I'm back...finally

I am finally back to blogging! I caught a nasty stomach bug that kept me in bed and bathroom for a solid week and after that I lost the will to blog! Not to long after that we started our preparations for furlough and life became too crazy for blogging. Now we are in the States, have set up a home, got the kids in school, bought a computor, have started itinerating, and the will to blog is back!
I'll start blogging about our final days in Bots and our first days back in the States soon.
For now, I'll leave you with a conversation I had with Elliott last night.
Elliott: "Mom, I wish I was born in Africa. It really is my home, but since I wasn't , can I convert?" I love it that he loves Africa so much and that his heart is still there!

More Pics

Madikwe Game Reserve

O.K. to read this blog and get the feeling of being in Africa, you have to scroll down to my music list and play the Lion Sleeps Tonight, by The Lion King soundtrack. I think It's the first song!!

Last Wed. was a public Holiday in Botswana, so the Mahars, fellow AoG missionaries, and our family went over the border to Madikwe Game Reserve in South Africa. Madikwe is the 3rd largest game park in South Africa. It has over 30 lodges on it and some of them are exclusive 5 star accommodations! We are privileged to live close enough to drive there and enjoy a morning or night safari drive without needing to spend the night and pay the very expensive prices!

Madikwe has the Big 5 which is the Elephant, Lion, Rhino, Cape Buffalo, and Leopard. We were really excited to be there because we had only been to one other park that has the Big 5 and only saw Elephants. Not that that's a bad thing!! Matt has always wanted to see a wild male lion close up and he got his wish!! We ended up seeing 4 males and 1 female. It is an awesome experience to be that close to a ferocious, man eating, animal, and a bit scary! Our guide had been warned over the radio about one of the lions we were close to. He had been growling and showing his teeth as game vehicles went by!

During the morning we saw 9 Rhinos, a herd of around 40 Elephant, 12 Giraffe, Wild Dog, A spotted Hyena, and lots of Kudu, Wildebeest, Impala, Springbok, and Zebra. It was a lot of fun!!

Since our time here in Africa we have seen 4 of the big five all we have left is the Leopard!!

The first rain....

We had our first rain last night and it was wonderful...wind, thunder, lightening, the works!! It didn't rain nearly as hard or as long as we wanted it to, but it was a sign of things to come!!!

Hannah

Last week Hannah and I were driving somewhere and I talking about going home for furlough. I was telling her that I have been praying for her and Zach to be filled with the Holy Spirit when we get home. She responded very openly.

This Sunday at church our pastor, spoke on the Baptism of the Holy Spirit. At the end of his message he asked all those seeking the Baptism to come forward to pray and for those that had already been filled to come and stand behind them. As Matt and I started to walk forward, Hannah moved quickly to walk with us. She walked straight up front to pray and be prayed for. I have to admit I was surprised and shedding a few tears as I watched her, hands raised, seeking after the Lord. This was a HUGE step for her. We are always the only white people out of about 200 people at church every week. Everyone knows us there and we are no longer stared at which is nice, but as a teenager you are self conscience by nature, and don't like to be or look different or be the center of attention. When you are one of only 5 white people there and are blond haired at that, you are going to stick out!! She didn't care, she was wanting all that God had for her.

She wasn't filled in that service but made a huge step forward in so many areas. She is learning to step out in faith and learning to hear God as He speaks to her. She is still praying and believing God to fill her.

We are so excited and encouraged about this. There is nothing as exciting as seeing your children loving and serving God!! We are expecting GREAT things while we are home on furlough and our kids are in church services in their own language and culture. It's going to be an awesome year!!

I'ts the little things....

We have realized that living in Africa has helped us be more thankful even for the "little things" We have been having power outages for months now. At the beginning they were very frequent and unpredictable. That made life very frustrating to say the least! The past few months the outages have been predictable, every wed. night we can count on an outage. We never know exactly when or how long it will be off but we know it's going to happen. So we make sure we get candles ready, have dinner cooked and hopefully eaten and have as much homework has possible done.
Last night as usual the lights went out. It was actually a bit earlier than usual and stayed off quite a bit longer. It was 100 degrees here yesterday and did not cool down much by evening so we were using the ceiling fans to help cool it down. It was a bummer when the power cut! We were sweating and only have 1 window in our living area to open. It doesn't have a screen and since we saw a rat climb down the bars over the window, there was no way we were opening it up in the dark! We played Uno by candle light until we put the kids to bed. They fussed a bit about being hot and not having the fan but fell asleep fast after a long day at a game reserve.
Matt and I stayed up, talked, and sweated about an hour longer and decided to head to bed. I made sure all the light were off and all the fans were on before we got in bed. As we layed there and talked, trying to fall asleep but too hot and sticky to, the ceiling fan started to whirl!! It was such a wonderful feeling! A feeling of pure joy and thankfulness! I told Matt how crazy it was that something so simple could evoke such feelings. It felt wonderful to be so content with something so simple and yet something that would seem extremely luxurious to so many living here in Africa also.

Driver's training...

I have seen more accidents in my last 3 years here in Botswana than the entire 36 years I lived in the U.S. Maybe these pictures explain why....
Driver's training here is done on any vacant piece of land the instructor found to set his orange cones up!! I'm being totally serious. In the first picture we are driving down one of the busiest roads in town and on the dirt that would be the shoulder of the road, or median area, someone has set out their orange cones and is teaching someone to drive. Most of the areas are about the size of a tennis court! It's crazy. All "learners" those who are learning to drive have to have a large, red, L on the back of their car to alert everyone to the fact that they are a "learner" if you get behind one of them on the road it is extremely painful. They are never going the speed limit or with the flow of traffic. It's a miracle they don't cause more wrecks. Elliott says the L is really for Loser!