This blog comes to you from our home in Honiara.

The flight to the Solomons was ahead of schedule and as there weren’t many people on board, we got off quickly. We stood in line for immigration for a while until a man came and said there weren’t any immigration officers at the airport and he didn’t know where they were. He promised to keep us posted. A few minutes later we found out that they were on their way and would be there soon. We got through immigration and collected our bags which arrived safe and sound. For the first time we had our luggage carefully checked, but no duty charged for which we are thankful.

We piled our luggage on 3 carts and wheeled it outside expecting to see some faces we knew, but no one was there. Our colleagues had called the airport a number of times to check on the arrival time but were given various answers – ranging from noon to 2 pm! After we waited about 10 minutes our director’s wife arrived followed by others and we were on our way home – Tim even drove our new car home!

Our friends have spent a lot of time getting our house ready. They have spent several days cleaning, organizing and even finding our towels and sheets and making our beds. What a blessing. Apparently a week ago the house was quite a mess.

There are many places where we will have to repair the termite damage. Some walls are missing, some that have been replaced need painting. Some of the ceiling has mold spots on it and needs to be repainted. It’s a bit discouraging after we spent so much time and energy last year painting the house.

Sarah was very sad to discover the termites had gotten into her doll case for her American Girl. We hope we can clean it up a bit and replace some of the paper lining to improve how it looks. It was all a bit devastating to a 9 year old who has not has a lot of sleep over the past 24 hours or so. She is also disppointed that she hasn’t seen our cat yet. But it was seen this morning around the house, so it is sure to show up soon.

It’s good to be home, but it’s going to take a lot of work to get the house up and running again. It’s 90°+ and high humidity. Nothing can ever prepare you for how hot it really is here and how draining it can be.

I hope this all makes sense as I am a bit sleep deprived but hope to start getting on top of that tonight. We will eat dinner at with our director and his wife tonight.