Happy Birthday, Munosi

One of Amanda’s friends from church, Munosi, recently celebrated her 17th birthday. We had her a little birthday party at our house and we had so much fun. Munosi helps out with the children’s ministry at church and is just such a sweet girl. She is completing Form 4 this year (like 11th grade) and after Form 5 (12th grade) next year she will try to attend University. Recently Munosi and Amanda went to a poorer region of our town of Lobatse to visit some of the children from church whose parents do not come to church. She has been such a huge help to me in helping me get around and an encouragement to the children’s ministry here.

Ano (Munosi’s 2 year old sister) and Taylor

 

Margaret, Osi, Boipelo, Munosi, Amanda, Ano, and Taylor

Munosi blowing out her candles

Go USA!!

Yesterday we all cheered on the USA as they scored in the 91st minute against Algeria making the score 1-0 to propel team USA to the knockout stages. They will play against Ghana on Saturday June 26, at 8:30pm Africa time (2:30pm EST) so be sure to cheer on our guys!

GO USA!!!!

Ke Nako!

We have heard the words “Ke Nako” over the past several weeks so many times. Simply this means “It’s time!” This is the 1st time that the World Cup of soccer has been in Africa. On June 19 we were very blessed to be able to attend  one of the soccer games between Ghana and Australia in Rustenburg, South Africa about 2 1/2 hours from our house. It was one of those surreal moments that we could not believe we were actually sitting at a World Cup game. Here’s some shots from our day.

We went with the 7 college students who are here for the summer. From left to right: Brent, Amanda, Allison, Kasey, Sterling, Ben, Brett, Ashley, and Charrisa.

 

Here’s us with the stadium behind us. Taylor stayed at home with Aunt Margaret, but we will certainly have to tell our little boy that he attended his 1st World Cup game before he was even born.

There were many interesting people at this game. One was this Australian man dressed in a spandex Australian flag.

Here are some Ghana fans. We decided to cheer for Ghana during this game and we were greatly outnumbered. There was about 75% of the people in the crowd of 44,000 cheering for Australia.

During halftime a huge flag with the all the nations represented was draped over a section of the stadium and it said “Jesus, King of the Nations, Every Tongue Will Confess”. How awesome!!!

This is pain on the face of an Australian fan knowing they were not going to win the game.

Australian was in gold/yellow and Ghana was in white. The score ended up being 1-1 at the end of the match and was such an exciting game! We hope to post all of our pictures on our photo site so check it out soon if you want to see more http://theturnerbabies.shutterfly.com/

World Cup Soccer

If you know much about the African culture, much of life revolves around soccer. The World Cup Soccer Tournament started on June 11 and will last until July 11, so all we hear right now is about who is playing and who won the game the night before. This has opened the door for a great ministry opportunity here in Lobatse. The church doors have been opened for most of the games and the games are being projected onto a screen. We have a team of 9 folks here from Kentucky, the 7 college students from Mississippi, as well as members of our church have been spreading the good news as well as inviting people to come to the church to watch the games. For the first game of South Africa vs. Mexico we had about 120 people join us at the church which is just amazing…we are just so happy that people are coming to the church and not a bar to watch the game. At halftime we are presenting the gospel and handing out tracks after the game. So for the next month please pray for the World Cup to open many doors for all of us to spread the good news of Jesus.

Next Saturday, June 19, Brent and I and the 7 college students from Mississippi will be attending the Ghana vs. Australia game, so be sure to look for us! 

 

This is one of the volunteers from Kentucky-Barbara- helping out with a child so his mom could watch the game.

These are some of Amanda’s friends. Starting from the left: Natasha, Munosi, and Kay. Munosi is about 17 years old and comes over to hang out at our house a lot and also helps out with the children’s ministry at church.

Sidewalk Chalk

It’s amazing how a little sidewalk chalk can occupy a child for so long. Whoever created this should win a nobel prize! When we arrived home from language study the other day, we found that Taylor had decorated her face, hands and feet with some green sidewalk chalk. She enjoys these days drawing on herself and she says she has stripes like Tigger. What memories!

Thank you!

We just wanted to personally say thank you to each of you who has given sacrificially over the last year to the Lottie Moon offering that keeps all of the 5,000 missionaries around the world on the field. Due to the lack of sufficient funds, the IMB has had to reduce the amount of new missionaries as well as not allowing terms to be extended for some couples already on the field. We recently received the following information from our president, Jerry Rankin:

“We have been monitoring closely receipts to the 2009 LM as the closing date to our LM fiscal year approached.  I am delighted to share with you that the total reached $148,984,819.41 which is a 5.43 percent increase over last year.  While receipts are far short of our goal of $175 million, it is the third highest amount received in the history of LM.  The total is the amount received over the last 12 months and includes about $4 million given by many in supplemental gifts last summer.  We praise the Father for His faithfulness through SBs and how this reflects the continuing priority commitment by SBs in these times of a challenging economy.  The total received will enable us to cover the amount included in the overseas operating budget, but, unfortunately, will not enable us to reverse our current efforts to restrict appointments and reduce the number of personnel.”

Thank you for all you do from your giving, prayers, and encouragement keeping us overseas!

Flag football and volleyball

In the past two weeks we have had about 7 college kids arrive for the summer here in Lobatse. Please pray for these 7 as they are ministering to the people of Lobatse. Their names are: Allison, Casey, Ashley,Charrisa, Brett, Ben, and Sterling. There will be several teams traveling to Botswana over the next few months so please keep the people of Botswana in your prayers that they would be open to the presentation of the gospel. If you or your church are interested in coming to Botswana for a short term mission trip in the next few years just let us know at bltast@hotmail.com and we will get you connected with our volunteer coordinator, Brandon Warner.

We recently had some of our African friends and some church members over for a game of flag football and volleyball. Africans don’t really play American football so it was a bit of a new concept for them but they did really well considering that fact. Here are some shots from our fun day.

 

This is a father and daughter who were here in Lobatse for a week spreading the good news. Britton (the daughter) just graduated from high school and wanted to go on a missions trip to Africa for her graduation present. We had a great time with them and appreciate her heart for missions at such a young age.

Cool Animals

Recently we took a day trip with a missions team to Mokolodi Game Reserve which is only about 45 minutes away from our home. We did a self drive through the game park and were able to see some pretty cool animals. Rhinos are very rare to see and we got to see 3 of them this day. One of the rhinos apparently had part of its tail bitten off by something recently and the other 2 were protecting her. We spoke with the management of the reserve a few days later and they said the rhino was ok and healing. It’s fun to try to use some of the Setswana we have learned when speaking with the folks there.

Ostrich-Ntshe (N-shay)

Warthog-Kolobe ya naga (Ko-lo-bay-yah-na-ha) The setswana word means pig of the forest

 

Wildebeest

 

Rhino-Tsukudu (Tsoo-Koo-doo). The hurt rhino was laying down behind the male protecting her. That big horn was a deterrent for us getting too close.

5 months

Here are some much awaited belly shots that the family has been asking for. My appetite is definitely increasing these days. Last Sunday I made a chocolate meringue pie and on Tuesday I finished the last piece…Brent kindly told me at that moment that he only had a little piece of it. Oh well, the joys of being pregnant! I can’t fulfill my cravings of chick-fil-a nuggets, long john silvers chicken, chocolate cheesecake from the cheesecake factory, or Outback, so if you can go out to eat and enjoy some of these things please do it for me. My dear friend Dana just sent me some lucky charms cereal which has been one of my cravings…thanks so much!