Well, we are writing alive and well from London Heathrow.  Praise God we made it this far.  We have  a lot of smiles considering it’s 3:30 am EST in this pic!

We were on schedule to be at the airport 3 and a half hours early but ended up getting the van and trailer stuck in a Bank ATM parking lot after making a wrong turn!  We managed to get out of a very tight space after about 25 min but that did mean there was a good size line at the check-in counter once we finally did make it to the airport!

Once we got off the plane here in London, we realized that we completely forgot one of our carry on luggage pieces at the TSA security checkpoint in Washington DC.  Please pray that we will be able to recover the bag and get it out to Kenya in good time.  It was filled with 50 lbs of much needed school books!

Thanks for your continued prayers and we will let you know once we make it safely to Kenya!

Blessings,

The Schmidts

Well, here is the promised update to confirm we made it. After 30 hours from the time we left for the airport in Nairobi, we were finally arriving at our hotel in Atlanta for the night. All things considered, the traveling went quite well. Makenna, who in our minds was the wildcard, did very well. She slept well, sat still in her seat (for the most part) and never had any behavioral issues as a result of the lack of sleep. Our bags all made it and now we are “home” in Tennessee! What more could we ask for?

Thanks for all your prayers and for all the short emails that many of you sent to let us know you were thinking about us. We’ll do our best to keep you posted regarding our limited travel plans while in the US but for now, we plan to be here in TN to just take it easy for the time being. We welcome emails and phone calls and look forward to seeing many of you soon.

For those of you from Canada, Happy Canada Day (a few days late!) and for those of you from the US, Happy 4th of July (a day early!)

God bless,

Reini & Abbie

Many of you have heard that we are going to be back in the US sometime soon. The rumors are true! In fact, we are leaving here on Wed night (June 29th) and will be arriving in Atlanta on Thursday evening. We will be in the US until early Jan and will be living back in East Tennessee.

Needless to say, we are busy in the midst of all our packing and putting things away in the house. On top of all of this, we just moved houses and have been living in our new house for just over 1 week. We had been talking about the possibility of this move for some time since it is closer to other families whom Abbie routinely meets with to do homeschooling activities. Even though it isn’t that far from our old place, it does cut down on driving time considerably. A few days after we moved out, our old landlord stopped by the old house to let us know that he was going to need the house back by December (when the lease is up) and preferably sooner. What a nightmare it would have been if we would have had to move right away upon our return, or worse yet, for other families to have had to pack up our house while we were gone! God is good and we are so thankful that we were able to move and get this new house set up for our return in early January.

Thanks again for all your prayers and financial support during this last 2 and a half year term. We are ready for a break and look forward to the next six months in the US. For those of you in the TN area, please let us know if you would like us to stop by and visit with you or to share in your churches or homes. Also please pray that we will be able to raise the extra support we will need in order to return in January.

Our US address will be as follows:
406 Lake Dr.
Piney Flats, TN 37686
(423) 538-6487

We will be sure to send out an update once we are safe and sound back in TN!

May the Lord bless you and keep you!
May the Lord make his face to shine upon you, and be gracious to you!
May the Lord lift up his countenance upon you, and give you peace!