Wow time flies...

We are home!!!

It's a shame we lost track of blogging so for all those who were so faithful in trying to stay informed on what we were doing, we apologize.

Life really started picking up in February and we are so thankful for all the things that kept us busy. We also lost our convenient internet connection so it became a challenge to find an opportunity to log-in.

Here's a tiny summary:

We were the only volunteer's working with Agathos when we arrived. Just after Valentine's Day, Kevin arrived. He is 21 and from Connecticut. We then started teaching English at the primary school where all our younger ones attend. We taught three days a week for a couple hours each day.

In the beginning of March a football team from Wheaton College in Chicago came for a week and helped us get a lot of work done. They also left a lot of work for us to do after they left! The next week another volunteer arrived from New Zealand. Richard is 23 and is still volunteering at the cottages.

By then it was Easter which we spent with about 20 of our friends at Barbara and JD's house. It was a beautiful day and a total blessing to be able to be with all those wonderful people.

The day after Easter David, me, Kevin, Adam and Chrissy and their two kids Zek and Phoebe went on vacation. We drove 5 1/2 hours to Hluhluwe Nature Reserve and Durban for just about a week. We saw an elephant, tons of rhino, giraffe, zebra, water buffalo, wildebeest, antelope of every bread, hippos, crocs, vultures and more. The best though was seeing 5 cheetahs tear apart a fresh impala 25 feet from our pick up. We stayed until lunch was gone.

When we got home from vacation it was back to our construction work getting more rooms ready to house more orphans. And by that time we were using all our free time to hang out with the kids as our time grew shorter and shorter.

We flew out April 19th and spent a week in New York on Long Island staying with some friends (Katie and Josh). We LOVED New York! It felt so good to be back in the states! The highlight was seeing Lion King on Broadway and they spoke in Zulu instead of Swahili (like in the Disney movie). We could understand some of what they were saying and singing about which was amazing and a end to our South African experience.

On April 26th we flew to Cancun to be with Heidi's family for a week. It was very relaxing and a great opportunity to catch up.

Finally on May 3rd at midnight we arrived back to Edmonds and ready to sleep on our own bed for the first time in exactly 8 months. It was AMAZING!

We would love to catch up with everyone now that we are home. We have new cell phones. David's number is (425) 205-3051 and Heidi's is (425) 205-3129

OUr goal is to post a big album or several albums that have some type of caption with them so that everyone can see our pictures -- well the good ones at least -- we took 10,000 pictures!

We also just want to say thank you again to everyone who helped support us while we were in Africa and for all those who were praying for us. We were so blessed while we were gone and are so thankful to be back safely and in good health.

-David and Heidi

Supplementary Photos now functioning!

Well, before I continue telling everyone what we've ben up to I'd like to announce that we found a way to post pictures! We are really excited so I wanted to show you some pictures that go with a couple of the previous posts.



This is the mother and baby rhino that were standing right in the road when Adam and Chrissy took us to Spioenkop Game Park at the end of January.





This is the dad that came out from behind a bush right by us to be with his family.





Also at Spioenkop.





When Betsy took us way up the valley to watch the kids put on a singing and dancing performance, this is the home that we went to. This is a traditional (and very nice) home.





This was the final dance routine and the one I referred to as "National Geographic" material. It was amazing.





In a previous post I said that after all the songs and dances, they all got together and did a breakdance-style thing where one or two people would come out of the crowd and show off their dance moves to the beat of the drum. Well, the Head of the Family got out there and did some shimmy and had everyone screaming and cheering. He has a dead and gutted meerkat on his head and is only clothed in different animal skins. He is the most respected man here.





This is our feast that we had after the show in the round house. These women were also spectators in the show. Betsy is on the left and I believe she knew all these women from her work here (with home-based care women). Betsy is fluent in Zulu so that was a real blessing going with her.





I think I mentioned that our river swelled like crazy one day at the very end of January. Well here's what the river looked like that day. Also, just a couple minutes after this picture was taken the river was up 2 feet past the tree that David is hanging on.





And here is the river on a normal day. So you can see that it rose maybe 8 or 10 feet but also got WAY wider so the flow was just insane.





This is our new group of friends. This picture was taken at Cameron's going away party on Superbowl Sunday. There are some people we don't know because they were other friends of Cameron's but I'll introduce you to the people I do know.
Starting in the back left is Chrissy holding her son Zeke, and then Adam, her husband. In front of Chrissy is Slindile and her new born baby on her back (they are living with Betsy right now) and her son (called "bookie" meaning brother) in front of her. To the right of David and I is Betsy and Barbara. Behind Barbara is Betsy's boyfriend Eugine. To the right of him is Cameron and Andy (his wife Roz was not in S.A. yet). Sitting down, starting on the right is JD, Barbara's husband, Mya (Sophie's daughter), Sophie (with a newborn she is caring for temporarily), Pheobe (Adam and Chrissy's daughter), and Sophie's son ( I forget his name).

And I think that pretty much catches us up to the present!

This is the first day of school! I can't believe I got this ONE picture to work!

Zulu Style

So things are looking up around here and life is getting fuller. We have now met a lot of people to call friends and it has given us more to do. We have begun a Friday morning Bible study with about 9 other missionaries who live in our valley.

There's Andy and his wife Roz from the UK who have two babies (one is only a month or so old). There's Adam and Chrissy who have two young children and go to our church and they are the one's we probably hang out with the most. There's Betsy who is originally from Seattle but has lived here for 4 years now and her boyfriend Eugine from Cape Town; and with Betsy comes Slindile who is Zulu and 18 years old and has two babies and is living with Betsy for the time being. There's Sophie from Australia who's been here for 9 years and also has two young children and is also looking after a new born Zulu baby because her mother is extremely sick. There's JD and Barbara who take good care of David and I and are very involved with the work at Agathos. There was Cameron from Australia but his going away party was today. And I thinks that's the group - lots of awesome people and lots of little kids running everywhere.

On Saturday Jan. 26th, the day after we met Betsy at the first Bible study, she gave us a call and invited us to a Zulu dance performance show. We had no idea what that meant but we found out that there is a Zulu woman who runs an after school program with a bunch of kids and teaches them traditional dances and songs to kind of keep them out of trouble. So we drove about 45 min. into the valley on dirt roads and then arrived at the traditional home. Homes are usually set up for the whole family, not just the immediate. This home had 5 buildings - two round rooms and tree square mud rooms.

We were invited into one of the rounds and sat on thatch mats on the ground and sipped a traditional Zulu drink ( something like sour milk made with ground up maze). We visited with the ladies there until the show started. We brought our mats outside and the whole village started arriving. There wound up being quite a large audience. The guys came out first singing Zulu songs. Then the girls came out and did a Zulu drill team type dance. The guys came out again and sang and then the girls had another dance. This one was much more lively and they came out without any shirts on. It was quite interesting and we got some good shots to send into National Geographic (just kidding of course). The whole time there was someone pounding the beat on a drum and someone with a whistle. The last performance was everyone dancing breakdance style - one at a time - showing off their moves.

After the show we went back into the round and had a feast. David sat on a stool in the corner because men are not supposed to sit on the floor with the women. He got a nice ceramic plate filled with all the food and was served first. Women are supposed to wait to eat until the men are finished but we just gave David a 10 minute head start. The food was all laid out on the ground and all the women ate with their hands. There was mashed potatoes mixed with ground maze with a tomato chutney type thing to dip your handful of potato in (delicious). There was Zulu bread (my ultimate favorite) with a broth dip and a whole chicken that got ripped apart as we dug in. They also had Zulu beer which is nothing like beer and has hardly any alcohol and tastes a little like vinegar. It only takes three days to ferment. It was such an awesome experience to see real Zulu life. The uncle of the family who was the "family leader" was dressed only in animal skins with a meerkat on his head.

Two and a half months left

So we have purchased our plane tickets home but are just now trying to extend our visa to match up with our tickets. I think it should all work out but it is cutting it REALLY close - something to be in prayer for so that we don't have to wait for our visa to process in Lesotho!

Well, we spent Super Bowl Sunday at a party but we didn't think once about the big game at home. We had a "bring and braai" BBQ as a go away party for Cameron who is now headed back home to Australia after living here for one year. Everyone was there and we ate good food and hung out all afternoon.

We have also been trying to get involved with Barbara's bead market more and more. We are allowed to drive the "kombi" (the 15 seater van) now so we can get away and have some free time which is an awesome blessing. We've been pressing for two months so it feels great to have some freedom. Just down the street from us are several hiking destinations in the Drakensburg range and there are also a few tourist stops nearby that have great food, specialty shops, etc.

January 24th update

Hello faithful readers!

I guess it's time we update everyone on our lives. Blogging is a challenge when internet speeds don't usually exceed 5 kbps and electricity is an unreliable thing.

So I guess I'll pick up the story of our life after we returned from a two week vacation touring the eastern coast.

Once upon a time we returned to "The Cottages" full of vigor and excitement. We were ready for everything at that point and so happy to see the children again. We returned "home" on January 8th - one week before the first day of the new school year. We continued with our "summer school" program until the start of school. However, on the 12th, the power went out and what that meant was that our local water plant, which is just up the hill from us, also lost power. When your water plant has no electricity it cannot give you water. Luckily, we have three reserve tanks (called "Jojo"s) so we did not realize that we had no water until Sunday.

The reason that was such a huge deal should be obvious. We cooked with water that came off the roof and were unable to shower, flush the toilet, and drink water to name a few. David and I added a whole new spin on things when we spent all day Saturday throwing up from food poisoning that we got from Friday night's dinner (under cooked chicken). Thank God that we still had water running on Saturday but we were dreadfully sick and up all night. Thank you so much to those who prayed for our health during that time. We were feeling better on Sunday but still woozy and we had horrible headaches from dehydration. We had no idea that that day we would take our last shower for the WEEK.

The next week the power was on and off all the time and totally unpredictable. We had no running water until the next Saturday. God was gracious and broke the hot spell and gave us rain almost every day that week so we praised Him for that. We really did collect rain water from the end of the gutter in all our pots and buckets for cooking and for washing clothes and washing dishes. David actually stood at the end of the gutter and took a shower under it one day. I was a little more low key and filled a bucket so I could wash my hair.

Still no water for the kids first day of school (the 16th). We have 8 high schoolers who walk one direction to school (maybe a 15 min. walk) and then the other 14 school aged kids walk about 2 k to the primary school the other direction. David and I have been walking them to school on a pretty regular basis just for fun. The round trip takes about an hour.

On Sat. the 19th we finally got running water so I washed all our clothes by hand and I think I took two showers just to celebrate! Aaron and Phyllis (the managers here - also Americans) took us on a little tour of Winterton, a town we live near but David and I had never been to before. The tour took about 3 min. and now I know why we had never been before. But then we drove back towards home and didn't turn off. The road took us straight up into the mountains to a peak called Monk's Cowl in the Northern Drakensburg Range. We just went to the info. center
and bought a hiking trail map for the next time we come up with plans to hike. The ride up was gorgeous and we passed the "Drakensburg Boys Choir" on the way up the mountain. If you do not recognize the name you should look it up because they are world famous. Hopefully we will get to see a performance before we leave.

On the 22nd we got a call from a couple that we had just briefly been introduced to. Their names are Adam and Chrissy and they are full time missionaries from the States. They are both 30 have lived here for about two years and have two young children. Anyways, they invited us to Spioenkop Game Reserve for a picnic. They picked us up around 3:30pm and we went to their house that they are renting (they are not affiliated with Agathos) and packed the picnic box and then set out. We got to the Game park and it just so happened to be everyones best experience at animal spotting. It was overcast and evening so all the animals were out. We saw probably 100 zebras all over the park, maybe 20 giraffes and a couple babies of each. There were also an innumerable amount of impala/antelope looking guys but my inexperience can't appreciate it because there are so many different species that look like that I didn't really know what I was seeing. The icing on the cake though was the rhinos. We were driving along the dirt road in the park, dodging zebra and giraffes in the road and we came across TWO rhinos in the road - a mom and a baby. We stopped to get pictures and then all of a sudden a THIRD and much larger rhino came out from behind a bush to join it's family in the road. Just 5 min. earlier Adam was saying that all he wanted to see were the only three rhinos in the park and that he had only seen them once before (and they have a year pass!). It was such a great experience and we were able to share dinner there and then we went to their house and spent all evening talking and getting to know our new friends.

We've got a pretty relaxed and enjoyable schedule at this point. Wake up at 6am, breakfast at 6:30am, leave for school at 7am, home at about 8:15am, shower, read, relax, whatever for as long as we want. Then we make our own lunch and the kids come home some time between 2 and 4pm. They can play all they like when they get back but first they have to hand wash their uniform for tomorrow and do the chores their caretakers ask of them. Between 4pm and 6pm David and I offer ourselves as resources for homework help and we also open up our "library" cupboards so that the ones without homework (usually the younger ones) can look at some books and practice their English (a required to pass subject in school). Then after homework is done we color, paint, play soccer, play hand games, whatever until dinner at 6pm or sometimes we do that after dinner. David and I usually retire around 7 or 7:30pm to our room were we read, go online or just listen to music and play cribbage. We try to get to bed some time between 9 and 10pm.

Right now is an exciting time because we are getting into a few different things that will help fill our down time during the week.

Barbara is an American who has lived in South Africa with her husband JD for like 8 years. They are both in their 60's and they are so amazing. Barbara had gotten a bunch of local women together to start a beading business and they sell their crafts locally and in catalogues in the UK. We have started to get involved in this side thing just by helping Barbara with preparation work for her bead markets that she holds quite regularly at "The Cottages". The women really do some amazing work and it is so neat to watch.
JD is going to take us horseback riding in the mountains by his house later this week so we are really excited for that. It is his neighbor's horses so it will be free!

Starting this Friday, we are joining a morning Bible study with other missionaries in the area. So that would be JD, Barbara, us, Adam, Chrissy, and...you'll have to wait and see because we haven't gone yet to meet the others.

Also starting soon, David and I will be going to our kids' high school to help teach English to an 8th grade class and a 10th grade class. We had a meeting with the teachers last week and it sounds like it will be great. One worrisome thing is that the classes range in size form 40-something to 80-somthing. You got a few chairs and even less desks in the room so order sounds impossible. But during the meeting the teachers were asking us how we were taught in the states so that they could get some good ideas for their kids. They asked us what we thought about them teaching Shakespeare. It was very interesting because they aren't required to but they know we learn it and they were really self conscious with the idea of trying to teach it (they can't even speak english well). We told them we never learned anything that confusing or complicated in our second language class and they were relieved.

We are also doing little labor jobs around the Cottages like weeding, mowing the lawn, scraping paint and repainting, etc. Thankfully when we get hot and sweaty from all our hard work we can jump in the river to cool off. We just have to make sure we have running water to wash off all the river muck and grime afterwards!

The power is actually a national crisis that I can't go into full detail about but it is all over the news. The entire nation is on a power shortage so we are being delegated "on" and "off" times. When our power goes off, it means another village or cities power can come back on. It is killing the economy and right now they say that the power shortage will continue for another 6 years unless someone has a better idea. So we are trying to get used to it.

Well I guess that might be a little overkill but there you have it. Our life in a large nutshell.

Please be in prayer for our health (since refrigeration is a problem). You can also pray for Jesus' guidance in our new teaching position.

Love Heidi (and David)

Photos, almost

These are the photo captions, we weren't able to put them below the exact pic so just read and scroll. Hope you enjoy our stories, and I hope all the photos are up that I wrote captions for.

Here are some pictures of our living conditions, the kids, what we are doing with them, and our Christmas trip to Durban while the kids were away with distant relatives.

The first few pics are of our room and outside our front door, looking at the cafeteria, play equipment and the bathrooms.  

In one of the pictures you can see another volunteer, his name is Will and he is from Michigan.   He has gone home now (He was there for 3 months but we only saw him for his last 10 days).  
You can see all of us with only a handful of the kids.  All the names you read you pronounce phonetically.

The next few pics are of us playing with the kids in one of the trees by our door.  The young boy is Mfundo (3 years), he can't climb so we would hold him in the tree.  You can also see Notile (13 years) and Tandeka (8 yrs) which are the girls in the tree.  There is also a picture of me in the tree with a boy named Kaye (6), and another boy named Snetemba(10).  The little girl with the apple smiling wide is named Zipno (4).

Then we have a shot of the scorpion we found under a tall pill of books with my journal at the bottom.  We caught him in my malaria pill container and killed him on our front step.  The little ones are the most poisonous.  The only remedy is to take pain relievers for four days until the pain subsides.  We check our bed every night.

Then we have some pictures of a common night outside.  It always storms with lightning and thunder, even if it isn't raining.  Every night for the fist 2 weeks there was lightning.  Now I cans says that "I've seen the rains down in Africa..." (By the way, they love that song over here.  Who would have thought?)

The property we are staying on is technically owned by the dead king of Kwazulu Natal, so the land is open for grazing of community cows.  So we have some pics of the cows outside our window, and a pic of Kaye chasing the cows away with a stick.  Throwing rocks at the cows is a good pass time in the hot weather.  The cows don't even flinch when you hit them, unless you hit their horns. 

There's a couple shot of the dog Mango, Kaye, me and Mfundo out side our door.

In the following pics you can see the river that passes the perimeter of the property on one side.  It gets pretty dirty but we still swim in it.  Most of the kids can swim but only a few of them float the river with me.  Heidi leads the rest along the shore to the swimming spot with all the smooth rocks you see in couple of the pics.  If you look you can see the girls wearing bread bags on their heads trying to keep there hair dry.  They also float down the river with empty milk jugs to keep them afloat.  We are usually in the river 2 times a day because it gets so hot.  The boys under the umbrella are just wearing underwear to swim in, that's normal.

Next is a shot of Lulama (7) and Dumi (6) standing on the shore.

In the following photos you can see us teaching summer school.  Every day we read the Bible then ask questions, then we break up in to different reading groups.  Heidi gets 3 groups of little kids while I work with the older kids.  Then we work on the kids math skills.  We then do arts and crafts or play a game of soccer.  Then we inevitably jump into the river.  School usually lasts for 2 hours.  Right now we are just teaching on what they have already learned in school, but come January 16 we will be helping them with their homework and other school projects.

In the next shot, Heidi is holding an HIV positive child named Kwaneli(2).  He is always pouting, and even in a shot where he is happy it looks like he is mad.  There's another shot of them with Zipno.

Next shot we are in the "kombi" (Volkswagen van) heading to JD and Barbara's house for a "braai" (BBQ).  JD and Barbara are long term volunteer that have a house on some very nice property just 20 min drive from the Injesuthi Cottages.  (The meat in S. Africa is unbelievable.  It has so much flavor and is always good.  The most tender meat I have ever had!)

In the van you can see some of the kids and a couple of the moms that help out at the cottages.

There are some shots of the drive to their house.  The large umbrella tree you see is supposedly the largest of it's kind in S. Africa and it is on their property.  They own about 100 acres and a forest that is filled with wild monkeys.
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The biggest lightning bolt we captured. Lately there has been no rain or lightning, just heat, but for the first few weeks it was hot during the day and then around dinner time the thunder and lightning would start and the rain would come a couple hours later.

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Us with some of the children (the teenagers are missing) and Will, the American volunteer who left on Dec. 14th.

This is a pic of our bedroom. The only picture that I have been able to upload so far. Enjoy!

Pics of the Cottages at Injesuthi

We are trying to post a slide show video we made but S. Africa's internet is so slow I don't think we will be able to do so.  Now I am trying to post some pics of the Cottages but I am having trouble.  I have a few different ways to post pics and I will try each of them.  

We have typed up the captions for each photo so I hope we can post the pics.

Sorry for the long delay.