We are now on the serious side of our move to Kenya. We’ve had the privilege of hosting our CEO Pastor Robin Aim for a week. Pete was the chauffeur and did over 1,000km’s just around Sydney and the Southern Highlands. It was great spending time with him and talking about all things to do with Afri-Lift.

This week we head to New Zealand to say farewell to our family and friends. It’s been a couple of years since we’ve been there and while we’re looking forward to seeing people we are not going to enjoy the freezing weather. I’m making sure I take a hot water bottle, my ugg boots and some warm gear we wore up Mount Kilimanjaro last year!

We’ve just printed off our supporters brochures, so if you want one please make sure you contact us.

Great news, in Australia we have tax deductibility status, which means if you support us you get a receipt you can use in your tax return. Another good reason to donate!

Don’t forget that we want to catch up with you all before we leave, so drop me a message via our site here or on Facebook.

BYE

It seems all we do lately is pack up, travel, unpack and then repeat it. I have a feeling it will be much like that before we leave for Africa. Here’s a video for an example – that tells a two week story in only 5 minutes.

I’ve just realised I haven’t blogged on this site since January, how bad is that!!

Lots has been happening since then so here’s the lowdown:

• We’ve started packing up the boxes – why have stuff collecting dust when it can be stored
• Decided to take as little as possible, $10K is way too much to pay for a container full of stuff needing to be replaced anyway
• We’ve bought all the Sheridan towels for the guest room, it’s hard not to use them that’s for sure
• The only item left to purchase is the cappuccino machine for Pete, I have my juicer
• All our DVD’s are securely packed in a couple of wallets so that no nice customs person can uplift them for an early Christmas present
• The tickets to New Zealand are booked for our final family farewell in June

Poor Lizzie, her room looks like a storage facility. We’ve started clearing out the garage to put the boxes in but with Pete working so many long hours it could be a while. She has secured a trail to her bed which is the main thing!

It sounds easy to pack up, but we’ve had to make decisions on things like my wedding dress. There’s no negotiables like some of the kids toys when they were babies. All the old photos, pre-digital days have been scanned and backed up ready to go onto a digital photo frame.

Meantime we’ve started buying clothes and shoes in our wonderful sales so that when we leave we’ll have brand new belongings to last us until we come back in a year for more shopping. Not that Nairobi doesn’t have some great malls, but we won’t have much of an income to splurge on extras.

Last but not least, our supporters packs have been printed and ready to give out. We need 100 supporters giving $40 a month. This will incorporate all living and operational costs. Don’t worry, we have you on our list!!!

One thing’s for sure, no matter how little or large amount of gear we’re taking we won’t be carrying it like this woman in Rwanda.

Boxes are being packed, promotional material is getting designed and now we’re up to investigating exciting things like where to buy fireworks from in Nairobi.

We’ve just celebrated Australia Day, what a blast it was! Liz had a great time, and finally, it stopped raining in Sydney.

Moving to another country sounds simple, but there’s some complicated. For example, we hold New Zealand passports, but live in Australia and plan to retire back here one day. After being here for 10 years, we consider it home. So, do we register our plans to move with the NZ or Aussie High Commissions? In the end, I write to my friend at the office in Nairobi and she says to register with both. I guess in the end it’s about keeping the main thing the main thing and just letting someone official know we’re there.

Some people think moving to Nairobi is the craziest thing we could do. Probably is, but we haven’t been called to just exist but LIVE. Sure, we will miss all the very cool things Australia has to offer, but Kenya has some unique awesome thngs of its own.

More about that next time. Until then it’s back to deciding what to take and enjoying what we have right now.

It’s hard to believe that in 10 months and one day we’ll be leaving Sydney after 10 fun filled years here. We couldn’t have asked for a better place as a launching pad for the next part of our lives.

We’re finishing 2011 on a strong note. Pete has been cleared to start full-time work and we’ve got lots of painting jobs waiting to be completed.

We’ve started learning Swahili which is a real challenge for Pete because he struggles on English! So far we can count up to 15 and basic greetings. We try and use Swahili every day, hopefully we’ll be ready to go by October.

We’ve also set up a new email address to contact us on wherever we are – thewildcreanberries@gmail.com

Have a great Christmas and we’ll see you soon!!

Pete, Sharon, Liz (and Hannah from Hawaii)

There’s now 7 billion people in the world. That’s massive and mind blowing. It’s certainly more than we can count on our fingers that’s for sure.

We love Kenya. It’s an amazing place, so diverse, full of challenges and opportunity. Although people are saying the world will end in 2012, for us, it’s simply the beginning of the next step of our journey. We leave Sydney on October 25 and head (via the USA) to Nairobi to set up home there. A team will arrive to climb Kilimanjaro to help raise funds for water projects across East Africa and then we head into settling into life there.

While there are plenty of things we can do there, we’re going to be specific in what we do and make sure our work is effective in bringing about change in the community.

Yes, we’ll be continuing the work of BeyondWater, as it really has transformed whole communities. But, we’re adding to our work by joining the team of Afri-Lift who have been on the ground for 30 years in Kenya. We’ve got a great relationship with the team there and know that what they do changes the lives of young people forever. It will be really nice to work with a team in a hands on environment, focus on people and use all the resources we’ve been blessed with to help young people.