.  We count ourselves as extremely lucky and blessed to have so many wonderful people in our lives!
     In closing, wish us luck as we pass the point of no return tomorrow.  We are both excited and a bit apprehensive about what this journey will bring for us, and we are looking forward to finding out along the way.  Please pray for our safety, and that we will be able to make a positive impact on peoples' lives while we are out in the world.  An experience like this will undoubtedly be life-changing, and we hope and expect that it will be in a positive manner. Keep an eye on the blog, email us from time to time, and the year will be over before we know it!