Spencer's home!!

Spencer and Chloe at the Toronto airport preparing for their first trip to Swaziland in 2005.

This week our firstborn, Spencer, arrived in Swaziland and will be here volunteering for the next 6 weeks with his girlfriend Jane.  Spencer graduated from Georgia State University in December and was recently accepted in to Graduate School at Queens University in Kingston, Ontario, Canada.  It’s a double Master Degree program which will give him Master in International Business, and the second year he will live in Barcelona, Spain and attend ESADE Business School (affiliated with Queens) where he will earn his Masters in Marketing Management.  We are so very proud!

Kingston is only a short drive from Ottawa, which is where all of Ian’s family lives,  so he is no doubt looking forward to a few home cooked meals and Grandma’s best cookies with the family.  Jane is busy studying for her MCAT, which she will take in June back in the US, and plans to study medicine. They have a few busy years ahead of them, but are enjoying life together and we are THRILLED to have them with us for a few weeks.

It was June 2005 when we first traveled as a family to Swaziland for 66 days (not that Ian was counting back then).  During the next ten years Spencer and Chloe helped us lead 5,400+ people on 11-day service trips to Swaziland, South Africa, Malawi and Kenya.  That was not an easy assignment for this family, and Chloe was only 8-years-old and Spencer was 10-years-old. Spencer once calculated that he and Chloe have lived at the Lugogo Sun hotel in Swaziland for more than a full year of their lives (yes, more than 365 sleeps!).  When he first told me that I had an epic “mother fail” moment, but I know that God’s hand has been on this whole adventure from the very beginning, and now Spencer is back in Swaziland again … by choice!

 

Maxwell family in Swaziland, July 2005

Helen Muli joined us in Swaziland in 2005, and now she lives here with us!

Spencer and Jane have only been here for a few days, but it’s just so nice to be able to sit on the patio and chat, or watch an episode (or 3) of  “This is Us” together, or be able to make his favorite cookies (Hello Dollies), just the way a mom should. 

Last night we invited the people who are living up at the Lodge down for dinner, including our long time friends Janice/Roy/Jessica Johnson, Chris Cheek, Kindergarten teacher Leana McKnight and young Egg Farmer from Canada David Newcombe.  And while it was wonderful to cook for them all and sit together by the fire, there was no one who warmed this mama’s heart more than seeing my boy, and his best friend, sitting at the end of the table. 

Chloe … I think you should come home too!  :)

Live from Swaziland … I am a proud and happy mom.

Janine