Kira's Agent Party

 

We celebrate Kira's birthday on her half birthday since her real birthday is so close to Christmas.  This year, Kira decided to have an Agent Party.

 The kids were welcomed to the training facility where they were given their junior agent ID badges and code names.  Senior agent Alpha Zulu introduced them to the role of a special agent and taught them how to use their agent supply kit if needed. 

Unfortunately, senior agent Alpha Zulu was captured by Captain Tantrum (aka Ryden) while the junior agents were taking a water break.  The junior agents were thrust into their first official mission:  capturing Captain Tantrum and rescuing senior agent Alpha Zulu along with the birthday cake and presents that Captain Zulu stole.

The junior agents sounded the alarm (party blowers that were issued in their agent kits) whenever they spotted Captain Tantrum.  They were careful to wear their agent masks to hide their identities whenever they went outside the training facility.

They had to learn on the fly as they found and followed clues step by step.

The junior agents worked together to decipher codes.

At one point, they untangled a complicated web.

 The clues at the end of the web were pieces of a map leading to the next clue.  At last they discovered a video recording that senior agent Alpha Zulu had left in case he was captured.  This message led them to a radio transceiver to contact the last remaining trusted senior agent.  He disclosed the location of Captain Tantrum's hideout.  The junior agents successfully captured Captain Tantrum who led them to Alpha Zulu and the stolen cake and presents.

The party was saved thanks to the skillful junior agents! 

A day in the bush

 

 I recently had the opportunity to spend a day in the bush with a friend from another organization.  This was also a great chance for Ryden to experience life in the bush and what is happening in this area.  Our destination was a village about 2 hrs from town where my friend's been going once every two weeks along with another coworker from our organization.  They first had contact with people in this village about 10 years ago.  There wasn't much interest back then from the villagers in having someone teach them about God's Story, so our coworkers focused their efforts elsewhere.  Then, about 3 years ago they heard that there was a group of people in this village asking for someone to come teach them.  They visited the village again and began teaching a group that quickly grew to 50-100 people depending on the week.  After a little while, the village chief told them that they couldn't come anymore.  This decision was met with some protests from the villagers, so they decided to hold a meeting.  Our friends were there at the meeting and told them to talk about it and let them know the decision.  As they discussed it, an older man finally said to the chief, "I didn't like you before you became chief and I don't like you now."  He continued on to say that he wanted the teaching to continue.  After that, the chief reluctantly agreed to let the meetings continue.

About 6 months ago, several people from the village (5, I think) came to the point where they were bapt*zed.  The day I went along would be the last visit with this group for about 6 months as both of our coworkers are on their home assignments now.  The goal for this visit was to help the group begin to understand how they could listen to an audio recording from the Word, ask questions about the passage and then glean truths from it to apply to their lives.  No one in the group knows how to read, so audio recordings are the only way they can hear and study God's Word.  

The trip began with us picking up a local pastor from town.  About 45 minutes outside of town, we stopped along the road where a small clan of women, children and a few men were waiting.  They were relatives of the man at our next stop and were hoping some of them could catch a ride to his place.  We agreed to take one of them (the son-in-law pictured above).

We then made another brief stop at the last bigger town to buy a bunch of straw.  Our coworker with whom I was traveling owns a few cows that his friend takes care of in the bush.  The straw was for the cows and it's cheaper to buy from the rice fields by the river than further out in the bush.

After another brief stop to buy a bag of mangoes as a treat for the group in the village, we arrived at our first planned stop.  This is the home of my coworker's friend, who is a believer and goes along to help translate.  Ryden is pictured here standing by the doorway. 

These two huts are also part of his home.  Now that the rains have started since our trip, these huts are actually surrounded by millet stalks starting to grow in the fields all around.  In a few months, the millet stalks will be taller than the huts and you wouldn't be able to see the huts from this view.

We went inside his home to visit and meet his family.  The man on the right is the head of the family and the one we were taking with us to the village.

Sitting on a shelf around the top of the wall were dishes and pots.  This is a display of the good "china," which is used for special occasions.  The "everyday ware" was sitting on a similar shelf on the other side of the hut.  

Next to the door were a number of clay pots which are filled with water used for drinking, cooking and cleaning.  The whole family will share the few cups sitting on top and dip them into the same pots.  The water is hauled from an open well about 1 km away.  

As we were visiting, this calf walked into the hut to get a drink of water from the same pots.  One of the daughters willingly hopped up to serve the calf a drink in the blue bucket.

Cooking is done over a wood fire.  The goats are lounging around next to the cooking area.  In the background are two small huts for chickens.

The main staple is millet.  Here two of the women in the family are pounding the millet for the next meal. 

The family sleeps on beds made of sticks.  This one was outside.  Each hut has 2-3 similar beds inside for sleeping as well.

 These are a few of the kids in the family.  They are precious, beautiful little girls made in the image of God.

After visiting for a little while, we loaded up again and continued on another 30 minutes into the bush to our destination.  The meeting happens under the one large shade tree in the area.  When we arrived, there were two of the older men laying on mats in the shade of the tree.  We joined them and sat around visiting while we waited for people to gather.  After about 20-30 minutes, we had a group of around 40 men, women and children.  My coworker had to wing it a little bit as his original plan for this last meeting fell apart when he learned that the local pastor with us didn't bring the tape player and recordings that he wanted play for the group.  My coworker speaks one of the local tribal languages, but most of the people in this gathering are from another people group who speak a different language.  He wanted to play the passage for the meeting in their language so that they could understand it better.  Instead, he ended up reading it in the local language he speaks and then someone loosely translated it into the other language.  There was good interaction and feedback from the group as he asked them questions and had them work on gleaning the truths from the passage for themselves.

At the end, he emptied the sack of mangoes on one the mats and the older men distributed them to the group.  Everyone was very grateful. 

On the way back, we stopped again at the family's group of huts to drop off the folks from there.  We picked up some more cargo (grass thatch rolls used for making the huts) to be hauled part way and dropped off on the way back to town.  The man of the family continued with us part way as well.  We dropped him off at the home of a friend he wanted to visit who had just lost a child.

A Visitor

For two months from the middle of April to the middle of June, we added an extra member to our family.  We hosted a young man, Ryden, from my home church.  Shortly after arriving here, Ryden turned 20.

We celebrated his birthday with Ian's family who introduced him to some local clothes.  Ian's family thought we should make sure he was nice and cozy on those cold nights.... wait, we didn't have any nights like during his time here.  He was here during our hottest time of the year.  Most days the temperature was over 110 deg F. He'll have to wait to use his new pajama pants back in the States.

Field Trip

Elayna's 1st grade class at Sahel came for a field trip to the hangar near the end of school.  We usually host 2-3 field trips a year for kids from Sahel or other schools.  You can see that the classes at Sahel are very international.  For some, this is the first time they've seen an airplane up close.  We tell them what we do and teach them a little about how an airplane flies.  They each get a chance to climb in one of the planes and pretend to fly it as they manipulate the controls.  Naturally, there's no better place to learn how to make paper airplanes than at the hangar, so we teach them how to do that and then have a good time testing out the new planes.

Brynn's Cooking Party

Brynn turned 8 in March.  She chose to have a cooking party for her birthday.  It was an all girls' party plus Silas.  They started off by decorating their own aprons.  I was quite impressed with their designs.

They each made their own individual lasagnes.  

Their salads were prepared individually as well to their liking. 

 

Then it was time to enjoy the fruits of their labor.  It was all delicious.  These girls can cook.

 

 Of course, a party wouldn't be complete without some cake.  They each decorated their own cupcakes.

  

 Here's our sweet Brynn posing with her cupcake. 

 

And here's a bonus picture that typifies Brynn.  She's an avid reader.  It's a rare day that we don't find her with her nose stuck in a book.

Looking for Animals

We recently made 2 trips to the the game park 2 1/2 hrs from us. After Christmas, we went camping there with several other families. The whole family enjoys being there. When we're not out looking for animals, the kids run around the campground playing with their friends. Silas and his buddies honed their skills in bocce (lawn bowling... although the "lawn" here is sand).

While our friends, Dan and Edie, were here we made another quick trip to the game park. The kids like to go hiking on the rocky hills around the campground. Up on top, you can look down over the campground, the river and the open expanses along the river.



Kira and Brynn were ready to spot animals. We've seen lots of animals in previous trips, but we'd never seen the king of the park (lions) and we'd only seen a few elephants before. Everyone was bringing their eagle eyes to spot lions and elephants this time.

When you enter the park, you pick up a guide who stays with you until you leave the park. The best way to spot animals is from on top of the vehicle as you drive around. Everyone took turns riding up on top as we drove around the park. You just have to watch out for the tree branches and branches with thorns that hang over some of the trails. Believe me, they can hurt and leave a mark.

Our 2nd trip the park, we came across 6 large elephants right after we entered the park. There's a watering hole near the entrance and these fellas were hanging out right there.

As we left the park, we saw 3 more elephants slinging mud on themselves down in this same water hole.

Earlier that day, we were driving along when the guide said the back up... He spotted elephants. I was on top with Dan, Brynn and the guide. As Krista backed up, we heard an elephant trumpet and out of the bush charged this elephant. Krista quickly drove forward and the elephant stopped his warning charge. We backed up a little and he charged a 2nd time until we moved forward some more.
As we sat there, the elephant went back and led this group of 4 adults and about 8 babies across the road behind us. One of the babies was only about 3 feet tall.
We saw lots of "DLCs" (deer like creatures). This beauty was a roan antelope. We got a hold of a book this year that shows all of the animals in the park with pictures and descriptions, so now we can actually put names to all of the DLCs. In addition to the DLCs, we spotted several warthogs, an African civet, a jackal, baboons, and red monkeys. The red monkeys like to hang out in the bushes around the campground and run out to grab food that's left around.
One night during out 1st trip to the park after Christmas, we asked the guide if we could do a night trek. He agreed, but under several conditions: no one could ride on top of the vehicle and we could only drive the trail nearest the campground. Otherwise, we would need an armed guard to go with us. We piled a bunch of the men into our vehicle and started driving. 600 meters up the road from the campground we came upon a female lion lying in the middle of the road. She was unconcerned with us and stayed right where she was for about 5 min. Then, she rolled onto her back daring us to come rub her tummy. After a few more minutes, she got up and slowly walked a few meters into the tall grass next to the road and lay down. We continued on our trek, but on our way back we stopped at that same spot to see if she was still there. Sure enough, she was... along with another female lion laying next to her!

In light of our successful trek, the ladies and a few others decided to give it a try the next night. Unfortunately, they didn't spot anything. They were disappointed, so when it came to our 2nd trip to the park everyone really wanted to spot a lion. In the morning, we went out looking for animals. After about an hour, we headed to a watering hole and waited there to see if anything showed up. Dan got off the top of the vehicle and started walking around. As he did, I spotted something moving out the other side of some tall grass about 30 meters from Dan. At first, I thought it was a baboon and then the guide said, "lion!" Everyone got off the top and into the vehicle and the guide let us drive down through the tall grass next to the watering hole. As we came out the other side, we came upon the female lion sitting behind a tree. We sat there and watched her.
After a few minutes of watching the female lion, along came this young male lion to join her. The guide said the female was there by the watering hole to hunt.... the male was there to eat whatever she killed.


Right before we spotted the lions, we found a herd of several hundred dwarf red buffalo. They're very similar to and just as aggressive as water buffalo. As they moved along, they created a huge cloud of dust behind them. After we drove along right next to them, we learned that it can be quite dangerous to drive next to a large herd like that. They will often surround a vehicle and then attack it.


They are working hard to improve the road to the park. In this picture you can see the raised section which will be the new road. It will eventually be paved, which will help with tourism for the park. The truck in this picture was a piece of work and a very typical sight here. It's loaded with wood that will be sold for cooking fires. The springs on the left side of the truck were completely shot. Every little dip or slope and the whole truck swayed way over on the left side. We didn't want to pass it for fear that it would fall over onto us.

A little help from our friends

We had a great visit from some friends for 2 weeks in January and February. Dan and Edie are good friends of Krista's parents from Alberta. Almost 10 years ago, when we were driving to Alaska , they helped us out of a big jam in Alberta. The van we were driving had a joint on the front axle go bad. We went to Dan's shop near Krista's parents and he replaced the axle on that side of the van. We decided to leave the van there and continue on with our car. So, Dan took the trailer hitch off the van and modified it for the car. He then modified a trailer, making it a few feet longer and the sides taller to carry our stuff. With his help, we were on our way again to Alaska in a few days.

We were excited to have Dan and Edie join us for two weeks here in Africa. They both jumped right in wherever they could.


Dan fabricated trailer hitches for 2 of our SIMAIR vehicles to pull our new fuel trailer. The container arrived with the fuel trailer right after Dan finished the first trailer hitch. He also did some maintenance on our SIMAIR vehicles, changing belts and cleaning air conditioning systems to make them work better. We also had him fabricate a solid mount to which we can attach a propeller to work on it when it's not on the plane.

Edie helped prepare some sewing projects for the sewing class elective at Sahel Academy and helped Krista at home.