Saturday, February 7, 2004 Ready to Settle down.... This month has been a whirlwind of change and transition. We spent the first part of the month working to get our work permits established. Which I’m happy to say were all approved! Then the second part of January we spent mostly down in South Africa. We flew down to Maputo, the capital of Mozambique, on January 19, picked up our new truck, took care of the insurance, and drove it down to South Africa. The truck spent about a week and a half in the shop, getting a few accessories put on such as a long range fuel tank, rear bumper, canopy, etc. And, of course, while we waited we really enjoyed going to movies, shopping at malls, and eating American food. It was really nice to be in South Africa. Then we headed north for the dreaded 3 day, 1700 mile drive back up to Nampula. It was never a boring trip! There were always huge potholes to dodge, waiting on cows to cross the road, monkeys running across, rickety bridges to hold your breath over, loading the car onto a hand cranked ferry, going through deep water or deep sand in 4 wheel drive, you know, the usual road trip obstacles, at least for here! But it was a fun trip, we spent two nights sleeping out in our rooftop tent that is mounted on the cab of our truck. We plan on using that a lot while we survey, and while we build our house, hopefully starting this summer. So, we are so glad to be back to the place we are trying to call “home”. We returned on Monday night, and after settling down, we are headed out on another trip. This time, the long awaited survey trips. We thought we would be just about finishing up the trips by now, but with the vehicle stuff we have only just begun. We and the Westerholm’s are leaving on Sunday to the coastal area around Nacala to spend about 2 weeks surveying that area. It takes about 4 hours driving to get there, so this is a much shorter drive than we just took! We are looking forward to finding out more about that area, meeting people and making contacts there. The area we are surveying the next two weeks is mostly muslim and has no missionary presence working among them. It will be very exiting to be in an area virtually untouched by the gospel. The team is taking 6 trips in all, and Lord willing, one of those places will be where we end up living and serving. Please be in prayer over our survey trips, and especially for clarity and unity as we and the rest of the team decide where to locate. We don’t anticipate this being an easy decision, but we trust that God will lead us to the area where He would have us serve. We expect to be finishing up the survey trips in mid-March to early April, so keep us especially in mind and prayer during that time of decision-making. We should have another newsletter to send by then, so we will give you more up to date news as things change, as they surely will. We have learned to be flexible with our plans as the African time table doesn’t usually mesh with our American one. Thank you so much for your prayers and encouraging e-mails during this time. We've posted several new pictures of our trip from South Africa on our website. The peace of the Lord, Rusty and Ann Caldwell Prayer Requests: 1. Survey trips- health, safety, productivity 2. Discernment on where to locate 3. Our relationships- marriage and team 4. Family back home 5. The Makua People