Something other than animals

So I thought I would give you a break from animal pictures.  I have waited to show you our Kingdom Hall because I wanted to take some good pictures of it.  It's an unusual hall, and unique around here.  It's an A-Frame building.  

View from the front.

View from the Parking lot to the entrance.

The A-Frame carport doesn't afford much coverage from the weather so you have to stand right in the center of it to not get rained on.  We have a slate roof.  

Imagine installing that!

The landscaping is quite nice, and we have some beautiful flowers.

The white ones are unusual to see.

Here is a view of the inside.  The platform is almost a tiny bit like a pulpit.  Matt says it's kinda funny standing up there and looking out from a little alcove.

Thought you'd like to see a picture of our first meeting.  I waited til now to post it because I wanted to show you more of the hall and it took me 2.5 months to take those pictures.  That is just how I roll.

Matt gave his first public talk here in December.  He gave the "How Real is God to You?" outline.  Notice the South African rand he is using.  Nelson Mandela is on our money here.

He did a good job!

Well, that is our hall,  if any of you come visit you will know what to expect.  However, you will have to come here yourself to feel how warm & friendly our congregation is. (After all those animal pictures I expect you have all been making diligent searches for tickets online. ;)

Lost and Found

.......and picking up from where we left off.

So I hope you all enjoyed those cute little lions.  We sure did.  It was a fantastic day for sure.  We borrowed a car, courtesy of some generous friends here and we went off on our adventure, departing at the unheard of hour of 6am.  We had scheduled another activity at the park, called Walk with the Lions.  We were pretty excited about it and needed to be there by 8 am.  Unfortunately we got a teeeeeeeensy bit lost.  We ended up going to Pretoria instead.  I don't know if I can really explain without a map so...

Sometimes when you are in a foreign country and haven't driven on the other side of the road except once and haven't been to the place you are trying to get to and don't have a smartphone yet and don't have a GPS either people get lost.  Anyways, we all poured over the maps that the owner of the car had prudently left in the center console. (Except my Matt, who as the driver sensibly kept his eyes on the road and kept driving us to get us out of a seemingly not great part of town, while the other Matt, Margaret and I put our heads together).  And we did make it. Phew.  And on the plus side, I've learned I'm not interested in that part of Pretoria for my future touring plans.  

So grateful to see the signs, and the gate to our destination:

We did miss out on the Walk with the Lions.  Matt and I had definite plans of going again but we were sad that our friends missed it.  

However, the day was still a huge success.  First of all we had a nice rest under some trees with some iced tea.  Then we got ready for the main event.  

Ukutula is a place where you can stay over, play with lions, walk with lions and learn about the research they do with the lions.  Now, don't get the wrong idea about research.  They have the rare white lions there, and are learning about the gene that makes the white lions.  White lions are not albino, but just white.  Baby tawny lions have spots when they are born, baby white lions do not, which make them more vulnerable in the wild.  Ukutula also does research about feline aids and TB in cats.  Many of the lions in Kruger Park are actually sick, and they are trying to figure out if there is any way to help lions in the wild to be healthier.  They have many volunteers that help with the lions here too.  While we were there they had 3 different sizes of lion cubs we could interact with.  The babies, which you have seen...awww..I'll just put a couple more on.  They are about 4 weeks:

So sweet.

 A couple cubs were practicing their escape artist skills:

Made it over the fence!

      The staff said that they only climb out when they see their brothers and sisters outside the pen. When they are together then they don't try to escape.

Then we went to see "the devils."  They are named that because of their tendency to make mischief.  (After they grow past that phase they go to the pen where they keep lions to walk with.)

Look at those paws.  This guy left Matthew (not my Matt, but our friend Matt) with a "Souvenir."

They can also be sweet.

The last set of cubs we got to visit were the medium ones.  Big enough for more play but little enough not to draw blood. :D  Check out the cuteness!

That cub is seriously smiling at Margaret.

That is one of my absolute favorite pictures of the day.  There was a cub there named Ella, she is a white lion. She wasn't born there at Ukutula but she is staying there for now.  She was unsteady on her feet during our visit and not very used to people, but she let us hold her a little:

Playing with lions makes me happy!

Well that was all for the cubs.  We had some more nice experiences that day, I'll share more later since this post is long enough!

(Sorry it's been so long between posts, it's just so busy here and this post took time because I wanted to sort though my pictures and share some of the best shots with you all.)

We Took Our First Vacation Day

Ok guys, I know I've made you wait a long time for the next post, so I thought, lets make it a good one.  I won't need to employ too much witty commentary because the pictures are truly worth a thousand words.   I may just sprinkle a few words here and there.....

Last weekend we enjoyed a visit from our dear friends we met on our first project in Moldova.  If you followed my blog from then you will remember that when Matthew and Margaret came to the project there, the brothers thought they were Matt's parents because they had the same name.  We have called them our construction parents ever since.  We visited them earlier this year, on our way home from Nigeria and  had a fantabulous time.  When we said goodbye at the train station we had no idea that we would see them again this same year.  However, it turned out that they got to pass through S.A. branch en route home from an assignment of their own.  So we were #reunitedagain as they say on Instagram.  We decided that the best thing to do was take our first day off as construction servants and go see.......(drumroll)........

Ha!  Gotcha.  We did see these during the day and enjoyed them too, but that was while we were waiting for this......(drumroll, for reals this time)......

Oh but wait, it gets better!!!

Seeeeriously gets even better:

Already has well developed claws, check those bad boys out.

The only thing as good as seeing your man holding a baby lion is getting to hold one yourself:

I shall call you squishy and you shall be my squishy. - Dory

Well I don't want to overwhelm you with too many pictures in one post, but I will post another one soon, with more lions.

To be continued.........

I Spoke too Soon

So, remember last time when I was bragging about my spotless lack of snake spotting?  Yeah.  That's all gone now.  Friday, Matt and I were walking along, TOTALLY  minding our own business and we heard a sudden rustling in the leaves near the path. Startled, Matt hastily moved us forward and we glanced back to see what it was.  Much to my chagrin we saw a snake hastily slithering up a tree about 8-10 feet off the path.  We could see it clearly but as we are not herpetologists we couldn't positively identify it.  It was solid dark brown it looked to us with a light underside.  I wanted to take a picture, but instead we prudently moved on.  I'm still wishing I had a picture though, because now we can't show people and make an identification for sure. We had an idea what we thought it might be, but we are told by many there are no snakes of the variety we suspected around here.  We have also heard that someone did recently spot a snake of that kind, so who knows. So, Mr. E, still no pythons or anacondas, but we did see a mystery snake. I hope I don't see another one.

In other news, Matt found his name on a bottle of South African Coca-Cola:

I challenge you all to find a Coca Cola can with Lazuli on it.

Also, last week the final slab was poured on Res10, so when we came back from morning worship Monday we saw this out of our window:

Another concrete truck at the ready.

It rained almost all day, but the work got done.  I got to help with a couple of the tests we do for the concrete strength.  It was a fun and muddy work day.  Also cold.  I know you are all back home, enjoying, or enduring record snow and low temperatures.  However, it did get quite cold here this week.  For where we are.

Thursday we had another first.  Matt drove.  On the wrong side of the car, and on the wrong side of the road.

The car he drove?

Davy's BMW

Matt's first time to drive a BMW.  It was a smooth ride too, despite a few novice mistakes.  Such as, Matt tried to get in on the wrong side.  He claims he was "checking it out" for me.  Ha!  Then, we couldn't find reverse.  (Yes, WE.  I was helping.)   However, he prevailed and crept out onto the road.  All seemed well, except, my seat suddenly plummeted backwards as we accelerated.  Much to the surprise, and discomfort of the sister sitting directly behind me.  Thankfully, it wasn't a long distance, and Matt handled the car like a professional.  Not a professional race car driver folks.  Remember, I was in the car, so it was more like professional Grandpa.  Nice and sloooow. The car was probably disappointed.  

We had borrowed the car so that I and the other sister could go learn to make Tiramisu from our Italian sister, Sylvia.  (I would just like to point out that this is a prime example of the kind of great guy Matt is, he doesn't even like coffee so Tiramisu isn't high on his list of desserts he wants me to get lessons in.  But he still arranged to get a car so he could drive us there.)  Accompanied by some opera music, and despite an incident with the Mascarpone cheese, the dessert was a success,  I would like to point out that my contribution was taking pictures and taking notes.

Sylvia

Amazing!

A Post for Mr. E

The other weekend we visited on the phone with our buddies around the corner where we lived.  I was questioned by Mr. E as to if we had spotted any pythons.  When I said no, he asked "any anacondas?"  Again I had to give a negative reply. Disappointed he firmly instructed me "I think you need to go hiking in Africa and see some anacondas and pythons!"  I promised that if I did spot any of those snakes I would take a picture for him.  I won't pretend that I'm not just fine with the fact that in our area pythons and anacondas are not seen.  And the snakes that do live around here, I really am not interested in seeing.  My record of no snake spotting while on assignment is, well, spotless. (Except at zoos. I've seen pythons and anacondas at zoos. And other varieties.) Which is fine, because the snakes where we go have nasty reputations.  However, just a few days after our conversation, a little snake was spotted by the construction offices by Matt.  He didn't get a picture, but a few days after that, the cheeky little guy was seen hanging around near the conference room.  A sister who loves animals recognized it as a Night Adder. Remembering our promise to take a picture if we saw a snake Matt was able to get this documentation for Mr. E.

After his photo shoot, the sister relocated him to a safe place.

So there you go bud, this post was just for you.  We miss you and your brother, and your mom and dad.  Hope to talk to you again soon and see what you thought of the snake.  I know it's no anaconda or python but it might be the only picture of a snake we get here.  ( I really hope it is.)

The Project

No doubt many of you are wondering just what is going on over here? Lazuli is without a doubt the writer in the family but I am so excited about the project I want to share so here goes. There are many different projects happening around here at the moment, but here are three big ones. First a new shipping warehouse with audio/video building. Second a new residence building. Third a remodel and small addition to the printery to allow for the installation of a second printing press.

Here is a picture of the branch as seen from Google Earth. The biggest roof at the bottom right hand side is the printery. Between the left side edge and the swimming pool about center you see a dark grey square which is the new residence building. At top of the picture there are lots of little white rectangles, those are the modular housing they have set up and just below that is the big red rectangle of dirt that is the new shipping warehouse and audio video building. 

This is what the residence building looks like at the moment.

Here is what the new shipping warehouse/audio video building looks like at the moment. Right now it looks like a bunch of dirt but they have started pouring some footings.

This picture is off to the side but the equipment in it gives it more perspective...

The building itself is 16,000 sq meters and the audio video wing is 3000 sq meters, if you are trying to put that into square feet like I was let me help, its about 204,514 sq feet or, really really big. An American football field is 57,600 sq ft. The new shipping warehouse has to be built so that shipping can move out of the printery and it can be remodeled in time so that when the new press arrives there is a place to put it. The next year will be busy...

What are we working on? Well I (Matt) am assisting another brother to look after the residence building. The majority of the work being done here is by contractors so I am a small part of the day to day interaction. Lazuli has been helping with quality control on concrete. She helps collect fresh concrete from the delivery trucks, log samples and eventually break the samples to see how strong the concrete is. When they don't need her there she helps out in the office.

Well that's the project, hope I didn't bore you to much, I will turn things back over to Lazuli  for the next post....

Orientation Group

On the last Friday of the month, if I remember right, the new volunteers come to Bethel in South Africa.  Our arrival coincided with this time, and so our orientation was a full new Bethelite orientation. We had a week of learning about our new home and work place.  That means you go and meet all the departments, and learn about what they can do for you and what you can do for them as you get established and start your life here.  We were the only ones not from South Africa in our group.  All of the group were so friendly and kind.  Unfortunately, the names were hard for me so I'm still trying to get a handle that.  My name is hard for them too, but they picked it up quicker than I did for them.  I'm also going to use the jet lag excuse.  (How many days/weeks/months is that valid I wonder?)

Meet our group of fellow newcomers:

 Yes, I'm wearing Matt's suit jacket.  It was a lot cooler than it looked that day when I chose my outfit.  I'm getting nervous about "winter." Maybe I should have brought my heavy wool coat.... At least winter doesn't come here til next summer. Summer for all of you north of the equator that is.  It's so confusing. People ask me questions and I'm all "that was this spring".. but it's spring here now..so then I explain.

We had housekeeping training with our housekeeper. For the first time Matt and I got to work together with the housekeeper that our room is assigned to.  I think this is a great idea.  After all, we will be working together to keep our room clean, and it does give you a sense of responsibility when you know your housekeeper personally and know she is such a wonderful sister. Makes you want to leave your room neat as a pin so she will not have more work than she should.  So far, we've done pretty good.  I have to give Matt his due also, he does as much or more sometimes than me on this, those of you who know him well know that he's a great guy like that!

During our first week we also moved to our current assigned room, rearranged and decorated it.

On Friday we had construction orientation and found out what our assignments are.  I'm not going to reveal that in this post though.  Although some of you already know.  Matt has written his first post in years and took the pictures for it and everything, so he gets to tell you that himself.

On that Saturday we were invited to an evening gathering by Darragh's mama. Remember Darragh? The hand reared monkey at Nigeria Bethel?  Anyways, the sister who raised him is here and it's really cool to meet people who have been places you have been, even if it wasn't at the same time.  We had a terrific time eating pizza and playing a quiz game.  And laughing.  Lots of laughing.

Next time the post will be from Matt so stay tuned, :)

When We Arrived

When we arrived in here at the airport, it was such a relief to just be here! As a requirement for our arrival we had to fill out cards with personal information, which is normal when you travel to another country.  What was unusual about these cards was the nature of the questions.  They were all health oriented.  They are being extremely careful about people coming in with any symptoms of sickness as they are trying to keep an eye on the Ebola situation.  I heard a rumor that they will not let anyone pass the border that has been to one of the heavily affected countries, but I'm not sure if that is accurate or not.  Anyways, they are being very cautious.  Many of our friends and family have expressed concern about us being in Africa during this time, but take comfort in knowing that I, who am very sensitive to anything I consider affecting me and my little bubble am not concerned about it. Plus, the affected countries are FAR FAR away.  Africa is enormous.  It's a 5-6 hour flight to those countries from here,  that's how far away they are. So don't worry, we are as safe from that as our friends and family back home are.

Another awesome thing is that all of our bags made it here.  Yup.  All 8 duffel bags came out like clockwork.  We, or rather, Matt loaded them onto 2 trolleys and we made our way to the arrivals hall. I couldn't really see over mine but I could see Matt's head so I just followed him.  I was also thrilled to see that there was a kind brother waiting for us.  It is soooooo nice to have someone ready to take you to your new home after all that travel time.

The guys loaded our bags up.

Being a girl is so good in these situations.  All I had to do was get myself and my backpack in the car.  I feel a teensy weensy bit bad, since Matt has traveled the same as me and then he has to lift these bags when we get there, but I do enjoy all the chivalry let me tell you. And I did say thank you. So.

When you drive, or rather, ride, through a new place when you first arrive it is so interesting to watch your new surroundings.  Normally I just soak it in.  I was kind of in a daze this time though and so I just have this impression of muted colors.  Muted compared to other places I've been anyways.  It seemed at first like the houses and hills just blended together.  The rains haven't really started yet so the earth is brown and red. And the houses and buildings seemed to all either be stucco or brick, in similar colors.  At home most houses are stick built so they are painted many colors.  Anyways, that was my initial impression.

We pulled into Bethel, which was thrilling for me, you can do street view on Google Earth and see what it's like to come up to the gates, which I did before I came here.  The brother took us to our room and he and Matt unloaded our bags.

This room was just temporary however, our real room wasn't ready so we were here for the first few days.  It's in the modular housing down at the front of the property and this unit has another room with kitchen and bathroom in between so we shared with another couple at first.  We have since moved and I will share pictures of our current home later.  Its up in the main Bethel Residences.

We had a knock on our door after a little while and Joel and Vanessa (who we had connected to through our buddies in Florida;) came to check on us and invited us for dinner to their home.  They hosted us through the first weekend and made sure we could get to the dining room and to the commissary.  Reading between the lines, to the food sources!  After a nap we went to their place. We had a really nice time with them, the gave us our first taste of South African meat, Matt was thrilled.  They showed us some pictures of their past adventures, and we had a nice visit.

Then it was time for more sleep.  Lots of it. :)

A Long Layover

Well, we made it!  We are on the other side of the world again, and as a first for us, the other side of the equator.  Our other travels have taken us very close to the equator (which means, the hot zone) but this is the first time we have been in the southern hemisphere.  Takes a LONG time to get here too.  We traveled around 40 hours.  You can imagine how tired we have been.  I don't sleep on planes well, although I think I did manage some cat naps, however, even if you could sleep on the plane, could you really sleep in those tiny seats? The planes we came in were by British Airways, and although the screens were older in the back of the headrests, I did find the seats MUCH more comfortable than other airlines I have been on.  So that was nice.

On the way we had a 12+ hour layover in London.  We had planned to go see a few sights that we have missed on previous visits but we were so tired when we got there that we decided to go back to the British Museum.  Some very good reasons for going there were these:

1. It's huge, so even though we have spent lots of time there before, we haven't seen all of it.
2. It's free, so even though we had to pay to get there on the Underground and pay for baggage storage for our carryons at the airport, we didn't have to pay to get in.
3. We knew where it was so there wasn't too much stress, it felt comfortable to go back, after all, we were just there in May.
4. It's a pretty place to visit.
5. There is a good "chippy" near to it that we liked last time. Wondering what a chippy is?

The Underground is very easy to get around on, once you understand the maps.  My first experience on the Underground when I went with my best friend to England when I was 18 was a little more shaky, couldn't figure it out and walked back and forth with luggage alot (lots of stairs.) til we figured out the maps and accents of those trying to help us.  Now it's easy, we are old hands at it. After we came out of the Underground this time, we decided to have a rest in a park on the way to the museum:

We sat down to have a snack before we continued on.  The bench had a sweet dedication on it:

Awww!

We enjoyed the museum, as much as we could through our air travel fog.  We went up to an area that we had not been to before and couldn't find without directions from staff.  It was the Japanese section and we watched a demonstration of traditional Japanese tea ceremony.  Being tea buffs ourselves we had to check it out.  Let me tell you.  Some of our friends might think Matt and I take our tea seriously.  Wrong!  We are absolute cavemen in comparison.  The tea ceremony is a fine art that we are way behind in.  It was interesting to learn about, there were some rude people that kept blocking my view, but I graciously (in imitation of the Japanese) just gave way and moved to another area to continue looking on. Soaking up the culture folks. Soaking it up.  After the tea demonstration we looked around at some of the other displays.  One display caught my eye particularly.  Now, I know that looking at people's museum pictures can be boring, so I'm going to limit these, but this one is especially relevant.  I took this picture for Ed, Andy and Travis, so guys, here you go:

Just what does this remind you of?  Looks like a golf implement to me.  Unmistakable.  The crazy thing is, it was in the Japanese section.  Now. The Scots would have you think that the game of golf originated in Scotland.  And the modern day game did.  HOWEVER, the more ancient origins are a little cloudy.  There are a lot of theories on it, but I think the mystery is solved after our wander through the museum last weekend...Notice the little plate accompanying this display:

It says "they may have been used in rituals but the details are unknown." Um, I'm guessing these anthropologists are not golfers, because it seems pretty obvious that the "unknown rituals" were golf. They may not have called it golf then, but these are clearly ancient ritualistic golf clubs.  See what you can learn on a quick trip to the British Museum on a long layover? Mystery solved.

As we were walking out, I had another brain fog induced epiphany. The Origins of Golf Discovery was just the tip of the iceberg.  There were a lot of people there that day, and it occurred to me, the museum is an amazing place, filled with an astounding variety of things, but most things there are man made, and the natural things there are attributed to nature, and not our Creator. But the most unique sights in the museum, are not man's discoveries, but the people that come to see them.  Nothing in the museum can compare to the people in it, they are the most fantastic creation in the museum.

After all that thinking, it was time to eat!

No trip to the UK, no matter how brief could be complete without fish and chips.  Hence the visit to the nearby "chippy."

YUMO!

I have tried fish and chips all over the world.  Nothing compares to the homeland of this delicious meal.  Don't come here without trying them.  Look for a thinner section of fish as opposed to a thicker one, its crispier.  So good.

We went back to the airport early.  Turns out it was a good thing because we had a few delays in getting back and we didn't have to stress. After a little duty free shopping, we boarded our flight to South Africa.  It takes way longer to get to South Africa from Europe than it takes to get to London from the States.  You might not think so at first but those 11 hours on our last flight don't lie.

Well, thats all for this one.  I'll try to get another post out here soon. Oh, a note to any of our dear friends and family who may be thinking of coming to see us and find themselves intimidated by the length of our travel and the notes of how tired we are.  Remember, there are direct flights to South Africa from the States.  Also, keep in mind, we had packed our apartment (with the help of some wonderful friends) said goodbye to families and friends we love as though they were our families and we also traveled around before we left.  So our tiredness is different than yours would be in coming.  It was the culmination of many things to get here, so don't be scared!   We will be grateful for your hugs and the great time we would have. Also, you could pet lions. I mean, that's worth it right? ;) Just sayin. 

Benin City

Although as a general rule we stayed inside Bethel walls in Nigeria except for meetings and field service, we did have one opportunity to go fabric shopping in Benin City in the middle of our stay.  A Bethel bus with a driver was organized and we prepared for our trip.  How does one prepare if the bus is all organized?  Well, one must keep in mind that public restrooms in this market are non existent.  However, if you get dehydrated it's a drag.  A careful balance must be maintained.  You must drink no more or less than you sweat.  It's important to be hydrated BEFORE you leave too.  So, the night before I made sure to drink plenty of water.  And then I woke up early and drank 2 or 3 water bottles, finishing my last bottle about 2 hours before we left.  That way I could meet my needs in my own very nice western bathroom and still be hydrated.  Then, you don't start drinking water again til you begin sweating.  I prepared a re-hydrating salt and sugar water bottle and we took a few other water bottles too.  We drank them all. And we had to buy sodas too.  And we didn't have to go to the bathroom til we got home.  We left around 8:30 and got back around 4 or 4:30 I think.  

We really enjoyed the market, it reminded us in many ways of Myanmar's markets.  There are colors and people everywhere:

The drain in the middle is for the rainwater.  And if you DO have a bathroom emergency, that's pretty much it as far as we knew.  So as I said, prepare in advance. :)  And stay out of the drain.  It had rained recently though, it was pretty clean looking.

Stacks of fabric in every color.

You might notice that there aren't many people in our pictures.  This is because, as I've mentioned before, taking pictures in the open is difficult there, you have to have permission.  The best thing is to take a picture without permission is to take one of your friend, and place them on the side and crop them out later if you don't want them in the picture.  That way, people will not realize what you are doing.

As we walked along the stalls we were constantly greeted.  We carried magazines in our hands and gave them to many of the people we talked to.  And some would even approach US and ask for them.  I think I placed 12 and so did Matt, and we ran out too!  Should have brought more!!

One stall was owned by a sister and she was so kind to us.  She gave us tips on prices and let us take a picture with her:

People were selling other things besides fabric, such as these snails, a delicacy:

These are just like the snails I liked to watch in Myanmar.  They don't eat them there though, at least not where we were.  These were still alive so you can guarantee freshness. They are the size of your hand.  The foot in the left corner gives a little perspective. There were lots of exotic foods to see:

Our friends took us up to the top of a nearby building so we could see market and city from a different perspective.  After a little altercation with some shopkeepers/bouncers that were offended we didn't go to their shops, we prevailed and took our pictures:

And just in case you were thinking you had too much water to drink:

You will have to find another place.

 We were glad to be able to take some pictures of the ladies of the market.  They are so busy here:  

They are so good at balancing!

Such lovely colors.

After our photo op we went to our meeting place.  We had to move locations though, as there was a fuel shortage on and we didn't want to be involved.  Our driver found us and we and got home safely, and mostly hydrated!

Also, Matt likes this picture we took on our way home, it's just random:

See the Mercedes getting buried by dirt?  No need to move it!