Business continued, with some drama, followed by . . . HOLIDAY!!!

I have some random photos from I assume the week I couldn't remember last post, so here they are . . .

Sandra with the happening wild life in Kabwe!

Can anyone identify this rock? Jono was given it to find out what it was, it's kinda metallic

Nshima with Brenda

Kapenta (small fish) which Jono bravely ate.  I tried to make it just a few days earlier, and it was disgusting, I couldn't finish my meal.  I'll leave cooking the kapenta to the Zambians, they do a much better job.

We had pretty purple trees :)

Watching the rugby (of course our victory, mwa ha ha ha ha) with some South Africans, in this photo they were experiencing a glimmer of hope before their inevitable demise

This is the old church, the new one is in the background

The second week of school was incredibly busy and also drama-filled!  Peter and Brendah's child Edmond went missing on Saturday evening. We announced he was missing on the radio sunday lunchtime, a couple of hours later Peter received a call that someone had found his child, but after we waited almost an hour at the place the caller said to meet and calling them multiple times, we concluded it was a hoax, which is a terrible and disheartening thing for someone to do, and also wasted a lot of time.
One of our team printed "missing" posters of Edmond and we proceeded to put them up around the suburbs

Then we found out that one of Edmond's classmates had seen him walking along a certain road on Saturday. The hoax caller had also been linked to an army barracks along the same road, and the hoax meeting point was 5 minutes drive away. It felt like we were in the middle of detective work/"prison break" as these clues were lining up with this stretch of road. Time was ticking by, statistically the chances of finding Edmond were getting smaller and smaller, so we littered lamp posts along this road with the remaining posters in the twindling twilight, and talked to people along the way about Edmond, and kept praying.
Finally on Wednesday morning there was some good news, a shuttle driver had seen the posters and recognised Edmond! He was found later that day about an hour's drive north of kabwe, hallelujah!! He'd run away from home and walked a very VERY long distance (almost all the way!!).
This meant that during the mornings I was teaching.  During the afternoons we were out hunting/putting up posters etc.

The weather by then was getting ridiculously hot, as it has continued to be!  I am not handling the heat very well, it does make one rather lethargic ie lazy, ok perhaps it's not weather related, but it definitely doesn't help! (I'm sure it contributes!!)
Friday afternoon we headed to Lusaka, we were making our way to South Luwanga.  We'd planned to go earlier in the week, things got delayed since Edmond went missing.
Saturday we had a very long bus ride, started at 5.30am I think got to Chipata at 2pm, followed by a two hour taxi ride which took us to Mfuwe, home of the South Luwanga national park.

Blurry as we were driving by, but I loved this fire engine!

Also blurry for the same reason, but hilarious "Get Busy Bar"

I wish more people here would read the back of the truck! Excuse the spelling

Hills near Chipata

Oh signs!

Sunday was a rude awakening as for the morning safari we were woken at 5am, breakfast at 5.30, commenced safari at 6am until 10am.  Then we had a break, which of course included a much needed swim in their pool.  Then we had a night drive starting at 4 pm.  Night drives in South L actually spend a couple of hours in the dark, with a spotter, unlike the 'night' drive we did in Chobe.

White frog in our bathroom, didn't know if it was poisonous so asked a dude to remove it, it wasn't :)

Safari time!!

Early morning

3 baby giraffes

Resident python (way way up and hard to see, me likey my camera!)

Sausage tree

Needs no introduction :)

Birdies for Malcolm

A not so well off hippo

I think this buffalo is a few marbles short . . .

A PRIDE OF LIONS EATING A BUFFALO!!!!!!

I just like this pic

Fisherman, with ALL those hippos - I think they maybe insane . . .

So up top you can see our awening, so that means from our varenda you can see . . . 

Vultures

Caught this lion at a funny moment

Another pride of lions! We were spoilt!

Young male

Blurry but cool.  Sometimes I wish my/Jono's camera skills were better!

Like I said SPOILT!!

I don't wanna make you tooo jealous, so I'll save some/most of the safari holiday for next blog!

Prayer thanks
- For safety while we've been travelling
- For the cooler weather we've had
- This last week we've been feeling reasonably good
- Jono would like to thank God for our first thunderstorm we had on Wednesday, it was awesome

Prayer requests
- For more thunderstorms
- For continued safety while we travel
- For my physio registration
- To connect well with locals and missionaries
- For God to be number 1, our marriage number 2
- Guidance over our future plans

Bethesda prayer items
- That the Makalulu group would go well, Jono went last week to discover it had dwindled since we last went.  The poor group has been somewhat neglected as we don't seem to have enough staff and also the leadership handover has been happening.
- Continued prayer for Sandra, especially for a good christian friend.  We heard she's struggling a bit back in Canada
- For the land application
- For growth, spiritually, financially and in team number
- For Bernards application
- For the individuals involved in the vehicle accident
- Peter and Brenda have taken over the leadership of Bethesda so for them as its a big role.

OM prayer requests
-Continue to give thanks for the huge donation
- For the leadership of OM Zambia
- For the students as their study draws near to an end