“Kingdom of Sweets”

Taylor has been taking ballet since June of this year and she absolutely loves it. She just did her first ballet recital “Kingdom of Sweets” on November 16 and 17 and was just the cutest little ballerina. Each of the children’s classes were different sweets (candy). Taylor’s class were pink and white marshmallows and other classes were candy necklaces, jelly tots, licorice, lollipops, popcorn, etc. We are so proud of our little girl in her 1st performance.

Before the 1st performance Amanda was able to go backstage and help with makeup for all of the girls. It was so much fun and can’t believe our little girl wore makeup.

Above: Bradyn loved watching Taylor in the play.

Below: Daddy brought flowers for his little girl on the first night of her performance

Marshmallows: Taylor is 2nd from the left in the front

Above: I didn’t know any of the girls in this group but their costumes were super cute

Below: This was popcorn. Lili Pettigrew another missionary kid is 5th back on the right side.

Ledumang Christmas Play

On Saturday mornings, we go to the neighborhood beside of ours and do a women’s and children’s bible study. On Saturday, November 17, the kids did a Christmas Play. You may be thinking, why are they doing it so early…great question! The kids finish school this Friday and most all kids go  to the villages for their Christmas break and won’t be back until January. So today was our final bible study day. It was really so much fun. They learned “Joy to the World” over the last few weeks (video below and did a great job singing it.

To start the morning off, the kids got Christmas bookmarks and colored them. Thanks to a team from the States for these!

Christmas Play

Below: Angel Gabriel coming to Mary to tell her she would have baby Jesus.

Above: Mary and Joseph going to the Innkeepers in Bethlehem to find a place to stay.

Below: The 3 wise men (1 wise woman-Taylor) coming to bring gifts to baby Jesus. The whole play was done in Setswana and I was so proud of Taylor for saying her part in Setswana. All of the kids clapped for her when she finished. Most older children learn English in school but Setswana is definitely what language they feel comfortable speaking.

We study at my friend Onalenna’s house. Her mom was so gracious to buy all of the kids ice pops (which you can see Bradyn enjoying below) and chip packs on our last day together.

Joy to the World

Meeting in Maun

Maun, Botswana is located right below the Okavanga Delta where most animal hang out due to the availability of water (remember most of Botswana is desert and very, very hot). Brent went to Maun in late October for a week for a meeting and was able to see some pretty cool things in the evenings during their free time. Thought you might enjoy seeing some pictures.

They did a walking safari and walked right up onto this giraffe.

This fish eagle took off to try to get a catch from the river.

Our garden

The term “garden” to me means growing vegetables, but the term “garden” here in Botswana means our yard. Here are some fun things we see in our garden.

We have several weaver bird nest in the tops of the trees in our garden. The male is a beautiful bright yellow bird with a black mask on his face. The male makes several nests and the female will come and inspect it. If she does not like it then the male has to build more nests. This is a female checking out a potential nest.

Above: This is a blue headed lizard that lives in the trees in our back yard. The females are just brown but the males have this vibrant color.

Below: We have been having some wonderful rains lately. It had not rained until last March and has just started raining in October. Everything is become lush and green again. The below picture was taken from our front yard with no editing done at all on this picture. I have never seen it be so yellow outside-a rainbow to top it all off.

Dress up

So no one dresses up here in Botswana for Halloween, but for the last few years we still let the kids dress up and they go out our back door and come to our front door and say “trick or treat”. We also had some fun doing some art together. They both got a lollipop and were happy as can be. I need to make sure we are not on Stateside in October so they don’t see how much candy they could get :)

We also made some hats. We blew up balloons to what we thought the size of their head would be and then put glue and newspaper on them. The following day we popped the balloon and painted the hats. Well, this is one of those projects that just didn’t turn out like I thought it would but the kids still had fun. Bradyn’s hat was way too small for his head and was collapsing in at certain spots. We sure do have fun together, even if it flops.

Amazing ladies

I have been so blessed to be able to spend some time with the ladies from the church the last few weeks.

On October 27, the ladies at Gaborone Baptist Church had a ladies day together. We did some baking together (brownies and an apple spice cake) and were able to learn some flower arranging tips for a florist. What a great time of fellowship together.

November day of prayer

On November 3, we held the November day of prayer at Gaborone Baptist Church. For the November day of prayer, women came together all over the world to pray together for each other and each of our continents. I was blessed to lead the prayers for North America and we learned about the JOY we are to have in serving others.