Home in Lobatse, Botswana

We have now moved about 1 hour south of Gaborone to a town called Lobatse. We will be completing our language study here most likely with a local pastor.

Our 2 bedroom/1 bath home (half of it will be where we do language school)

Hanging the clothes out to dry in our back yard

Taylor loves to play with the 2 jack russell terriers next door

Just one of the beautiful flowers in our yard

Arrival in Africa

We left for Africa on October 7. Overall our trip went very well other than Taylor throwing up all over herself as we arrived at Dulles airport, the plane being stuck on the Tarmac in London for an extra 20 minutes because Taylor would not sit in her seatbelt (the captain of the plane came back and gave her special allowance to sit on my lap after that), and Taylor only slept about 8 hours of our 26 hour journey. Needless to say we were very happy to arrive and can laugh about it all after the fact.

We had some of our fellow missionaries pick us up from the airport on October 9. All of our luggage arrived with us except one piece and that came the very next day, so we were very happy about that.

On Saturday they had a welcome party for us and we had tacos. Below are a few shots from the party of some of our new friends/fellow workers.

Shawna Davis and Lisa Jones

Meredith and Taylor jumping on the trampoline

Traci and Keely-2 of our journey-girls who serve 2 year terms

Brandon and Torie-they live with us at the moment in Lobatse as they are finishing up language school.

It’s spring here in Africa so things are green and the flowers are beautiful. I’ll try to post later on some of the landscape here.

Also on Sunday we were able to attend our first African church service. It was great! Here’s a picture of part of the crowd in church and some of the kids around Taylor afterwards.

The African supermarket

On Monday (October 12), we moved all of our stuff south to Lobatse (about an hour from Gaborone where we will eventually be living/working). We will be living in Lobatse until about June 2010 learning the language of Setswana with a language helper. This meant we now had our own home which also meant I had to learn to feed us. So Torie took me to the African supermarket for the first time. Here is a picture of it, rather nice I thought.

It was amazing to see what all the supermarket had available for us:

• Lots of fresh vegetables and fruit
• Different varieties of cookies (biscuits) and crackers
• Toothpaste, lotions, soap, detergent, trash bags, diapers, and wipes (most of these are off brands and expensive but we’re glad they are here)
• Amazing selection of juices (very cheap!)

Things that are not easy to find or non-existent here at the supermarket:

• Lunch meats (one supermarket carries pastrami and sometimes ham but that’s it)
• Kool-Aid (we drink a lot so you either drink tea or water or juice)
• Pepperoni (pizza topping)
• No boxed brownie or cake mixes or Pillsbury ready-to-bake cookies (guess I’ll have to learn to make these from scratch)
• Fruit snacks-these are some of Taylor’s favorite things
• Goldfish

So overall, it’s very nice what we can find here. More to come I’m sure on how the cooking from scratch thing is going. Brent will most likely go to the butcher to get our meats cut. We had the privilege of eating Impala and Warthog the other day with our neighbor and it was delicious. Brent may go hunting sometime soon to get our own meat.

Hard Good-byes

Saying good-bye is never easy. We are ready to start our journey in Africa, but leaving behind the ones we love is a hard thing to do. Material possessions come and go, but the love of family is like none else. Below are some pictures of our beautiful nieces who will be much older the next time we get to hug them tight. We love you, family, more than you will ever know and thank you for supporting us as we start this chapter in our lives!!

Ainsley Cate-2 months old

Noa Claire-2 years old

Jaiden Daniele-4 years old

Kali Anne-5 months old

A good friend sent us this quote earlier today:

For my own part, I have never ceased to rejoice that God has appointed me to such an office. People talk of the sacrifice I have made in spending so much of my life in Africa. Can that be called a sacrifice which is simply paid back as a small part of a great debt owing to our God, which we can never repay? Is that a sacrifice which brings its own blest reward in healthful activity, the consciousness of doing good, peace of mind, and a bright hope of a glorious destiny hereafter? Away with the word in such a view, and with such a thought! It is emphatically no sacrifice. Say rather it is a privilege. Anxiety, sickness, suffering, or danger, now and then, with a foregoing of the common conveniences and charities of this life, may make us pause, and cause the spirit to waver, and the soul to sink; but let this only be for a moment. All these are nothing when compared with the glory which shall be revealed in and for us. I never made a sacrifice
Statement by african missionary David Livingstone, Cambridge University, December 4, 1857.

Dress up

Our little princess loves to dress up. Here is one of her "outfits".

Commissioning

On September 23, we were officially commissioned with the IMB. It honestly felt like graduation day as we were done with classes and were now expected to go out and use what we've learned. We were so glad our parents were able to come for the commissioning service. Currently we are spending time with family in WV and MD and are scheduled to fly out October 7 at 10:00pm.

This is Taylor's wonderful teacher-Ms. Janice. She has the patience of Job to deal with ten 2 year olds at the same time. We definitely saw Taylor's independent ways come out while at school as some days she would not take naps or sit in her chair for lunch, but all in all it was a great experience for her.

Botanical Gardens

During our time in Richmond we got to explore some parks and museums. Here are some photos from our day spent at the Botanical Gardens. Taylor enjoyed the butterfly garden and all of the beautiful flowers. If you're ever looking for something to do in Richmond this is a great spot!!

ILC July 28-September 23, 2009

The last 6 weeks we have been in training in Richmond, VA at a place called ILC (International Learning Center). We are here with about 250 other people being trained on things such as church planting, training others to present the gospel through "training for trainers" and "bible storying" and many many other classes to prepare us for our overseas ventures. It's hard to believe that in less than a month we'll be in Africa. We leave here on September 23 and go to visit with family/friends for a couple weeks and leave for Africa on October 7. Below are a few pictures of our time here at ILC.

Here's the "quad" we have been living in for our 8 1/2 weeks here at ILC. We have a common living area with 4 other families and then each family has there own 2 bedroom/1 bath apartment off of the living room.

Us with our friends Mark and Melynda on a trip to the park. Taylor and their daughter Madylanne have become best friends. They live in our quad and Taylor and Madylanne are in the same class at school. We are so thankful for their friendship...they will be living in Zambia which is not too far from us.

Praise the Lord that Taylor has adjusted very well here. She is loving all of the attention she gets. She is enjoying attending school Monday-Friday from 9-3 and is learning a lot.


We found a horse and donkey a short walk from the place we are staying. Taylor has no fear of them and loves to try to feed them. Even if they are across the pasture, if she yells "come here" they all come running to see her.

We will be sending out our prayer/newsletter here shortly and will try to also post it on the website, but if you would like to be added to our prayer/newsletter email us at bltast@hotmail.com

Getting caught up

Life has been pretty much consumed with travel the last 2 months visiting family and friend, so I hope to catch up a bit with the blog. We've been able to speak at several churches in our journeys and have had a great time. We report to Richmond, VA on July 28 for our training for the next 2 months. We'll keep you posted on everything! For more pictures check out http://theturnerbabies.shutterfly.com/

So where have we been? We spent a little time in Maryland and visited the National Zoo and met up with Aunt Sara at the National Geographic Museum.

Last weekend we were in Raleigh very briefly (not even 24 hours) for a baby shower for one of my closest friend-Dana Babbs. She is due around the first of October and will be an amazing little momma.

We then traveled to WV to speak at Sewell Valley Baptist Church and to see family and friends. We had a great time and even got to do the paddle boat at Babcock State Park.

The great-grandchildren making funny faces at a cook out at my parents house.

Mamaw and Papaw with Jaiden and Taylor in the paddle boats at Babcock State Park.

My beautiful niece, Jaiden, climbing up the stairs of the slide.

Lastly we have been at Lake Anna in Virginia celebrating Brent's Nana's 75th birthday. What a great time hanging out with Brent's side of the family. Happy Birthday, Nana!

Taylor on the boat as her daddy is on the float behind her.

Taylor's 2nd Birthday

Taylor celebrated her 2nd birthday on June 29. We celebrated the day by going to the Dixie Stampede with Grammy and had so much fun. It's hard to believe Taylor is 2 years old. She amazes us with her vocabulary...she can say her ABCs and count to 20. She is such a smart little one and we love her so much. We are so thankful God has allowed us every moment with her.

Taylor got her new best friend "buffy" in the above picture. She's a toy dog that she pulls everywhere, even to the Dixie Stampede.

Happy 2nd birthday, Taylor!