Wednesday, October 21, 2015

Flower girl and ring security

Our friends Nelson and Fridah were married on October 15 &17. Here in Botswana there are normally 2 weddings, one at the home of the groom and one at the home of the bride. October 15 was on the grooms side and was the wedding at our church here in Gaborone. It was a beautiful ceremony with Taylor being the flower girl and Bradyn being the ring bearer or "ring security"! On Saturday, October 17 they held the other wedding in South Africa where the bride is from.

So do you want to know what weddings are like here?  Let me briefly describe to you the 2nd wedding and all of the comedy of errors that happened that day...overall though it was a great day.

Start time was supposed to be  8:30am (remember there is something we call "Africa time" and that means it NEVER starts on time but we were on "America time")
  • 8:45am: We arrive as we had to drive about 1 hour to get there...we are the 1st ones there! The venue is still trying to set up chairs etc.
  • 9:15am: A few others arrive and we all decide to go get coffee as we heard they probably would not start until well after 10am
  • 11am: We arrive back at the venue and still no bride or groom. Go to get Taylor dressed and her zipper down the whole back of the dress breaks. The ladies at the reception desk find a sowing kit and we proceed to sow her into her dress for the next hour.
  • 12pm: All ready and everyone has arrived, just waiting on the bride and groom
  • 1pm: Bride and groom arrive but can't exit the car until the photographer arrives
  • 1:30pm: They ask Brent to be the photographer-wedding begins
  • 2:30pm: Photographer arrives (now remember this was all supposed to start at 8:30am!)
  • Wedding, photographs, reception and many dances later, we arrive back at our hotel at 7pm.

Long day to say the least but we are so happy for these two. Now I culturally can't include pictures of the bride and groom until late November but here are some snapshots from the rest of the bridal party/crowd.

Bridesmaids

So blessed!

Taylor at the ceremony

Love this shot of this sweet lady!

The bride :) She was radiant!!

our girl

Flower girls and ring bearer

Ok so quite of few pics of our girl but she looked beautiful

our kids

kisses

dancing in to the reception

outfit change and more dancing

 

Happy 5th Birthday, Bradyn!

On October 12, Bradyn celebrated his 5th birthday...where has the time gone? We celebrated by taking him swimming at a local hotel and having ninja turtle pizza and cupcakes. It was such a great day!
 
Going for a ride on what else, a giraffe!

Bradyn and his friend Riley
 
We had a few monkeys join the party...one came and was swinging
 

Happy Birthday, Bradyn!!

He ended the day by smearing a cupcake all over his face!

Greece

Brent recently traveled to Greece for a meeting and was able to go sight seeing for part of a day in Athens. It is so awesome to see all of the old structures as they try to restore them without compromising the integrity. If you read in Acts 17, this is also a place Paul visited. Isn't is so amazing to think that Paul walked those streets and hills! Below you will see a stadium/theatre, the Acropolis, temple of Athena, and the Parthenon










Mission family

As most of you are preparing to gather around the table with family to celebrate Thanksgiving/Christmas, we wanted to share with you about our mission family. Saying leaving family in the States behind as we come to serve the Lord overseas is "hard" is an understatement. But that said, the Lord has provided us with an amazing mission family that we can come and serve alongside. With all the many changes the IMB is going through, our mission family is changing and many are transitioning back to the States. I ask you to pray for those who will be leaving that the Lord would guide their steps. Also pray for those of us who are still on the mission field that the Lord would work mightily with those few of us who are left behind and that the nationals that we have been working with would step up even more than they already have and that many people would come to know the Lord!
 
Our mission family

On a fun day out game drive together

We got to see some pretty amazing rhino

Mission cousins

We love just sitting around the table together catching up...
and of course eating!