We are into our last week here and are wrapping up afew projects. Tim got our counter tops done in time for the arrivial of the Weeninks'. They moved into the house we had been staying in and we moved next door to Brent's house. He is in Windhoek for afew weeks sorting out Visa issues so we are keeping the home fires burning for him.

New ceramic counter top that Tim installed.

Barb and Avery working in the garden

The Weeninks have been settling in and we are so happy to have them here. They are a great addition to the MAF family. After their being here a week we ventured out with Dr. Collins for a hike on Friday which was a national holiday.

Dr. Collins, Avery, Evan and Kristina cooling there feet after a hike to the top of a water fall

A view from the top before we hiked down.


Saturday we invited Tim's Angolan helper Bassilio and his wife Maryana and five children out for a pool party and barbque. It was great for them to meet and get to know the Weeninks'.

Tim and Delie warming up after a swim

Kids enjoying hotdogs and gazoza (pop) on our patio.

This week we also have Tanya, an optometry student from Guelph, staying with us. She is helping Dr. Collins with eye examinations, surgery, and teaching. We have really enjoyed having her here with us.

Dr. Collins and Tanya

Tim has been able to finish up most of the projects that he had set out to do. Following is an e-mail he sent to our son Matt explaining some of the frustration in getting things done here in a timely fashion.

Want to do some sheet-metal work?

First....buried cable from the airport generator shorts out...no power!

Can’t run air compressor at hangar for air tools.

Neighbors at Sonangol, the airport re-fuelers, have big generator so they share power via three extension cords connected together, will run water pump and fridge...one at a time, but not the compressor...

Bring generator from compound (small one) (too small) won't run compressor either.

Go borrow smaller compressor, still won't run off small generator.

Go pickup old generator from hangar...won't run, looks like it has been picked over for any useable parts ........but may, may be repairable.

Plan, D2, borrow gas powered compressor.....won't start ..........but shows more potential than old generator.

Tomorrow may be an interesting day!
Gas powered compressor was repairable after only three and half hours of tinkering and we were able to complete our “small” sheet-metal project.

Making a minor sheet-metal repair to the flap.

New 406 ELT installation.

We are of mixed emotions about leaving Angola. Excited to be going home and see what God's plans are for us for the future and to see our family and friends. Sad to leave behind our friends here and the adventures of Angola. We will leave here Sun May 10 overnight in Windhoek, Nambia, leave for Joburg SA Mon afternoon and arrive in Vancouver via London on May 12 where our grandchildren and daughter in law will meet us. We will spend the night in

Vancouver and drive home to Kamloops on May 13. We will let you all know when we are home in Kamloops.

Greetings and blessings from Angola.

When we talked to you last time we were looking for someway to fix the counter tops in our house. God blessed us with plywood. We are continually reminded of the many things we take for granted in Canada, like walking into the store and finding the same things that were there last time we visited, we just expect it...here it is always a surprise. My friend and neightbour Tammy, just popped in with a gift from another friend, Shelley, a big chunk of cheddar cheese...only in Angola, she said, is cheese considered a precious gift.

Tim, fitting the plywood for our countertops.

The flying has slowed down abit so Tim has the plane for two weeks to work on some projects he wants to complete before we leave. Changing out control cables and pulleys, installing the new 406 ELT (emergency locator transmitter), replacing the nose landing gear spring and a few smaller items.

View of some of the cables to be changed. These are the easy ones to get at! The new ELT goes on the green platform in the lower lefthand corner.

The new Garmin 496 GPS installed in the panel with an AirGizmo (that is what it's called, really!) mounting bracket just above the weather radar screen. (top, center of photo).

This past week we had a nice break and went to the beach for the day. It was pouring rain here, but lovely and hot at the beach, about a three hour drive away. We only got stuck in the sand once and had to be pulled out with the Land Rover. This of course just adds an element of adventure to the trip. We came back sun tanned and exhausted from playing in the water.

Megan abd Brent loading up for our trip to the beach



Josh, doing his Bay Watch pose, and Amy, shorterm
Missionary working at Tchincombe Farm.

Tim is way out in the water on the right

We have just over four weeks left before we leave for Canada on May 10. There have been some changes to Visa process and the family that is to take our place here, is delayed in Canada. Please make this a concern of prayer for us. It would be so helpful to be able to have some time with them here before we leave.

God's blessings for a triumphant Easter celebration to all of you!

Hello, after a delay of some time in updating my blog. Once again I had trouble downloading but was able to download onto Facebook, so if you have access to that you can check out a couple groups of pictures we put on. there in these last weeks.

We are doing well and it has been a busy couple of weeks. There has been a short term medical team visiting. MAF has done several flights transporting them to various locations. This week the plane has been flying the US Aide team around the Southern Angolan region where there has been severe flooding and 20,000 people have lost their homes. While the plane was gone Tim had hoped to do some renovating of the kitchen counter, which is splitting and the partical board is flaking. However as often happens here, we can find new formica counter top, but no edging, we have tile and grout but there is no plywood anywhere in the city to build the base. So we wait.




This past week we had the priviledge of hosting our MAF CEO Mark Outerbridge and his daughter Marnie at our home. In the picture above Marnie is trying her hand and head at caring water. Notice the expression on the little girl behind her.

This week I was able to go with one of the women who is staying on the compound. She teaches crafts to people in the local communtiy churches. Here we met with a group of teenage girls. They are crocheting with plastic bags, which are in abundance here and a real garbage problem.

They were also making beads out of paper and making jewlery.

Tim, Brent Mudde and Mark Outerbridge

Tim celebrated his birthday last Saturday. We had mexican food and I made him a choclate cake and coffee ice cream.

We have another 2 weeks staying in the house we are in before Erwin the new MAF aircraft mechanic and his family arrive. We are fortunate to be able to stay a couple weeks in Katherina and Miguels house while they are in Germany. When they come home with their two little girls and there new baby boy, we will be staying with Brent the pilot who lives next door to us.

Friday night is pizza night here on the compound. Tim has just finished cooking the chrizo and I have manged to hoard enough cheese to use, we may add some fresh tomatoes and green pepper, nothing to exoctic but its what we have and always an adventure to see what others bring. It is also Brent's birthday tommorow so I have made a carrot cake. Someone gave me some homemade cream cheese...so the icing will be a treat.

I better get busy, thanks to all of you for your support and prayers

Tim and Barb

Hello to all. We have been here almost a month and we are doing well. I have had a very hard time loading pictures to our blog and today I was on a roll and able to load six... some days I can't even load one. So will fill you in on what has been happening.

This is a picture of Teia and Jurrusa (8 mths)in our home. Teia is our new house help. This is new to her and to me and we are learning together. It has been very interesting as we do not share a common language. However we do manage to communicate. It is stretching my knowledege of Portuguese and my Eng/Portg. Dictionary gets a good workout. I have become more confident using many new words and phrases...my favorites are " como se disse isso? (How do you say this?)and esta corecto? (Is this correct?) desculpa (sorry) is another good one. Teia comes two days a week. We pray this will be helpful for her as well and open new opportunites in her life.

Tim inspecting the propeller of the airplane.

Basilio has been busy this past week, along with helping do the inspections, he has been distributing Portuguese Bibles at the hangar. One day he had over twenty people come by asking for their own Bible. He has them write their name on a sheet to keep track of who has gotten one and then has a brief chat about the Bible and how to find things in it. One day he talked with a man for almost an hour about finding things in the Bible to help in the man's Christian walk. The one picture I wish I had been able to get was the airport guard sitting at the gate as we left for the day reading her new Bible.

The rain has taken a toll on the roads. This is a road we took to a old colonial hot springs with some friends on one of our days off. Six hours over bumpy roads...maybe that has something to do with my sore back. Sometimes even within the city the roads can be a challenge. Improvements are being made however and more are being paved.

Today Tim and I ventured into the city to do a little exploring. We saw a few interesting sights and we've included a few of the pictures like the one of the barber shop above. There are many shops like this in the city with similar art work.

Some young men carring some tin along the street, close to the "River Ladies" where we buy our produce.

We found this interesting sight yesterday and went back to get a picture...an Angolan ice-cream shop. Only walls and a floor with a soft-serve ice-cream dispenser and an umbrella for the rain. (we didn't buy any ice-cream)

A moth we saw at the airport...God is an awesome creator!!

We are enjoying our time seeing and experiencing new things again and meeting new people. At present we have three missionaries staying in our guest rooms from northern Nambia. they are doing evangelism training with some of the churches here. It has been great meeting them and being able to pass on a blessing by provding some B&B.

Blessings to you!

L. Tim, Terry & Brenda, R. Bob, Barb Wenda

We left Kamloops Saturday Feb. 7 with a fun send off brekafast from off from our good friends.

We are so thankful for all the friends we have that are supporting us in so many many ways. We are blessed!!

Betsy and Tim with two of our four big boxe

Our awesome neighbors gave us a ride to the bus depot., and we on our way to a third Angolan adventure. We over-nighted in Vancouver and then off on our flight to London, Johannesburg, and Windhoek. We were blessed with good flights, good seats, and only 4 hr layovers in both London and Joburg. We arrived in Windhoek with all our luggage tired and happy to stop traveling for a day. We had a great dinner out and a visit with Dagmar a friend at the guest house in Windhoek who we had met on other trips in and out before. By 9:30 the next morning we were off to the airport. When we arrived we were relieved to hear we could take all of our boxes in with us (for a slight extra fee) as there was enough extra space. That afternoon we made our final destination of Lubango and under Bassilio's careful guidance cleared customs with out a hitch. Off to the compound (Mitcha) to settle into our usual house and to enjoy a welcome supper with the pilot Brent....he is a great cook.

This is the Radome, it houses the weather radar antenna. We were able to get the repaired antenna and display installed and funtioning. Pilots are very happy to have it available when flying during the rainy season with all of the thunderstorms. Most of the parts that we had ordered last Fall have arrived and we have been doing repairs and replacing parts on the days when the airplane isn't flying. We were thankful for the hangar today as it was raining heavily while we worked on the plane.

Driving in the city has been a challenge, I came home to wait it out after trying to get to the airport for over an hour. Several streets are blocked for "repairs" and a very large truck had gotten stuck at the river crossing closing it for most of two days. I likened it to dancing in highschool, no real pattern, people moving around trying not to run into each other. Unfortunately the moving around part just stops and you sit.....and sit..........and sit.........until somewhere sombody's vehicle is able to move ahead a little bit and then it starts all over again.

We have had trouble downloading pictures for the our blog so we will send this one for now and try to send afew more later.

Prayer request for:

Safety for the pilots in this season of thunder storms.

Brent and Tim's visa's that they will arrive soon

Barb as she trains new house help who does not understand English.

Hello From South Africa

Our flat at Mercy Air called "Rock Flat".



Yes, that is a rock in our kitchen...the



wall is built around it





Sorry about the delay in getting more info on the blog. We had a huge thunderstorm shortly after we got here and it took out our Internet signal and then it took some time to get it up and running again. We have really enjoyed our time here and Tim was able to get the work done he needed to.













Tim and Dwight (pilot missionary for SAMMinistry www.sammintries.org







We have met lots of wonderful new people as the farm Mercy Air is located on has several guest flats that are open to Missionaries to stay at while they are doing business in nearby Nelspruit, medical appointments or just taking a well deserved rest. Yesterday as a special treat Lynn and Dwight Lagore from Mozambique took us on a day long tour of Kruger Park. What an awesome trip! We only covered about 1/5 of the 20,000 sq Km but saw so many animals including 4 of the Big 5...leopard, elephant,rhino,and cape buffalo. plus giraffe, zebra, baboon, monkey, crocodile and more.


Tim and Barb at Kruger Park.....they are the ones on the right!!

We had fun today hosting Tim's co worker Basilio and his family for lunch and a visit.

As you can see Tim is right in his element!!




Tim and Dle .
Basilio and baby, Lydia, Miguel,Maryanna,
Dle and Florindo








These are a couple of projects Tim and Bassilio were able to complete this week.



Propeller assembled




jack stands for lifting the airplane


The rainy season is here and this is a view of the road we have to take to and from home, the rain will soon errode it into deep ruts and gullies. There is new developement going on all over the city and they have tried to come up with drainage solutions but this portion of the road is still

needing wome help.

We will be leaving this week for South Africa, hope to update you when we arrive there

Blessings

Tim and Barb

This blog entry has been a work in progress so it covers things we have been doing over the last three weeks.
Our trip to Tchincombe farm went well. The drive is a bit of an adventure even though the first 100 kilometers is very nice (new) blacktop highway. Once we got close to a little place called Dongue, we turned east and the road sort of disappeared and turned into a trail through the bush. Mostly two ruts in loose sand. We were very glad to have four wheel drive, might still be out there without it! The Toyotas we were driving have a slightly narrower track than most of the vehicles that use the road so we sort of weaved back and forth as we went. Going out the trip took four hours….to go about 200 kilometers…..and the first 100 took about an hour. Slow going in the deep sand.

ROAD TO TCHINCOMBE
Inspite of the drive out, we did enjoy the journey and the visit with Donna and Sterling Foster who run the farm. We got to go for a drive around the farm to look at the cattle that they raise and the way they work with the local people. We also got to see the new airstrip that is under construction. It is hoped that it will be in service within a year.


RELAXING AT THE FARM
We were blessed with the visit from the CEO of MAF Canada, Mark Outerbridge and his wife Colleen and a MAF board member Cheryl Polenenko and her husband John. John and Cheryl stayed with us and we enjoyed getting to know them and hear of their involvement with MAF through the years. Barb was able to join them on a flight to Mokwondo and Kalekembe.

Tammy&Gary, Barb& Tim, Cheryl, Colleen & Mark
I stayed in Lubango as Basilio and I were working on some projects at the hangar getting ready for an upcoming inspection as well as replacing a radiator in one of the trucks and replacing a hot water heater in one of the houses. These type of repairs take a long time because you have to go many places to find the parts and supplies that you need. As Basilio told me, “in Angola a store does not just sell one thing, but many things, maybe food, plumbing parts, shoes and maybe car parts. So we must go and find what we need.” One store where we bought some plumbing supplies sells aluminum ladders, electrical supplies, welding supplies, tile, seeds for the garden and lingerie. Things are growing, we visited at least three new shops that sell some car parts that weren’t here when we came in August…but that means that there are now three more shops that must be checked when looking for car parts! The other custom that slows the search is that all the shops close between noon and two o’clock…..give or take……. Half an hour to an hour. The upside is that the traffic is better when the shops are closed.
This morning we went to an outdoor service at a soccer stadium where 26 newly graduated pastors were commissioned. It was quite impressive but we weren’t able to take any photos as we were seated directly behind the Minister of Defense for Angola and the Governor of Huila Province (where we live). When we came in, the ladies were in front and one of the officials asked who they were with, our friend pointed to Barb and said she was with MAF so he took them to the main grandstand, center stage, directly behind the Minister of Defense. We were honored, (and very thankful as we were seated in chairs in the shade with a nice breeze!) It started before 10:00 and they were just coming up to the message when we slipped out shortly after 12:30.
We now have less than two weeks before we leave Angola. We will be making a side trip to South Africa on our way home. Tim has been asked to do an inspection on a Canadian registered aircraft in Nelspruit. We will be about a week there and then fly into Vancouver on Nov 24.

Prayer Requests

For Tim as he completes the work on the airplane
For swift delivery of parts that haven't yet arrived
Safety as we travel
Our preperations to leave and as we say good by to friends here.

Steve Collins and Barb cooling their feet after a long hike
Senior Ladies group.

We are finally back to better internet service , so I will attempt to update our blog and perhaps send a picture or two.
We are really enjoying all the new people we are meeting. There a couple of regular events every week where this can happen. First is an informal pizza night on Fridays, usually at one of the larger homes on the compound. It is a good place to introduce new people for the first time. Pizza here usually means homemade, and experimenting with new toppings and different kinds of cheese.
On Sunday evenings we usually attend what is referred to as the “English Bible Study Group”. Most everyone that attends speaks some English. Last night as there were new people attending we went around and introduced ourselves and our place of birth. There was quite a variety. Several Canadians, from Ontario to the republic of Saskatchewan. A few Americans. Others were born in Germany, Switzerland, Sweden, Zaire, Zambia, and Angola. The group included, students, Drs., pilots, mechanics, administrators, professors, teachers, housewives, full time mothers, computer techs., and agricultural missionaries. People take turns hosting the gathering and we usually listen to a DVD sermon and have a discussion and prayer time and of course coffee and dessert.
Saturday we drove back out to Humpata to our friend Steve’s so Tim could repair his fridge. Another lady from Mitcha (our compound) came with us and brought her two little girls. We went shopping at the prassa market while Tim did the repairs. Humpata is known for its gardens and we got lots of nice vegetables and even strawberries. We looked through the used clothes and picked up some nice things for the little girls plus some new panos of fabric for me and a nice large woven basket to use for laundry etc.
Sunday we went to a different church, we parked and walked about ¼ mile into the barrio, past the river where many people were doing laundry and bathing. There were many choirs and a long sermon in Portuguese and Imbundo. We were there almost three hours, so we won’t complain when the service goes over 1 hour back home.
This week Tim is working on installing the support structure for the new style ELT (emergency locator beacon) that is supposed to arrive sometime in November. The plane will be grounded until he finishes, hopefully by Thursday or Friday. If all goes well we hope to go to the farm for the weekend, about a 3 hour drive south from here at Tchincombe. (Driving times may vary depending on weather and road conditions, please check with the locals before setting out.) It is an agricultural mission with SIM, and we are anxious to see it as we have heard much about it and met the people who operate it. We will report back on our trip there.

Greetings to all of you!
It is hard for us to believe that we have been in Lubango for over five weeks already. There are many things happening and the time seems to fly by.
Since we last wrote, we were able complete the 100 hour inspection on the airplane with no major problems. We did have to wait an extra day to do the return to service flight following the inspection as Wednesday the 17th was a holiday here, Heros’ Day, and pretty well everything in the city shut down. Something about “when in Rome do as the Romans do”.
We are waiting for some parts that have been ordered for several “projects” on the airplane. There are some items that need to be changed after so many hours of flying and we are approaching that number.
There is also the emergency locator beacon up-grade to the new style that we are going to start on this week. The aircraft will be available for several days now as we wait for some of the infamous Angolan paperwork to arrive. Permits and inspections by the Angolan Airworthiness Authority seem to be never ending. We are also hoping to figure out a problem with the weather radar system. Fortunately the weather so far has been nothing but clear blue skies day after day after day. Once the rainy season begins, the weather radar is a very important piece of equipment.
Time at the airport get shared between working on the aircraft and working on the vehicles, mostly routine servicing so far but the roads here do take their toll. One of the trucks needs to have a new clutch and rear seal installed. Getting parts here isn’t as difficult as last time but finding the right parts takes some time. We often have to go to several different suppliers to see who might have what we need. When we changed the timing belt on one of the trucks earlier in the month we took the old belt off and took it to the supplier, laid it on the counter and tried new ones until we had a match. No part numbers were involved. Can be challenging trying to get a description of what you want translated into Portuguese and back again. When one of the counter people heard me talking with Basilio in English, he responded in English that the part wouldn’t be in until the following Monday. I told him that his English was pretty good. He responded in perfect English “I would like to apologize for any inconvenience this delay may have caused you.” I’m sure he has had many opportunities to use that line.
Last week we were invited to a BBQ for some buffalo steak. I was excited to think that they would have brought buffalo all the way over here. The light came on when Gary asked if I knew the difference between buffalo (water buffalo) and bison. Water buffalo grilled on an open fire is actually very good.
We have several papaya trees in the compound here, they are the Angolan equivalent of zucchini in Canada, many, many uses but still difficult to give away. Barb even used some to make a curried soup out of that was very tasty. Haven’t convinced her to try making a pie with one yet, we hear that green papaya make a good substitute for apple in pie. The problem is getting shortening or lard to make the crust. We also have mulberries on the compound and we have enjoyed some of those.
Today I, Barb, went to the large city church to help with a seniors program. The regular leader is away for a couple months and I went with Yannie a women from Holland, who volunteered to lead. Four ladies showed up at the hot upstairs room we met in. We had to climb some 20 stairs to to get to the room so you know these ladies were in pretty good shape. We set up chairs and tables set out things for chai and bolo (tea and cake). We started with some exercises, the stairs were our warm up. Next was a a devotion time. A young man came into take pictures, and as he spoke good Portuguese we invited him to finish the reading and then he was invited to share our tea time as well. We finished the time off by trying to do abit of crocheting. I did manage to ask the ladies their names…Victoria, Maria Rosa, Lorinda, and Teresa. They had abit of trouble with my name and finally settled on something like Barbareta. I’m looking forward to going back in two weeks. Yannie and I plan to get together and work on the program abit more.
We have enjoyed some traveling around the last couple of weekends so will try and add a couple of pictures to show some of the country side.
Prayer concerns:
Our Health. There seems to be a nasty tummy flu/infection going around which we have escaped so far. Also it will start raining soon and with rain comes mosquitoes and malaria.
Timely arrival of the parts for the airplane so Tim can complete the work he needs to do.

Kalukembe

This past week ended up being a fairly quiet week with Tim being able to work on a couple things around the house. The airplane inspection that they had planned to do got postponed until this week.
Late Wednesday afternoon Brent asked if one of us would like to ride along with the Drs. to Kalukembe and see the hospital there. They would leave early Thursday and be back Saturday afternoon. Tim encouraged me to go, as it might be the only opportunity I would get this trip. I jumped at the chance. 6:15 a.m. saw us on the way to airport and 8 of us loaded into the MAF airplane for the 45 minute trip. I was beginning to wonder at the speed we were coming into land on the dirt strip until I realized we were doing a flyover to clear the runway of goats and people. A crowd was at the strip to meet the airplane and the hospital personnel took us by road to our Angolan “bed and breakfast”. I had a nice room and comfortable bed with two bathrooms down the hall to share with the rest of the team. There were flush toilets and sinks but no running water most of the time, however large containers of water and usually buckets of hot water morning and evening. Meals were simple bread and jam and coffee or tea for breakfast. A simple soup for lunch and dinner, usually accompanied by rice, noodles and a corn meal mush, as well as either boiled chicken or goat. Condiments were jars of black olives and a very hot spicy relish. I tried it all, but ended up with abit of “Kalukembe tummy” on Friday morning so I stuck to the rice and broth soup or bread. I think I could lose weight on that diet.
After settling in we did a tour of the hospital grounds . I followed the Drs. on rounds to see some of the patients and viewed my first Angolan baby being born. Over the next two days I spent quite abit of time in the surgery watching Dr. Foster with the aide of nurses and students do amazing surgeries under primitive conditions. Here is a partial list of what I saw: bladder repair , orthopedic surgery, removal of tumors, removal of elephantitis skin liesions, dental surgery, prostate surgery, plastic surgery,. The surgery book showed almost 900 surgeries that had been done since January and a good majority had been done by the nurses at the hospital . Dr. Foster is only able to come every couple months and they leave the more difficult cases for him. We had an anethisitist with us who did mostly spinal blocks, but some injected anesthetics as well. The people are very brave and seem to trust the Dr's. I was amazed at the little children that came and how still they would lie as the Dr. performed the procedures. One of the hardest to see was a little 3 year old boy who had fallen into the fire and had severe burns on his head and face. Dr. Foster has been working on plastic surgery for him over the past year. They see many things at this hospital that we would not see in Canada because the people often do not come until things are quite severe. One young women had a ovarian cyst the size of a soccer ball another young women a benign breast tumor the size of my two fists.

I was also able to watch Dr. Bently -Taylor as he taught students and tested people for cardiac problems. He comes every six months and has arranged for some of children to have heart surgery back in Canada.
The three days were a very stretching time for me, spiritually and emotionally but I learned so much and I am so glad I went.
Our friends that we met here last time Gary and Tammi Goertzen have just returned , from Alberta. We are glad to have them here. Tammi and I are going out tommorow so she can show me where to buy some things that I need.

Tim has just returned home from the airport and they completed most of the inspection already today. Thank you for all your prayers for that. It is taking much less time than he had anticipated.

Prayer Request:

For successful repairs to our power generator

Building of strong and supportive relationships between the missionaries in Lubango

For leadership and future direction for MAF in Angola

Dinner and a Movie

This week was an historic one in Angola as elections were held for the first time since 1992 and only the second time in it’s history. There were many preparations in the days leading up to Friday’s election. Some things are universal, many improvements to roads and public services by the government are evident around the city. Last week the president came for a visit and there was an even greater flurry of activity.
There was some apprehension leading up to the election as the last time it triggered fierce fighting between rival parties that lasted for ten years. The actual day here in Lubango was one of the quietest days we have seen since we arrived. Everything was closed, even the outdoor markets, and the taxis didn’t even operate! When we went out later in the day the streets were almost empty.
We did venture out with our friend Dr. Steve Collins who has lived here for much of his life on what started out as a visit to see his home in the village of Humpata about 20 kilometers from here. After a few quick cell phone calls, we were on our way to see the house that the Holden’s are building, a very winding and rough road to a site overlooking the city. Next stop, after having taken on three additional passengers and a dog, was Steve’s home in Humpata where we got to see his small farm. He has about five acres that his guard/farmer looks after for him. He has many types of crops in small areas, wheat, corn, potatoes, several varieties of fruit trees, vegetables, carrots, onions, lettuce, broccoli and so on. It is all done by hand and watered every Monday by a series of ditches and little dams.
Next we proceeded on to Edson and Esther’s home just beyond Humpata for tea with Dr. Steve Foster and his wife Peggy and the visiting heart surgeon from Toronto and his wife. When they had left, we were invited to stay for dinner and a movie on the computer. Esther and her brothers Paul and Jonathan and Jonathan’s dog Rex were our additional passengers.
The plane was in Windhoek for most of the week to pick up Dr. Bently –Taylor, the visiting heart surgeon from Toronto. Basilio and I used that time to do some repairs on one of the Toyota trucks that we use for transportation here. We finished up in time for Basilio to use it to restock the diesel fuel supply here at the compound and to haul water to the hangar before election day.
Brent returned from Windhoek on Thursday with the Dr. and his wife, numerous boxes of medicines and supplies, some cheese for Barb (hard to find here at a reasonable price) and thirty kilos of grass seed for seeding the new airstrip at the mission farm at Tchincombe.
Monday we begin a 100 hour inspection on the airplane, so I will be busy at the airport most of the week.
Prayer Concerns: That all goes smoothly for the 100 hour inspection
Safe Return of the Goertzen family from Canada; leaving Monday arriving Thursday.

Views around and about

Saturday August 30 we headed out to a farm (following Brent) to get vegetables. They were nice and fresh and a better price than we could get in the city. After Brent left us we ventured on up the road abit to see some more of the country and later into town for our first shopping trip on our own...we are getting bolder. I even managed to bargain for a fair price on a pineapple.

The jacaranda trees we see blossoming every where. They are beautiful and they say when they bloom it is only one month until the rains come. Everyone is looking forward to that it is so dry and dusty here, it is a fine dust that covers everything. I understand the need for foot washing in Jesus time when I wear sandals in this country.

Sunday we went to church with our friend Becky. She teaches a Sunday School class of children so I went with her when they were dismissed. We met in a mud house about 10x12 with a dirt floor and only the chairs that children brought for themselves or rocks they could find to sit on. At the end of of the class Becky asked me to pray assuring the children God would understand me in English even if they didn't. Tim stayed in the church where he listened to a sermon in Imbudo translated in to Portuguese, followed by a along explanation of the process for voting in the upcoming election , also in both languages. We also took our own lawn.chairs to church as there are only a few rough narrow plank benches to sit on. I'll include a couple of the Sunday School pictures.
Prayer Concerns:
Thanksgiving for Tim's bites healing and no new ones
Continued safety in traffic
Peaceful election on Sept 5.
Opportunities to show love to local people with sensitivity