Merry Christmas from Zambia

Christmas week was a full week for our family, with lots of fun and joyful relaxation as we celebrated the birth of our sweet Ellie and most importantly the birth of our Savior!  

Here are some pictures of our week!

Ellie turns 4!

Christmas Eve Dinner and celebration with our families and Zambian workers 

Dancing under the lapa

Precious kids!

All "the littles" as we call them

It was our honor to serve dinner to these faithful friends who mean so much to us!
Dailes, Pauline and Patronella

The young wives and children of our new workers

The gentlemen!
Movet, Terran, Luke, Lloyd and Tyson

Watching a few fireworks!

Opening a few gifts

Fun around the table

Early Christmas Morning

Happy Birthday Jesus!

Ellie excited about her presents!

Thomas and Gracyn

Caleb and Maddie

Showing off his Zambia Jersey

New Princess Dress and accessories!

Cool Wig!

Scary Elf??

 What a great day!  And so blessed!  Happy New Year Everyone!

A Large Visitor

Merry Christmas everyone!  We hope your holiday season has been a good one spent with family and friends.  Christmas here isn't the same as Christmas back home in the States, mainly because our family isn't here to celebrate with us.  But we did have a rather enjoyable Christmas day.

I just thought we would share this picture with you as it was an interesting addition to our holiday season.  Some workers here on the farm brought this little (I mean Big) guy over the other afternoon.  This is a monitor lizard.  The Lozi (a tribe located in western Zambia) call it Opani.  It's actually a delicacy in their neck of the woods.

Don't worry.  We didn't hurt this little guy.  Just kept him in the fire pit for a bit so the kids could see him and then let him go.

Mechanic?

Something I never thought I would do: mechanical work on my car. I've never attempted much more than changing a tire or maybe my oil. So, today was a stretch.

About a week or so ago our car started acting up. It seemed as if we might have been the recipients of some dirty fuel. So, today I decided to remove the fuel tank to clean it out. I would normally prefer to send it to a mechanic for such a job, but here in Zambia that would leave us without a car for at least a week. So, I decided to do it myself.

It took half a day, but in the end it was a success. It turns out that the filter on the inside of the tank came off it's mounting allowing the grunge in the tank to pass to the engine.

Never thought being a missionary would require me to become a mechanic too!

Rainy Day

Sometimes serving God overseas is fun and exciting. And others it's difficult and sad. This is one of those days. Our best friends, the Ballentines, begin the long trek home to reunite with their family today. We will miss them dearly, but are so glad for our short time with them.

Kids and Farming?

Two weeks ago, planting season finally arrived.  So, to say it was a busy time would be an understatement.  In addition to some of the demonstration plots we have here at the house, we were also busy assisting the school next door to us and planting a field at our ministry centre in Ngangula.  The kids got involved as well.

We decided that it would be good for them to learn the same program that we are teaching the village farmers.  We are proud at just how hard they have been working.  They literally spent two full days getting their small plot ready and planting the seeds.  And it was awesome seeing the excitement on their faces as they began to see the maize seed begin to sprout through the soil in the last few days.

When the maize is fully grown in a few months, we'll let them harvest it and sell it to a mill just up the road.  Great homeschooling project huh?

Welcoming the Ballentines

We're sorry for the lack of posts lately, but we've been busy spending time with our close friends John and Carrie Ballentine.  They decided to take some time out of their busy schedule and come and visit us here in the bush in Zambia.  And we are sooooo happy to have them here!

John and Carrie are very dear friends who we've known since our days in college.  We've really grown up as families together.  We were married within 6 months of each other and then had all of our children close to the same times.  So, to say that this we've been looking forward to their visit would be an understatement.

Below is a slideshow of the rest of the trip to Livingstone and Botswana.  We hope to add more pictures and stories during their visit.

Link to Slideshow:  https://picasaweb.google.com/mzungubwr/BearAndCarrieLivingstoneTrip?authuser=0&feat=directlink