It keeps on growing

Time is flying, and the project is progressing quickly. The Residence building is complete and Bethel has moved in, the Printery project is well under way and the Warehouse, well lets just say it keeps on growing...

I took this picture the other morning before the fog lifted

Now the structure is complete, the roof is almost 3/4's on, the brick infill is almost complete, they are pouring the massive concrete slab around the outside. Its been very busy, the contractors are working 6 to 7 days a week which means we have an increased workload, and with close to 300 workers on site things change quickly. Overall things are going well and we are still having lots of fun.

Hopefully this will help you appreciate just how big the warehouse is, if you look carefully you will see some decent size trucks, a crane, and some tiny little people. This panorama was taken from the viewing deck where tours will come once its completed. 

It has been Pecan season here and there are many Pecan trees here at Bethel. They make good snacks during the workday

I tried to help the brother out that I share an office with with, not sure if he really appreciated it, but we do our best to support to one another.

This little guy visited us in the copy room the other day, the quirks of the printer bugged him too.

Lazuli is still working away in the tool crib, its a busy job as people need the tools to get the work done so keeping everything organized, clean, and ready to go keeps here hopping. Fortunately she has had a little time to relax here and there.

Testing chairs at the mall, with her Finnish friend, not sure this is the right one, have to check a few more....and testing chairs does make one hungry.

Good thing a Mugg and Bean wasn't too far away

We really wish we were better at keeping in contact with all our friends and family, we love hearing from you and what you are up to, sorry if we take forever or completely forget to reply to your emails. We really look forward to when everyone can enjoy life with one another without all the rush, until then we love you all, blog to you sometime in future....-Matt

Check out the View!

Our first scenic stop was at The Pinnacle:

The vegetation at the top of it is really pretty.

Then we went to God's Window. They told us on a clear day you can see all the way beyond Kruger Park to  Mozambique.  It was a clear day..but I'm not like, a terrain expert.  Was it Mozambique?  I'm not sure.  But I know it was beautiful!

Here's my view out of God's Window:

And here is my favorite view:

Oh, are you interested in the actual  view? Here ya go!

We took a little hike, and by hike  I mean climbed around on some stone paths up to the top through the rain forest and sat on top of the world:

Sitting on God's Window.  It's not blasphemous, since it's the name I can say that!

Don't worry guys, it's not like we were really being daredevils. It's all down to clever cropping and camera angles.  

We drove along just a little further though, and had a fantastic 180 degree view at a little spot cleverly named "Wonder View."

Ok, that's enough views for now!  Til next time, when I show you the stuff I dreamed about on Pinterest and then finally got to see in real life!

Blyde River on a Budget! Day One

Well, it's been a exactly a month now since I wrote last.  I did promise to share more of our trip, besides all the reptiles we saw.  We wanted to maximize our vacation time away so we left around noon on the Friday and made our way to Graskop, in Mpumalanga state.  We had been advised as to the best scenic route to take, so we went through some neat towns on the way.  One had a pub with a great sign, I took a picture for my dad.

Just a throwback from my pre-teenage Lion King obsession days. It was the favorite movie of  my cousins, my sisiter and me for awhile there.

South Africa has such a variety of landscapes.  It's awesome!  We took the Long Tom Pass, It was breathtaking:

I love the layers of the scenery.

It's steep too, don't worry though, there is signage to help you out:

After just a little longer than we had anticipated we arrived at our destination.  I had made the reservations for the cheapest campsite we could find. After all, it was a nine year anniversary trip.  When we got there, we were surprised that it was at a backpacker place.  (Guess the title of the place "Valley View Backpackers" should have clued me in. Just a tip, if it has backpackers in the title, it means a backpackerish/hostel place.) A house where they rent out rooms and you share communal bathrooms and kitchen space.  Well, as we were camping, we were shown to the back yard, or garden as they call it.  I inquired as to power points for plugging things in...I got a strange stare and no reply.  No power points in the back garden apparently. So we pitched our tent by the back hedge for maximum privacy.

This was taken our first morning.  We arrived in the dark so, no pics of the set up. They weren't lying about the view though, from our vantage point in the back garden we could see pretty well.  Even better was the front view:

It was a very clean place, and it turned out for the best, as we were winter camping, it gets a bit cold at night..so it was good to have a warmerish place to go to prep food, and take showers...I say warmer, what I mean is warmer than outside, not warm.

We had been advised by some Bethelites that hail from the area as to the best place for food:

Cool Landy too. 

We totally recommend it too.  If you come visit this area, make sure you stop at Harries!  We had carefully planned every meal and had not planned eating out at ALL.  However, it was so yummy we ended up eating at Harries 2x as an anniversary splurge.  Having saved some $$ on accommodation we figured we'd go for the pancakes!  There is an African Market across the street.

and the windows that face the street are helpful for the vendors to try to sell things to you as you eat.  They actually had some cool stuff and Matt liked the giraffe and kudu carvings they had, but we had brought only enough cash for our tolls and entrance fees.  Matt saved so much by us doing it that way! :D

Then it was on to the sights!

"You need to go hiking in Africa and see some Anacondas and Pythons!"

Some of our latest news involves close encounters of the reptilian kind.  You might remember our post featuring a baby night adder snake several months ago.  We had been placed under strict instructions to "go hiking in Africa and see some Anacondas and Pythons!"  Well, we did go hiking in Africa recently, as part of our anniversary weekend away (more on the area we went to later) and much to our delight  from the standpoint of wanting to fulfill our oath, we had some up close views of various and sundry reptiles!  The first encounter was the closest.  While we were standing on the edge of a cliff (yes, there was a guardrail) Matt glanced down and noticed this creature not a foot away from our feet.  Remembering our sincere promise, we stopped for a picture, rather than running away.

I felt pretty safe, as it was quite chilly out and this snake was likely freezing too and not likely to want anything to do with us.  I don't know what kind of snake it is though. Maybe Mr. E, Mr. J or Mr. I (all from our most recent place of residence) can fill us in? 

The picture was worthy of a post of it's own.  However, the story doesn't end there.  The very next day, Matt and I took a boat ride and got up close to more reptiles.  We approached some sun baked rocks and saw a fast moving......PYTHON!  We were so excited that we couldn't remember how to use our cameras and get a picture before we saw him splash in the water in front of us!!  Oh man!   It was so cool.  We were sad not to get footage of it.  The boat slowed next to the rocks and we scanned them for signs of other pythons.  First to catch our eye was a monitor lizard.

Wait a minute!  What is that moving above him....oh man...another PYTHON!  And this time, we got photos.  (Maybe they would be better if I saw it sooner, or if I had a bigger lens.  But they are Python pictures just the same!

Do you see his shiny body in the grass?  Now for a shot of his head.

He was cruising down the rock face and soon disappeared into the rocks.

We were thrilled to see it, and immediately were saying how much fun it would be to share these pictures with the 3 young friends we mentioned.  If we see any more Pythons in the wild, we will be sure to share them.  Sadly, as Anacondas are not indigenous to Africa, the chances of seeing those in the wild here are quite slim. 3 snakes in 2 days though. That shows how many snakes there are here.  Kinda made me rethink my whole "lets go on a long hike through the jungle this afternooon" brainwave I'd had before these close encounters.

Well, that wasn't the end of the reptilian encounters for the day.  As we continued up the water, we saw a croc basking in the sun.

Do you see him?? How about a closer look..

He wasn't the biggest croc we have seen, but its the closest look we have had at one in the wild.

Well, we did see one more animal on our boat ride, it's not reptilian, but it is my favorite animal to see in the wild here.

This was the best picture we got of the hippos there.  They were stubborn and not posing for photos.

Well.  We have more pictures of the beautiful scenery we saw that weekend.  Let's save that for later and just dedicate this post to our friends we mentioned.  We love you and miss you, and all our friends from Worland.  We send hugs to each of you.

Love, 

Us

Memorial 2015 in South Africa

Oh my goodness, it's been a few weeks since the last post.  Sorry guys!  I thought I'd just quickly share some pictures from Memorial.  For the second year in a row we were in Africa for Memorial.  This year was quite different than the last year, and different than home as well. There is a kind provision on the day of Memorial for Special Full Time Servants in Construction or Bethel to have 1/2 day off on the day for the ministry.   So next year, when you go out in the ministry on Memorial, you can remember that you are joining the many thousands of Special Full Time Servants around the world, as well as perhaps millions of our brothers and sisters in the ministry on that day. :)  As our congregation had no afternoon field service arrangement, we talked to a couple people at a local Mall.  To prepare for the late evening, we shared a dinner at Mugg&Bean.  

Yum! 

Don't worry, Matt's lifelong ban on coffee wasn't lifted, (Although he has lifted it at least 3 times that i know of.   Excellent stories each time.)  He did have a wonderful chai, or was it hot chocolate. Can't remember now.  I do remember I had Chai.  And we shared pulled pork sandwhich.  Deeelicious. It was all quite different than other venues we have had Memorial Night meals and snacks at. Remember CowCamp in Worland?  JB's in Mountain Home? JB's in Riverton? Andy and Tera's house in Riverton? It's exciting to attend Memorial in different places.  However, we miss all of our friends and family whenever there are special theocratic events.  

It's wonderful, but we miss being home for them.  If anything has made Matt homesick here it's for Memorial, Assemblies & Conventions with our loved ones from home.

Anyways, on to the Memorial.

The requisite all dressed up pic. My mom helped me, or rather I helped her to make my dress.  Its fabric from a traditional men's longyi from Myanmar. They would wear it for special occasions, like this one.  Also, it has pockets. I love pockets in a dress.

This year I watched from above, in our balcony.  Matt was serving so I was able to keep a keen eye on things from up here.

Do you see him?

I sat with 2 lovely sisters in our hall. 

Why did I not get a Sari in Myanmar when i could have bought one cheap. WHY?!?!?!

As always, it was an excellent event.  And no matter where we go in the world, we can always count on this being the same.  Everyone wearing their most excellent clothes. Always the most respectful. Always the most special and important evening of the year.

An Update, brought to you by Matt

Believe it or not between all the Safari fun we are actually working. Last time we talked about the project I was assisting on the new Residence building and Lazuli was working in the Quality Control Lab. A lot has changed since then....

Here is what the Residence looks like now, it will be completely finished in the next month or so and handed over to Bethel, with this project complete the focus will be one the new Warehouse and the remodel of the existing Printery.

What have we been working on, well after a while working on the Residence Building they called me and said now you will be the Construction Home Overseer. I thought the Home what? That doesn't sound constructionee at all ??? But I said I would be happy do whatever I was asked to, so I got to work. Basically it involved making sure that the 150 or so people on Construction have a place to sleep and food to eat and comfortable at home. A big job because you can never make everybody happy at once.

I had to wear a tie, this was the first day on the job...

They had another brother and a sister to assist me. It was a lot of work and a lot of learning, but after about a month things started to come together. In the mean time Lazuli was moved to the Electrical Team as their Secretary. (That's right the Electrical Team while I was playing with House stuff) This was new to her and she was able to learn a lot on the office side of  Construction. 

Lazuli and the sister who trained her in Electrical 

After a few months as Home Overseer things were going fairly smoothly when I was told that now we could hand all the Construction Home over to Bethel Home which left me jobless, I wondered,"where will I go next?"

Of all the crazy things I was assigned to Electrical, so Lazuli and I were on the same team together, we were both very excited. 

Our first safety meeting together on the Electrical Team, I was still wrapping up a few Home things, hence the dress shirt...

We had a month of bliss working hand in hand, but alas it wasn't to last. It was Lazuli's turn for a new assignment, off to the Tool Crib. What's a Tool Crib? Well instead of each trade having common tools such has hammers, drills, screwdrivers, they combine them all together and check them out as needed, the advantage is less tools overall and they get maintained and cared for properly. 

 Here is what the girls started with...

And here they are now with it all set up and running, don't mess with these sisters.

As for me, now I am doing Quality Control for the electrical installation on the new Warehouse, the contractor hasn't really gotten started yet so I have been doing a lot of studying of plans and prep work because once they start it will get very busy. The warehouse has changed a lot since the last pic we posted.

Here is a pic from the same spot as the ones I posted in October.

This one is from the inside on the opposite end, it helps you appreciate just how big it is.

This one is taken from top of the concrete structure.

The whole Warehouse has to be complete by mid-November, all the Mechanical trades will start in the next few weeks and from then the chase will be on....

We also went to Kruger, on unassigned territory and moved rooms, so we will see what Lazuli wants to talk about next time.

Safari Conclusion

When we got back to camp our friend Gavin made breakfast on a Skottle Braai.  I have a picture, but I will leave it to your imagination, or you can Google. :D  He made a unique combination, bacon, eggs and...bananas.  Now, we thought that sounded um, interesting.  Turns out, it's really good!  He makes the eggs and bacon, then the bananas get caramelized in the butter, making them really sweet.

After that, we packed up and drove out of the park.

We did!

Instead of going straight home, we stopped by Kwa Maritane.  Which is African for, nice place to eat.  No, not really.  It's a safari lodge.  On our way in we saw a team of 3 men trimming off the bottom part of a door.

One to sit, one to inspect,and one to do the trimming. They were all really friendly and we went in to have a bite to eat.  Most people here are really friendly and helpful here.  It's a great place to visit.  On our way to the restaurant we saw Amarula trees.  Have you heard of Amarula?   It's a fruit they make liqueur out of. They say (whoever "they" is) that when it ferments and elephants eat it, they get tipsy.

Apparently the Amarula in the States is better than the stuff you buy here. This is based on people saying that they ship the really good stuff out. I'm not sure if that's true.  However, I am willing to agree to a blind taste test to find out for sure.

 We sat our on a deck, it was a very peaceful place to relax.  Not that the game viewing had been stressful though.

There were some friendly birds,

 After we ate, we went through a tunnel that went under the fields to a watering hole, where you have a view at eye level.

There weren't any animals at the moment, but if you happened to hit it right, it would be a very cool spot to watch them at.

Then we went home and got ready for our week.

Thank you for following along on a Safari Weekend with us.  We actually went to Kruger Park the weekend after that, but I won't show pictures from that right now.  I think it's time for Matt to write something about the project, he took our big camera on site last week,  So next time, you will hopefully hear from him.  He has had 3 different assignments since we got here, as have I.  I've had about 3.5ish.  It's been exciting to see things change and have the chance to learn lots of things, for us both.  Til next time!