thanksgiving in africa

For those of you who are wondering...
No, they do not celebrate thanksgiving in South Africa.
If you think about it wouldn't make sense.  I don't think they had pilgrims and Indians.
On the other hand anyone can celebrate the provision of God in their lives.

However, here at Sunbury they do celebrate with a traditional meal.
Really not too different than the first thanksgiving, in that we did have natives (Zulu) with us.  We also had another missionary family here to enjoy the day.  It was great!   Carlene told the thanksgiving story and Greg translated it into Zulu.  All in all there were 20 of us.

Since it isn't a holiday here the Zulu men and women went back to work.  Carlene went to worship team practice and Greg went out to teach.

working

We all had a busy day. Howard did what he loves best... ripping things out. He tore out a window that needed replacing. It was damaged by white ants (they are called termites in the US).

This weekend is the ZEBS graduation. Laurel and I worked on diplomas. What a job! One would think that alphabetical order is no problem but the names are a bit of a challenge here. We are just glad we don't have to read them aloud!

After the days work we had our first guests for supper....

quick update

Well we have indeed made it thought the first few days.

Night - day.
Day- night.

Who could tell the difference.  It must be what a baby goes through when we are so aggressively trying to change their sleep habits.  Sorry kids, if I had only known...   :(

I feel almost human and I think Howard is getting there too.

The weekend is almost over and tomorrow we work.
Well at least get out of the house....

the 1st day

Well we made it. The trip didn't seem to be so bad, however it is Wednesday at 3:30 and we are just getting up.  Maybe it was worse than I thought?

The flights were all a little ahead of schedule so we arrived and went through everything in plenty of time so no one had to wait for us.

Our little house is so cute and everything had been put in order for us- thanks to Dick and Laurel.

We are so thankful for all who are praying for us. Keep up the good work. You have no idea what God has done for us I'll share it with you next time. I think I need more rest believe it or not  : )

leavin' on a jet plane

What a great Father

For those of you who are not aware we had a problem with the dates on our visas....but we didn't realize it until a few days ago.

On Tuesday I called the consalute to find out what to do I was told "not our problem!" but send them back with a new letter form ZEMA. They don't know if they will get back to us in time.

SIX days until we leave, count 'em!

We overnighted them so they had them on Wednesday, five more days.

Thursday no news.

You know the horror stories about visas? Mike could sure tell you a few! Well as of this morning we were still in the air about them and the consulate is closed on Saturday :(

When we got home from Amy's this afternoon... they had arrived. "whew"

The big question is...Why are we always surprised when our Father takes charge and works thing out? Has He ever not been true to His word ?


So to all of you, we want to thank those of you who were aware of the situation and were praying for us.

Please, remember to thank the Lord for His faithfulness. We sure are.

We will be leaving on schedule, Monday (the 14th) at noon.

ramping up

We are getting more and more excited about out trip. We leave on November 14th time is passing quickly. It's hard to believe it has been four years since our last trip. I think it's always good to have some pictures to look back on the experience we go through In this life, kind of like this one.

Do you ever forget what things are like after a little time passes? Twenty nine hours on the plane and Howard can still smile, seems like I was not so alert. Then there is the week of sleeping when we get there, after that we are good to go. I sure don't know how people make this trip for just one or two weeks.