The ground is WHITE

The ground is WHITE here in Botswana, but not with snow. We just had a hail storm come through, pretty cool. Here’s a few shots.

Friends

Taylor has made quite a few friends since we have arrived here in Botswana. She has opened so many doors for us, and it allows me to invite their moms over as well to get to know them.

This is Boogee, Love-Love, Sharon, and Taylor playing in our yard. These are some of our neighbors from across the street.

Malwaine, Jayden, and Taylor. Their family is from Zimbabwe and have lived here for the past 2 years.

Above: Taylor “helping” me make cupcakes for Boipelo’s birthday.

Below: Boipelo is a single mother in our church who has been visiting us lately. She is in need of a job so please pray she would find one.

Boipelo’s children: Letso, Dodo, and a niece Pinky.

Masimo

This past Saturday April 17, Taylor and I (Amanda) were invited to go to the fields (Masimo in Setswana) with Taylor’s nanny, Bantle, and another lady in the church named Mma Adom. Before leaving I was told we would leave at 7am and return by 10am, well that was silly of me to think that would actually be true. I think we ended up getting home at about 3:30pm but we had a great time visiting with Bantle’s family and picking some corn, watermelon, sweet reeds, and beans. When I was asked to go with them, it was such an honor as in this culture people normally don’t invite you into their homes or lands. Taylor did not want to come home because she enjoyed playing in the dirt so much.

Sitting around the fire roasting the corn we picked

Mma Adom, a neighbor, Bantle, and Bantle’s aunt

 

Taylor and Bantle, her nanny

Taylor playing with a little girl named Wendy

The family

New Turner

We are so happy to announce that our family of 3 will be expanding around October 24 to a family of 4. Proud big sister Taylor is getting ready for her new little brother or sister.

Visit from the Wint’s

We have made some dear friends during our time going through missionary training as well as since we’ve arrived overseas. Some of those friends are Mark, Melynda, and Madylanne Wint, and we were so blessed to be able to have them in our home for a couple of days last weekend. They currently are serving in Zambia which is about a 16 hour drive from us, not too bad for Africa. If you ask Taylor who her best friend is, she says without hesitation “Madylanne” and quite frankly I think she has been in mourning since they left and asks everyday if Madylanne will be coming back today. Here are some shots from our sweet time with our dear friends.

Above and below: We spent the afternoon at Mokolodi Nature Reserve about 45 minutes from our house and got to see some pretty cool animals

 

Above: Mark and Brent went hunting and Mark was able to get an Impala.

 

Above and below: We had an unofficial birthday party for Madylanne and Taylor. They both will turn 3 in June, but most likely they will not be able to celebrate together. So we threw them a very early birthday party, complete with barbie doll gifts.

Above: The girls would race around on their bikes together, so cute!

This is a picture of the Wint’s overlooking our current city of Lobatse.

Our crate has arrived!

Our crate that we packed a year ago with all of our stuff arrived this past Saturday. We were allotted 500 cubic feet which ended up being 3 huge boxes that contained everything from our beds and sofas to our dishes. It’s so nice to have our own things here, it makes it feel a little more like home. Taylor has discovered lots of her old toys and they are “new” again, so that has been nice. We are so blessed to be able to have brought some of our things from America because if we had to buy it all here, it would have been very expensive. When we move to Gaborone we will still have to buy our appliances and washer/dryer, but that’s nothing compared to what we would have had to spend here if we had not crated.

 

The truck arriving Saturday morning.

Taylor discovering a bike and helmet that she got 2 Christmas’ ago

Above: Our living room BEFORE

Below: Our living room AFTER

Above: Our bedroom BEFORE

Below 2 pictures: Our bedroom AFTER

 

Above: Taylor’s room BEFORE

Below 2 pictures: Taylor’s room AFTER

Easter egg hunt

The participants: Landon, Kendall, Taylor, Caden, and Anna Katherine

The fun began when they got to open the eggs and eat tons of candy and marshmallows.

Where there is rain there will be MUD

We’ve had quite a bit of rain lately. Yesterday I let Taylor play on the back carport while I fixed dinner. I asked Brent to check on her and he found her playing in the mud. Once he grabbed the camera this is how the story progressed…

Taylor: “Daddy, look at how dirty I am”

Daddy: “Taylor, put your hand down”

Daddy: “Taylor, smile”

Tshipise, South Africa

On March 27, we drove about 9 hours to Tshipise, South Africa for our annual Cluster Meeting. This included missionaries from Zambia, Zimbabwe, Lesotho, South Africa, and Botswana. It was an amazing time of spiritual refreshing. We had a volunteer team come from Bryan, Texas and Oklahoma and we were able to worship and hear some amazing preaching. The resort was very beautiful!

This was the rondavel that we stayed in that had 2 small bedrooms, a bathroom and kitchenette. Thatch roofs are beautiful, but they allow critter visitors to come visit. We had a bat and several mice come visit us during our stay, ugh! 

This is the first time we have ever seen a mongoose. They were pretty cool little creatures. 

We also had some monkey friends that hung around the resort. We left our door open one day very briefly and one came into our rondavel to visit. 

These were some of the volunteers that came to visit. These 3 helped in the preschool class.

This is Taylor’s best friend in the whole world, Madylanne. They live in Zambia and the reunion between the two was so much fun. I think they will be friends for life!