leaving oxford!

we are in the process of packing up our little house here in oxford. we are a little over halfway through (i think). bech will get the uhaul tomorrow. then his dad and he will pack it up and we will head to jackson/brookhaven. all of our stuff (or most of our stuff) will be kept in a storage unit til we need it again! such a weird thought! it is a strange feeling to pack up things we use everyday. our house is a wreck. the big living/dining room is FULL of boxes! bech is going crazy, because all i say now is "ouch" or "oops". i am naturally a very clumsy person, so having tons of stuff all over the floor creates even more opportunities for me to run into things.

but soon everything will be all packed up and we'll be gone! i have loved living in oxford the last three years. i will miss so much here: bottletree bakery (home of the best danish in the world!), marimekko and art openinings, jubilee (home of the skylab!!!), christ pres (our church, which we have loved and enjoyed so much), the grove, etc. i will miss all of the little things that make oxford loveable. i love how every spring oxford is filled with a million daffodils, literally. i will miss the excitement of game weekends (if you happen to be reading this blog and are not from mississippi, ole miss game weekends are an amazing experiences! everyone sets up tents and the grove and fills the tables with really great food. everyone dresses up a bunch.). i also love the christmas parade on the square. ohhh thats another great thing...the square in general! i will miss square books (and jr and off square). i really will miss oxford so much.

we got a somewhat scary email from the mcdonalds yesterday. here are two items it contained...

1. On Sunday, former President Bakili Muluzi was arrested at the Lilongwe Airport by current government officials for treason. Muluzi, along with several former government officials, are accused of planning a coup d'etat scheduled for June 10. The plan was to seize control of the Parliament, send the nation into chaos, and then re-seize control of the government. The plot was discovered, several have been arrested, with the former President being the "big catch." Police have been a very visible presence throughout the city. Some Muluzi supporters were even shot Sunday just a few miles from our house. This is not atypical (unfortunately), but certainly a note of concern. We do not know what to expect. Pray for the nation as it fails to learn history from the many nations surrounding her. Pray also for us and those we know as we have no choice but to travel through crowded streets and villages to get groceries, preach, etc.

2. There is predicted to be a serious food crisis by August! The maize crop was good this year, but much of the supply has been sent to neighboring Zimbabwe which has essentially completely collapsed. The people are understandably getting nervous. Pray for peace, calm, and the Lord's provision.

i say scary, but the news doesn't change our plans at all! please pray for malawi, though. pray for the safety of missionaries over there now.

well i haven't posted lately...there isn't much exciting going on right now. we are really just trying to wrap everything up here in oxford (which is a sad thought). we have had dinners or lunches with several families we love. we had a cookout a couple of weeks ago with the fortners. i got to babysit this family at least once or twice a week for about a year and a half...and we absolutely love them! they're children are so special to me. noah is very inqusitive and very serious. jacq is a cuddle bunny. owen is hilarious. he has been especially fun to babysit...he wasn't even walking when i started babysitting him, and now he is three, full of personality.

we also had dinner at yocona river inn with the leslies. we have only recently gotten to know them...and by recent i guess i mean fall of 07. they are really fun. bech and i really like the way they live, the way they enjoy things. plus yocona river inn is AMAZING. it is one of those restaurants that makes the south the south. its in a small little town right outside of oxford, in a semi rundown house...a total hole in the wall. the food is ridiculously good! plus its a brown bag restaurant, which totally adds to its hole in the wall charm.

we are going to the melting pot on thursday with jason and danica. danica and i have been planning this dinner since the beginning of this semester, so i am very excited. jason and i were babies together, and good friends in high school, and i have always known danica...but it was really this past year in which i got to know her really well. we have had so much fun at curves, playing pop 5, watching project runway, and discussing gossip girl...i am going to miss the boyds a ton.

this past weekend we went home to jackson for bech's little brothers high school graduation. we had dan and ann over for dinner on saturday night and had lots of fun. we also walked around the new shopping center, renaissance, in ridgeland/madison...its so nice. i felt like i was in seaside or destin while walking around.

we have to be out of our little rental house by may 31st. then we will live in my sisters condo until june 6th. then we are off the gulf shores for a week at the beach with my family (cousins and everything...which means we are going to be building some amazing sand castles! my uncle mike, uncle bob, and papa always build amazing things out of the sand). then we will rotate between living in brookhaven at my parents house or living in jackson with bech's parents. that means that in the next week and a half, we need to pack up our little house, rent a moving truck, unpack all our stuff in a storage place in brookhaven. plus, as we are packing, we need to put aside what is going on the plane with us and put aside what we will wear and use for the 2 months before we leave.

on a total side note, i found this blog yesterday: www.audreycaroline.blogspot.com. i read it all and cried and cried yesterday. if you get really emotional, maybe its best you don't read it. but it is the incredible story of a baby girl and her family. i am so amazed by the mothers attitude. i can't imagine having a baby, only to lose it 2 hours later. i also can't imagine carrying a baby for half a pregnancy, knowing that the baby probably wouldn't live much longer than it did. its a really sad but really encouraging story, and i have fallen in love with the family.

won't you be our neighbor?

okay, so i'm going to use this post to make a plug for ABC. they need teachers for the academy for next year. they are still short 2 preschool teachers, 2 2nd grade teachers, and a sixth grade teacher. if you have any interest in Africa, ABC is a great organization to go through! plus, you could hang out with bech and i! you have to raise support, just like us, but i think they will have housing available for singles. if you are a couple, you'll probably be in the same boat as us, but then you can live in an apartment next to us!

ABC really is a wonderful ministry...so please, if you feel any tugging on your heart to go to Africa, email me (marleyevans@gmail.com) or call me (601-757-9094)...i would love to tell you all about it!

we loaded up the u-haul on wednesday and took it down to clinton. i thought that we had a lot of stuff for the carton, but i was wrong. compared to everyone else, we have only a small to medium amound. i didn't realize everyone would be sending so much stuff! donna (a woman who works at ABC) said they would definately have to send two cartons. i really hope our stuff goes out in the first carton! i packed our sheets, towels, blankets, water filter, mosquito nets, etc. in those boxes! i mean, we can do without a lot of that stuff (like my latin books or bechs art books) for a while, but we need to sleep and bathe! so everyone just pray really hard that the cartons will get there on time, or even early!

i feel very relieved, though. i had been working on these boxes and the furniture for the past month, so a huge task is now over. plus, we have sent out our support letters (those went out almost two weeks ago) and got our passports. now all we have to do is:

- get a couple more shots (my dad is just going to give them to us at his clinic)
- pack up our little house and take it down to a storage place in brookhaven
- pack our suitcases for africa, which will hold clothes (although we packed a bunch already on the carton), some toiletries, and last minute things we didnt think of)...so basically this one should not be too hard
- spend as much time as possible with our families!!!

i had been mostly just excited about this trip, up until about a week ago. i was driving home from work and started to think about what it really meant to be away from our parents for a year. i am a huge homebody. i love my family and i love spending time with them. i talk to my mom usually two or three times a day. i can't really do that this year. i can't drive home for the weekend. i am so excited about all that next year holds, but i know that i will probably have to deal with incredible homesickness.