A TRIP TO LIKASI

Remember when I told you about the sister missionaries randomly
breaking into song for us when we delivered soutien to their
appartment?  This was the occasion. All 8 of these sisters live
together in one apartment. 



This is a cool hand carved kitchen devise that is
used to grind grain for their main food - foufou.
This was in the sister's apartment.


'



We went to Likasi to deliver soutien and these are a few of the sights
along the way.





Look at these precious faces.  This primary group is singing for us
at the music festival that we attended.  Notice how reverent they
are with their arms folded.




More singers - look at that little face



A market street in Likasi, close to the elders' apartment.  We couldn't get
all the way down this street because of the deep ruts.  This picture
isn't very clear but the entire street is full of people.



VISITING VINCENT AND SANTA



Sorry the blogs are few and far between.  When
we have a free Saturday, often the power is either
not working or is so poor that I can't upload pictures.
However, today the power is great and so is the water. 
We are getting all kinds of things done.  I'm even baking
today!  This is a picture of Vincent and his family.  Do you
remember when I told you about visiting them?  They are in our
ward at church.




Vincent and Santa and their kids, Devine and Celestine.  Check out how
big and beautiful their home is.  He is one of the few lucky ones who
has a good job with the oil company.  Being with their kids made me miss
my grandkids!!



Devine - 5 years old



Love this picture.  It always makes me laugh.  Check out the
French Dora the Explorer video in the background.  And all this time
I thought Dora spoke Spanish, not French.




Santa and Celestine




Neighborhood kids playing in front of the house




It seemed like all these neighborhood kids were
playing make-believe with their costumes.



He must be the king.  His crown and wrist band
are made from huge leaves.

ENGLISH CLASS

One of the things we love to do here is teach english classes.
Our students are so eager to learn english and they all dream of
going to America.  Our class consists of about half who are members
of our church and about half who are Christians from other faiths.  90%
of the population are Christians.  Who are those white folks in the middle? 

Naomi - love this hair

Justine and her daughter - Naomi (same as the above picture.)
These two are a couple of our favorite students and when they
first started coming to class they couldn't speak a word of english
and now they are rapidly progressing. 

We were teaching body parts and, oh, how they loved doing
"Head, shoulders, knees, and toes."

Eyes, ears, mouth, and nose

Another favorite student - Pierro

Neighborhood kids saying goodbye after our class

MASAI MARA

Sunrise on the beautiful Masai Mara in Kenya.  We went on
a safari with Megan and Taylor last week while they were
visiting.

We flew in a 12 person plane and as we landed on the dirt
road the huge herd of zebra scattered.  It was breathtaking.

Basil - our friendly warhog - would stop into
camp for a visit every now and then.

This was a very interesting stop because the
leopard is solitary and hard to find.  We
watched him go up and down his tree where he
had stashed a water buffalo in the top of the tree
for a weeks worth of dining pleasure.  You can
see a couple of the water buffalo's feet at the
top of the picture.



The Mara River ran right in front of our tent
(with a steep bank between us)
and we watched many hippos playing in the
water and crocodiles sunning on the bank of the river. 
 We learned that more than one hippo is
called a raft of hippos. 



We enjoyed watching this mother lion with her four cubs who
were climbing all over her, each other, and the tree.  Such a
fun find.

I'll bet you didn't know that a group of giraffes
is called a journey of giraffes.



Cheetah - I think it is one of the most beautiful animals



We spent one day visiting a Masai village.  The men danced for
us and then they took us on a tour of their village.



There were 12 homes built around this circular holding pen
where they would keep their herds of cattle and goats at night
to protect them from the leopard, lion, cheetah etc.  This center
area was filled with dung which comes in handy because they
use it to build their homes.  The wall between the homes is built
with prickly tree branches to keep the leopards out.




This is one of the homes built from trees and dung.




Even their tables were built from trees and covered with dung.
The women would make crafts and sell them to the visitors.




The leader of the village sitting in the entry of
his home. 



MEGAN AND TAYLOR'S VISIT



Our daughter, Megan, and her husband, Taylor, were able to
visit us for 3 weeks.  One of the fun things we did was to hand
out these wonderful crochetted yarn flowers which were made
by Laura Nordquist.  These are two of our sister missionaries
sporting their new hair bows.  Thank you Laura!!!!




Can you pick out Megan and Taylor in my english class? 
Hmmm - difficult.  They helped us teach our bi-weekly class
and my students were crazy about them.  Greg teaches the
advanced class down the hall.



Two of my young english students decided to stay after class
and do Megan's hair in corn braids. 

Another thing Megan and Taylor helped us with was working
with the new missionary singing group.  Our president just
recently called 9 missionaries to form a singing group and to
represent our church through music.  Megan and Taylor worked
with them a couple of times each week to help them get started.
We heard them perform and the end result was very impressive.