I’ve purposefully hardly shared about our travels this year – choosing to live in the present and not putting it all ‘out there’. So the focus of this blog has been largely on Burundi; but many of you have asked about our travels, so here’s one way of reporting back – and others have been asking about our summer plans, so I’ll paste details of them below as well:

43,000 miles in travel

1,700 new GLO supporters for our database

304 days away, of which…

284 days staying with people (so only 20 days in hotels or AirBnB)

$220 for my root canal in Poland instead of the £650 quoted by my dentist in the UK

102 speaking engagements

81 different beds slept in

63 dogs loved and played with, and then sadly parted from

51 friends from Burundi hooked up with

48 incredibly generous families/friends we stayed with

34 countries visited

27 airplanes flown

25 meltdowns (approximately), all but 5 of which were during home-schooling, and most of them by the kids!

24 total number of cars in the WHOLE of Albania in 1991 – my favourite weird statistic of the year – and we were hosted by the first woman driver in the country

21 days without a shower/bath – so Josiah claims – but surely not?! Maybe 9 days I reckon! Zac on a par with him…

15 boat trips

14 times Jos wrote in his journal ‘and we walked, and we walked, etc’ describing a 90-minute excursion down a hill on what was ‘the worst day of my life’!

9kg of luggage each, see photo below

10 times ‘You’ve ruined my life!’ howled during home-schooling – my favourite lament!

8 trains (highlight being 1^stclass tickets in Myanmar costing $4 for 6 of us for a two-hour journey out of the capital)

7 items lost/left behind (towels, travel mirror, computer cable, phone charger, jacket, cap – nothing major)

6 teeth lost from Grace’s mouth in two weeks – not sure what the deal was there, but the tooth fairy had to make regular visits

5 days of sickness only, excluding sniffles and my dodgy back (Grace’s puking first night and she had a virus in Thailand)

2 ‘exotic’ delicacies sampled (in Cambodia, a BBQ’d scorpion and tarantula)

1 emergency trip to hospital for Grace’s foot to be stitched up having been sliced through by oyster shells when she jumped off a friend’s dock

0 thefts, so thankful!

We’re incredibly grateful for the experience. More to follow maybe on it. In the meantime, here’s the summer schedule:

10^th-14^th July– hosting Johnson family from Burundi

12^th-14^th July– speaking at Shift weekend

15^th-19^th July – Family debriefing residential 

Friday to Sunday 19^th-21^st July – Whites mates’ weekend

Saturday 20^th July – men’s breakfast in London

Sunday 21^st July – King’s, Chesham

Sunday 28^th July – Uckfield Baptist 

Tuesday 30^th July – Friday 2^nd August – talks at New Wine, Peterborough

Monday 5^th August – Tuesday 6^th – New Wine talks again

Wednesday 7^th– Friday 16^th August – fly to France, family holiday at parents’ place

Saturday 17^th– Friday 23^rd August – speaking week at Lee Abbey

Gearing up for new schools and new life starting Monday 2^nd September!