Victoria Falls

A highlight of our time in Africa was our visit to Victoria Falls.  There are several trails, so we decided to first try the trail to Boiling Pot, named because of two currents colliding at the base of the falls. I didn't make it very far down the steep trail before I realized that it was going to be too much for me. I was feeling under the weather, so I found a bench where I could sit and wait for the others. This little bird kept me company for a while.

Our first sight of Victoria Falls proper!

In the parking lot and the trees that are above the falls, the baboons were everywhere! They are not shy at all, letting you get quite close. We had to watch that we did not have anything loose that they could grab! After recovering my package of hand wipes that they stole, we didn't have any more robberies! Can you find the baboons in this picture?

My cousin Samuel and a baboon!

The last trail we took is further from the falls. This picture is of the bridge that we had walked across earlier. 

The same bridge with a better view of the Falls.The mist made it hard to see much.

Later in the afternoon, we went to the small airport where microlights and helicopters take off to give tours over Victoria Falls. It is expensive, so we just enjoyed watching the microlights and helicopters take off and land. Our host in Livingstone, Heiko is one of the microlight pilots. Here he is preparing his microlight for a flight. Only one passenger can go at a time on the microlights.

I am going ahead and posting my pictures that I took. I am not sure if I'll get around to adding some of the pictures my cousins took-- I've started college again so it may be difficult to find the time!

Back to South Africa and Home

I am posting from end to beginning so that when all the posts are on the blog, they will be in order from the beginning of the trip to the end. I may be adding some more pictures that my cousins took, once they send them to me. 

This is just one example of the strange sights a person might see in Africa! This was taken in Namibia on our way back to South Africa.We stayed in Namibia for a day to do some shopping and offload the boxes of Bibles that were left.

Yours truly frying eggs for the next day's sandwiches. We would put a fried egg and some tinned meat on bread and toast the sandwiches. That was what we ate as we drove. They were pretty good!

Our little caravan getting ready to leave the lovely campground in Namibia, where we had waited several days on the way up for paperwork to be processed. 

After a couple days of driving, we met Phil Geise in South Africa. Here the guys are loading all our suitcases into Phil's trailer (we had left all our hard suitcases with a friend in Pretoria, taking only our duffel bags on the Bible trip). Phil had picked up another American visitor, Daniel, who was also coming to visit the family that Geises work with. After we loaded up, we said our goodbyes to Oom Piet, Tanni Hester, and Kone. Then we set out for Mangusi, where the Geises live. After ten hours and many kilometers, we arrived safe and sound about eleven at night!

The Geises have a house on the same property as do the Blignauts, the missionary family they work with. The Blignauts have ten children. The Geises' house is not completely finished yet, so meals were eaten at the Blignauts' house. Besides all of us, there was a gentleman and a young family visiting from another mission the first few days, making a total of 28 people to cook for! The Blignauts love having visitors, so they didn't seem to mind all the people too much! The younger children loved playing Uno, which is what they are doing in this picture.

The boys helped hand-mix concrete and pour a sidewalk in front of the Geises' house, worked on puttying window panes, and helped prepare a platform to lift a water tank for the Geises. My cousin Candace and I were both not feeling well, but we did help paint linseed oil onto the wooden window frames to seal them from weather. We also enjoyed reading books to the little ones. The kids even convinced me to play a couple games of Uno! The day before we left them, the Blignauts and Geises took us to the beach. We had to make a couple stops on the way to add more water to the Blignauts' Land Cruiser. I was in Geises' vehicle behind them, and I just loved the faces peering out at us from the back of the Land Cruiser! The little boy on the right and the little girl on the left are the two youngest Blignaut children. The girl in the middle is one of their older sisters.

The Indian Ocean was beautiful! The picture doesn't do it justice. We even caught some glimpses of dolphins!

After playing around in the water and eating some lunch, we walked down the beach. Phil climbed up on this rock. See if you can find the two little boys beside the rock!

The sand dunes were the best part! Climbing up was a little hard, but running down was fun!

Walking back to where we had parked. 

The next day we said more goodbyes and headed for Pretoria with Phil and his little girl. We gave ourselves an extra day just to be sure any unexpected problems wouldn't make us miss our flight. Thankfully, we had no problems and made good time. We stayed overnight with friends in Pretoria  and had a few hours the next day for shopping before we went to the airport. We flew all night from Johannesburg to Zurich. As we neared Zurich, we saw mountains out the window! We figured they must be the Alps. The view was breathtaking!

 Thank the Lord for good connections and safe flights! After we got through customs at JFK, my cousins were picked up to go home, and I boarded one last flight to Denver, arriving home about midnight. And that, my friends, is the end of the story for TAT III (The African Travelers, third time)! We were invited to come back by several people, so maybe someday there will be TAT IV! You never know!  

Home Again!

Yes, I got home safe and sound.  We had quite the adventures and I have a lot of pictures! Right now I am trying to recover from a nasty cold, so I may or may not have more time to post! The header picture is of Victoria Falls, which we were delighted to get to visit. And until I post again, here is a picture of our group name. We dubbed ourselves TAT III, which stands for The African Travelers, 3rd trip. My cousin Candace wrote this in the sand by the Zambezi River, at a place we stayed. 

Now that you're all excited about sand (ha ha!) I will leave you in suspense till the next post!

And We're Off!

This is just a quick post as we're on our way to Africa. The picture above is the five of us going to Africa to help Pieter Marais (affectionately known as "Oom Piet") with Bible distribution in Zambia. We are flying to Johannesburg, South Africa, via Zurich, Switzerland. Then, Lord willing, we will be driving to Zambia. Your prayers are appreciated! God has been good to allow me to join my cousins once again, and to provide finances as well. Hopefully in a few weeks I can post some pictures of our trip! Until then, God bless each one of you!

January to March 2018

These are a few pictures that I've taken over the last few months.

I went to Penn View for a block class in January. This is my cousin Candace and me in the Scranton airport just before I flew home. 

While getting ready to take off from Scranton, I saw this sunset.

On the short flight to Philadelphia, I got to enjoy the gorgeous display from the air! 

In February, my Uncle Gabriel's family visited. This is his youngest boy, Aaron, when we were visiting the paint mines on Sunday evening. 

We saw several rabbits at the paint mines. 

A bluebird I saw on one of my afternoon walks. 

We left early on a Thursday morning in March to go to the Arms Around the World missions convention in South Dakota. I got these pictures of the trees silhouetted against the sunrise when we stopped at a fuel station. 

 

Wind turbines

Spring is coming! 

Natasha and Amaris Graduate from Nursing School

 December 14th was a special day for our cousins Amaris and Natasha, as they graduated from a two-year LPN program at a local nursing school. 

Sam, Carrie, Rose and I surprised them, flying in the day before the graduation. Natasha's dad, Uncle Fain, picked us up from the airport. He and one other uncle, plus our two aunts, were the only ones who knew we were coming. We girls had a hard time containing our suspense as we drove to Uncle Fain's house. We even had to pull over and wait a few agonizing minutes to be sure that all the girls would be at the house when we got there. When we finally walked in, we were a little disappointed that nobody screamed or fainted! They just sat there and looked at us like they couldn't believe their eyes! Needless to say, it was a BIG surprise for everyone! It was so special to get to be there for this important event!

This is the graduation announcement they had sent out.

Aunt Iva's family arrived the next day. We surprised them too! Some of us girls went with Amaris and Natasha early.

The front of the graduation program.

The class of graduates. The lady at the podium is one of the instructors.

Several people made comments. I think one of these men is the president, but I'm not sure which one it is!

The student speaker

This picture isn't the clearest, but Natasha is receiving her nurse's pin. 

The class saying the nurse's pledge. 

Family pictures! Natasha and her family

Amaris and her family. Sorry the pictures aren't the best. There wasn't much time to take pictures since others were waiting their turn. I was on the sidelines trying to grab quick snaps while the real photographers quickly took some nice pictures.

Amaris and Natasha with their certificates and roses.

After the ceremony, friends and family gathered at Uncle Elon's house for refreshments, and got more pictures! This is Natasha and Amaris with their sisters. Pearl on the left is Amaris's sister, and Candace in the middle with the pink is Natasha's sister.

All the girls who were there. 

We so enjoyed getting to be with everyone for a few days! Both Natasha and Amaris passed the state board exams, which are taken after graduation. So they are official LPNs now!

Pictures of Cousins and relatives

While we were back east, we were able to get some pictures of some of the families, and some of the girl cousins as well! This is Uncle Fain's family on Sunday morning. Their family and Uncle Elon's family play handbells, and had two programs the Sunday we were there. We really enjoyed tagging along and getting to listen to the bell music and the vocal arrangements.

Carrie got this picture of all the girl cousins who were at the morning program. Sam and I decided to go where our relatives normally do for morning worship. We went along to the evening program.

We were delighted that Aunt Iva's family were able to be there at the same time we were! Here are Carrie and Rose with Aunt Iva's three girls. The next picture is of Aunt Iva and Uncle Kenn with their lovely family.

Driving home from Pennsylvania, we stopped in to see Grandma and Grandpa Morley in Missouri. Grandma showed us the baby quilt that she sewed for the first great-grandchild, with help from the granddaughters to embroider the animal squares.

We grabbed a picture of Grandma and Grandpa with Grandpa's bass guitar. We were happy that we got to see them too!