– We celebrated Easter Sunday with sunrise baptisms in the ocean! (Pictures below)

– We made plans to take our first family vacation since we’ve been in Vanuatu. It was combined with a work trip and we had a gorgeous holiday house gifted to us for super cheap, so the trip to Port Vila was affordable for our family.

– Later we found out they had to bump our reservation at the holiday house for paying guests. Back to square one…

– Matt’s parents were able to visit us for a week. We loved having them here and showing them our life in Vanuatu. Unfortunately, nothing went as planned (see next point) and we only got to do about half the things we wanted to do while they were here. Other memorable experiences included Bobbi having a large centipede try to crawl up her leg and getting poured on the day we tried to go to the beach.

– Less than 48 hours after Matt’s parents got to Vanuatu, we had a category 2 cyclone headed toward our island. We spent the rest of their visit watching the updates every 3 hours, preparing the team office/VISTA classroom, stocking up on food and water, and trying to stay dry. Cyclone Donna eventually strengthened to a category 5 and turned out to be the strongest cyclone ever recorded in May in the Southern Hemisphere.

– The week of meetings we had planned to attend in Port Vila got postponed a week. They did find us some basic housing to rent, but we couldn’t make the timing work. We decided to just stay home and Matt will go to Port Vila alone in a week or two to bring back our VISTA computers.

– Angie was part of an impromptu discussion one morning after Sunday School where the teachers shared their hearts about not having curriculum or training. It’s so encouraging to hear their passion for the kids, but also sad that there are so few resources for them.

– Matt’s parents were delayed here one day and because of miscommunication got to see what our airport looks like when you get there at 5:30 in the morning and no one is there! The gate was opened at 6 and their flight finally left around 9:30.

– A 6.8 earthquake woke us up at 1 a.m. the next morning. We didn’t care if there was a tsunami warning. We went back to sleep.

– Throughout this time, Matt was adjusting the budget for the grant that funds the VISTA program, working on visas for the interns, planning the intern schedule, helping plan the literacy workshop, processing payroll for our team, working on negotiating a new lease for our teammates the Thompsons, researching satellite phone options (which we used briefly during Cyclone Donna!), and a myriad of other things in his 3 roles here.

We pray that in all of this God found us faithful. Thank you for your continuing prayers for our family and our ministry!

Angie (for Matt and the kids, too)