more pics from limpopo (1st leg)

here are some more pics highlighting our time in the Limpopo region (villages of Moshagka, Dhambe, Mpaghane, Rabothatha, and Rampinyane).


pre-school graduation//dusty game of soccer after church//the south african "baby bjorn"//prayerful moment at Moshagka church

children at church service//villagers from Rabothatha (the village at the very top of the mountain...the most energetic, dancing church we visited (see pictures from previous post)//a quiet moment at the church at Moshagka

herd of cape buffalo after crossing the road//a giraffe busy eating//a male kudu

south africa: first leg: limpopo region

I am going to blog separately for each leg of our trip. Keep it simple.

The first leg of our trip we traveled by bus (8 hours!) from Jo-burg to the Northern (Limpopo) region tucked in the mountains in the northeast corner of SA, near the Zimbabwe and Mozambique borders and near Kruger National Reserve. We stayed with Nancy, pastor from the US who came to SA 20 years ago as a missionary with her husband, John. A few years later, Nancy's husband died but Nancy decided to stay in SA. When they first arrived in these mountain villages, SA was still in the climax of Apartheid (separation, or legalized segregation and racial discrimination). Many of the villagers did not understand why these white people would come to their village and visit their homes. Jonas, an fear-inspiring 15 year old, was especially angry. But, in Nancy he saw a truly loving and gentle person and this changed his perspective and his life. Now he, and several of his brothers and sisters, are pastors for village churches in the area. He is known as the "go-to" person in the area. If you need something fixed or need help with something, you should call on Jonas. This reminded me of Kirk!


While we were in the Northern region, most of our time was spent in the mountain villages. We visited several village churches and participated in their lively singing, dancing, and shared testimonies and messages with them. We saw people truly worship God without desiring his blessings (what a challenge that was to us Americans!). They came together frequently as a community to share about how they saw God at work in their lives and their services were true celebrations. We visited two villages that were about an hour away from the mountains, closer to Mozambique, were we got to see churches conducting pre-school graduations. The children recited all of the lessons that they had learned (in both Sotho and English, as were all of the church services...impressive). These villages were primarily refugees or the children of refugees that fled Mozambique about 20 years ago. Many people risked walking through the Kruger (and risked attack by wild animals) to reach SA. Kruger is about the size of a state, like Iowa or so. That's a lot of walking.

We also got to spend a day in Kruger National Reserve. We left the house around 3:30 am and arrived at Kruger just after dawn (sunrise was usually about 4:15-4:30 am). We saw baboons, giraffe, zebra, impala, elephants, hippo, cape buffalo (a herd of hundreds crossed the road in front of us!), wildebeast, and a pride of lions! It was incredible. I didn't know if I would be wow-ed by anything anymore...you know, with TV, movies, Discovery Channel, etc. I was wrong. I can still be wow-ed.

Next time: the second leg of our trip: Johannesburg.

my views...from south africa

notice my newest "my views" photo...this is one of my absolute favorite images from our trip. we were in the Transkei Region on the southeastern coast, a rural area. on this day we visited the village of Bukwini to distribute food parcels to the children in the village that are part of a child sponsorship program. there is no chief in the village, so the council runs the show. this photo was taken during a council meeting between the village council members and daniel and kristi, our friends working with Oceans of Mercy.

remember, this is how "my views" works: i post one of my photos and i want your feedback! this particular photo has not been edited. give me tips, comments, questions, criticisms and accolades! i want to know specifics, what do you like or not like? what would you do differently? i'm trying to grow here!

we're back

we made it back from south africa yesterday after traveling for over 36 hours straight! we slept all the way through the night last night (except for about 45 minutes in the middle of the night), but before that i only slept for 3 hours in a 45-hour time span! so, we're pretty tired...but we're safe and we had a good trip. there will be pictures and further update a little later this week once we've caught up on sleep. also, we had to take our camera memory card into a computer store to have the pictures recovered because kirk accidentally reformatted the card...he reassures me that my pictures are still there. i'm very nervous. luckily we had a backup 2 gb card so that i could continue to take pictures. we'll find out later this week about the other 600+ pictures. anyway, all that to say that we'll update the blog soon.

we made it to south africa

hi friends
we're here in jo-burg. we're safe...long plane trip...swollen feet and ankles and two bloody noses later. on our way by bus to the northern region. love you all.

mendy

south africa trip

our trip to South Africa is fast-approaching! here's our itinerary and also a few thoughts/hopes/prayers that I have for this trip.

itinerary:
Wednesday, Nov. 19: Depart KC around 11:00 am
Thursday, Nov. 20: Arrive in Johannesburg (5:30 pm); stay overnight
Friday, Nov. 21: a.m. depart Jo-burg; travel by bus to spend weekend in Mushagka and surrounding villages (northeastern South Africa); connect with a missionary named Nancy and visit several area church services, Mozambique refugee ministry, and a pre-school graduation!
Monday, Nov. 24: Spend day in Kruger National Park - wildlife preserve (and get my National-Geographic-photographer on!) http://www.ecoafrica.com/krugerpark/
Tuesday, Nov. 25: return to Jo-burg; spend a few days with Pastor Isaac in ministry around Jo-burg (including Soweto)
Thursday, Nov. 27: depart for Port St. John's/Port Elizabeth to visit Oceans of Mercy ministry (ministry to orphans affected by AIDS/HIV...Westside Family Church in KC is a local partner with this ministry) http://www.oceansofmercy.com/index.cfm
Saturday, Nov. 29: Return to Jo-burg (except Seth, who is staying an extra day with O of M...due to the fact that he accidentally purchased a ticket on the wrong return flight!) and catch our return flight to the U.S. (Seth will depart for U.S. on Sunday).
Sunday, Nov. 30: Arrive approximately 12:00 noon at KCI

Thoughts/Hopes/Prayers:

• Always, safety and smooth travel (there will be a lot of travel)
• the people we meet are giving us places to stay, food to eat, and transportation, so I hope that we can be a source of encouragement and joy to them!
  
• i am excited to learn from the people we meet about how to love well, how to serve. I
• recently read my friend Tim's blog and he shared some thoughts from a book about Compassion. I found these thoughts to be relevant: "compassion is not primarily making oneself "useful," but it is a kind of "entering in" which is intimately linked to a real presence. The natural result of this presence will be true solidarity. Human competition subverts this impulse and can only be overcome by the "new self" which is created in Christ. Therefore the first movement in compassion isn't achieving but receiving a new identity which is free from greedy competitive impulses. Only then can we enter into solidarity with the poor." From the beginning of planning this trip, I have tried to keep a close check on any attitude of "us" going over "there" to help "them", which has a bitter taste of condescension, but maintain a learner's heart and a servant's heart. More than any other purpose, I feel that our objective is to connect with people, to love, to establish friendships that will survive over time and distance. It is in these long-term relationships that we will be able to know how we might meet each others' needs (a reciprocal relationship).

p.s. note my new "my views" section to the right! i am posting a new photo each week and hoping for feedback from all of my creative friends...heck, at this point, i'll take feedback from my not-so-creative friends too as no one has posted a comment yet! come on people! i comment on all of your blogs! help me out here.

my views

i decided to start a new section in my blog called "my views" that will feature a new photo i've taken each week (or every couple of weeks!). i think that i noticed another one of my blogging friends doing something similar, so i have to put the disclaimer out there that i thought of it a long time ago but just didn't get around to doing it! i actually got the idea from national geographic's "your shot" series (note the link to their site to the right under "sites to see"). NG features photos from amateur photographers and they are just amazing! i really want to work on getting better. so, i decided to give myself a forum for displaying my photos.

here's how it's gonna work: i have several friends that are AWESOME photographers so i want YOUR FEEDBACK! i do very minimal editing/tampering to my photos (mostly due to a lack of knowledge of how to use photoshop or other such programs). so, for the most part, what you see is exactly how i took the photo. i may brighten it so that you can see it better on the blog, or crop it to get a better fit, but that is the extent. so, photographer friends, i want to hear your feedback: what you would do differently? how would you change the settings? what angles would you take, etc.? and, if you happen to like it just as it is i suppose i wouldn't mind hearing that either!

the first photo is from about a month ago when the Two Seconds Away guys rehearsed in our attic (note the link to their site to the right...free publicity, guys!).

p.s. the sites that i post on my blog are some of my FAVORITE sites and my hope is that my friends who read my blog will also find them useful. plus, i'm always updating them as well as my "favorite things" section.

p.p.s. speaking of "favorite things", i have seen two oscar-worthy performances in the last month: angelina joley in Changeling (an unbelievable true story) and anne hathaway in Rachel Getting Married. great movies, incredible acting by those two women.

p.p.p.s. still trying to figure out how to make a link to the full size version of the picture in "my views." if anyone has tips on that let me know.

shots...and disorders

well, our trip to south africa is official...i've gone to get my shots. well, one shot. to my delight i discovered that i could get the typhoid vaccination via capsules, and it lasts longer than the shot! boy howdy! so, all i had to get is the hepatitis A booster...yeah, that's right, the booster. 4 years ago, when i went to china i got the first round of the hep A series, but never went back to get the second round because i'm a huge wimpy baby about shots. so, kirk and i go to the health department last night to get our shots. and i'm a nervous wreck. those of you who know me understand. i didn't even get my ears pierced until i was 19 (and even then it was because i lost a bet to my good friend todd...and i made him go with me for support). anyway, i only have to get ONE shot. just one. i nearly passed out. i was physically shaking. kirk had to come in with me. i made him read sports scores off of his cell phone while i was getting the shot. wow. i am a big baby. does anyone else have this problem?

in other news, i've discovered what has been wrong with me all of these years. as i am studying to get my masters in special ed, i am studying in-depth all of these various disorders and disabilities and it is abundantly clear to me that i have all of them. i'll be reading along in my stack of textbooks and i'll suddenly shout out to kirk: "kirk! listen to this! it says 'inappropriate types of behavior or feelings under normal circumstances' and 'general, pervasive mood of unhappiness or depression'! doesn't that sound like me?! i think i have a emotional or behavioral disorder!" so far, i have ADHD, Tourettes syndrome, anxiety disorders (see aforementioned story about getting shots), BD, and a few phobias. it's bad, folks. by the way, there's also a good chance that i am schizophrenic as the symptoms are very similar to those of BD/ED. i guess that explains a lot.

ksu rant

here is an excerpt from a recent email exchange with a good friend and fellow aspiring football commentator, thomas casper. i wanted to post it because i finally found my voice about what is going on with the cats!

the big difference between Snyder resurrecting a dead program (in the 90's) and Prince in this current era is defense and strength. with Snyder we got better as the game went on, as the season went on, and each year we were a little better than last! we did this on the backs of unknown recruits that he shaped into tough players. he took guys who would have been walk-ons anywhere else and made them great, especially defensively. for several years we didn't have the clout to recruit top QB's and offensive "stars" so we played our butts off on defense. right now, we get worse as the game progresses, we look tired and weak and small. i don't see us growing with each game and each season like we did with Snyder, even if only in small baby steps. to me, going 6-6 isn't really an improvement on last year's 5-7 if we aren't better at the end of the season than we started. i think a new defensive coordinator and a new strength coach is a start, but probably just a band-aid to the bigger problem of head coach. if Prince can't bring in good coaches around him, it doesn't matter if he's actually a football genius (one could argue that you're only as genius as the people you bring around you...hmmm, that applies politically, too!).

i saw that BYU went down to TCU last night! hmmmm (said with pondering voice) [Thomas asserts that coach Patterson of TCU would make a good replacement, should Prince leave KSU]

regarding the students and fans bailing out early in games, i am torn. on the one hand, i hate seeing the students give up so easily. kids these days! they are so entitled! they don't know how exciting it is to see a team go from worst to first. wimps! on the other hand, it really communicates to the administration that change needs to happen. if people would stop going to chiefs' games maybe carl peterson would finally get the well-deserved can!

blogging dilemmas and life update

so, i've been a horrible blogger, just as i predicted. i can't remember the last time that i emptied my camera memory card into the computer so that i would have new pics to post...so, i've just avoided posting new blogs! i tried blogging about ksu football, but it is so depressing i can hardly speak, or i could go on for miles and miles of ranting, but i'm trying to edit myself. i avoided blogging about politics, even though i have a lot to say on the subject, but decided to inject a little political sarcasm directed at cindy mccain's outfit...then realized that even that might be offensive to people. i also have realized that i don't even really enjoy talking about politics with anyone other than kirk because my politics are a reflection of my world view...and to talk about them opens the door to people debating and disputing my world view...which hurts much worse than just an innocent little political discussion. this has left me with little to blog about!

then i realized: part of the reason i haven't been a faithful blogger is because i am just really stinking busy! 1) summer is over, school has started and all my emotional energy is focused on the students and my coworkers. 2) i began working on my masters in special ed last spring and have reinstated my teaching license. i am currently taking classes and looking for teaching jobs simultaneously. 3) we brought home another cat from the hutson farm...named percival! again, great place to post a picture of him, but it's been months since i have added new pics to the computer! 4) our trip to south africa is finally going to happen!! we will be there nov. 19-30...not only have we been busy making plans, but i am running out of days to avoid getting my vaccinations! those who know me know my position on shots! 5) we bought a house in august and have been working on a variety of projects including painting, sanding, cleaning, tearing out, re-wiring, and landscaping! again, great time for pics of the house (see mention of picture dilemma above).

so, yeah. i'm a little busy. all good stuff. all very exciting. but busy.