Ha Motheho

Today Kristell wasn't feeling well, so Steph stayed home from church with her. She's had a cold, fever, and seems to be teething. I took Katilyn with me to church at Ha Motheho. When we left this morning it was cloudy and a bit cool, but I thought it would warm up. It didn't and Ha Motheho is very exposed to the wind and colder than Matukeng. After church we were supposed to go to a house where there had been a death and hold a short service. 'Me Matoka (the mother of 'Me Manthabi who works in our house) took Kaitlyn and Thabiso by her house and put them in blankets to keep them warm as we walked to the house.

Pictures

Here's a few pictures to give you an idea of what's going on in our lives.

Kaitlyn is such a great traveler. We bought her this backpack just before we left America. She loved it and did such a great job of carrying it through airports in New York City, London, Johannesburg, and Bloemfontein. It wasn't too heavy--just some extra clothes, toys, etc.

We spent the first weekend we were home with the van der Merwe's in South Africa. While we were there, S.W., their oldest son, was getting ready to plant some oats. Instead of oats he planted a tractor! This was the wettest summer in many years in South Africa. Every thing is green, but a lot of bridges and roads washed out in Lesotho.

Kaitlyn and Kristell were playing house with a sheet stretched over the table. You can see Kristell is pretty spunky! She loves to climb--chairs, tables, steps, stools, anything she can find to gain altitude.

I thought it was a wastebasket. She thought it was a hat!

The church here at Matukeng planned a surprise "welcome home" service for us this Sunday. We didn't know anything was going on until we got to the church and found it all decorated.

This was the message written on the bulletin board. You can see why we are so happy here!

Kaitlyn went up with the Sunday School children, but she didn't know the song they were singing. She'll have to start practicing every Sunday afternoon with them again.

After the service was over, everyone shared a nice meal of rice, beans, and fried chicken. We were very touched by their love and care!

Back Home in Africa

Hi everyone,

It's been a LONG time since we've updated this poor blog. Hopefully we'll do a little better now that we're back in Africa.

Our trip back home went fairly well inspite of being VERY long. We flew from JFK to London Heathrow where we had an 11 hour layover. Then we flew from there to Johannesburg. After going through immigration and customs, we flew on to Bloemfontein where Aunt Hessie van der Merwe picked us up. It was really nice to spend the weekend with them on the farm before going back to Lesotho on Monday.

Since we've got home we've mainly been unpacking, putting away, and working on immigration. As you think of us, please pray that we'll be able to get our permanent residence permits for Lesotho in the next few months. Before we get the permits, we have to have a background police check done by the Lesotho police which takes several months. Hopefully once that's done we'll have the permits in another 2-3 months. At least we were able to get 6-months "permit pending" stamps in our passports.

Kaitlyn and Kristell have been enjoying playing outside and of course Kaitlyn is having a great time with Thabiso. Kristell is getting to know our friends at Matukeng, but she's still a little shy. Her main things right now are eating carrots and swinging. I'm supposed to preach at Matukeng this Sunday.

I'm sorry that I don't have any current pictures to post. I forgot to download them from the camera last night. I'll try to post some again, maybe still this weekend???

This picture is during Seabreeze Campmeeting at Hobe Sound.