September 30, 2009

Clouds, rain (pula), and cooler weather have temporarily arrived here at the end of September. Before that, the days were hot and dry with ground temperatures up to 107 degrees Fahrenheit. Last year we did not see rain until the first week of November, with October being extremely hot. This cooler weather will probably be short lived, but enjoyed while it lasts. The picture above was taken on the road coming from the school Julie teaches at. When it has been hot and dry, gathering rain clouds are a welcomed sight.

This blog posting should be a bit shorter as we have been far too busy to do any major outings. Also, most of our days have been filled with work related activities. The second week of September, Julie started back to school for the last term of the 2009 school year. The school year starts in January and is structured with three terms of three months with a month break between each term. The students all seemed happy to be back and felt one month was plenty of time off.

During the first week Julie was back to school, FMS got a charter to do scenic flights for 45 students (ages 6 to 12) and 5 teachers from a school in Francistown. It was a big field trip for them, and they wanted to see the Okavango Delta from the air. Colin was scheduled for an overnight at Jack's Camp with the C210, so Keith was left to fly the group in the C207. It took ten flights of about 15 minutes each to take all of them on a scenic to fit the budget of the school. With Colin away from Maun, Julie took the morning off from school to help Patricia and Robert with ground support. The group filled the waiting area of the terminal and Julie brought books, paper, and colored pencils to help keep the students entertained as they waited. The teachers and students were all very happy with the experience as you can tell by the smiling faces pictured below.
Colin has continued to be busy flying, as the flight schedule remains consistently full. One day while on a holding pattern he was circling over our house and snapped the picture below. Our house has the large white roof almost in the middle of the picture. Next to it with a smaller white roof is the flat rental. Then our neighbor has the brown roof and the open lot right on the river. If you click on the picture, it should enlarge to get a closer look at the snapshot below.

He also sees wildlife daily while flying across the open bush country such as these zebra and an elephant at a water hole.

Before the recent rain, there were a lot of bush fires that created a layer of light ash on the C210. Pictured below, Colin and Robert did a one step auto wash and wax on the plane to get the ash off. After a hand wax by Colin, the airplane was five miles an hour faster.

For those of you reading this that are part of the aviation community, it is always interesting to hang around the airport and see the variety of planes coming in and out of Maun. The DC3 pictured below is part of a classic safari outfit coming through Botswana from South Africa.In addition, the airplanes registered in Botswana have an A-2 country designation just as the US has an N registration, but here in Botswana there are letters instead of numbers for the plane identification.
In Africa the letter "Z" is pronounced as the word "zed" as in most English influenced countries, which makes sense of the above registration (A t0 Z). Below are some more creative registrations.

Note that the above aircraft "PIG" is a diesel engine aircraft and appropriately registered. Also note that the A2-TEN is a Cessna 210.


And of course no matter where you are in Africa, there are always incredible sun sets.


The last week end of September, we were invited to a birthday braii (B-B-Q) with friends from church. They live about 30 kilometers from Maun on the Boteti River. It was a lovely evening, with great food and fellowship. Julie was even able to take a sunset boat ride with some of our wonderful friends here.




All through term 2 at school, the primary (elementary) students were learning songs and speaking parts for a special concert presentation called "The Giant Slayer." The concert was quite involved and it was decided to wait until the beginning of term 3 to complete the musical production. All the primary teachers helped the music teacher with the final preparations, and the last week before the show there were two practices daily and two dress rehearsals. The final performance was on the evening of September 28. Two of Julie's students had key roles in the story of David slaying the giant Goliath. Pictured below is one of her students who played David. He not only did the acting extremely well, but he also sang a lovely solo song. Many of her other students were either part of the Philistine Army (in black costumes) or in the Israelite army (in white costumes).


One other student was Goliath, and he sat on the shoulders of one of a tall secondary (high school) student so that he would tower above all the other students performing in the play.
The concert was outside in a small amphitheater at the school and it was a lovely evening for all who attended. To prepare for the presentation took everyday of the scheduled afternoon activity time. Now that the concert is over, Julie will start having Bible Club one day a week at the school again in the afternoon.

We continue to see colorful plants and birds everywhere here. Below is the FMS car, affectionately referred to as the "Jelly Bean", in the airport parking lot parked under a blooming bush.
Next is a Black Necked Barbet in a tree in our yard eating Papayas.
We are thankful for our continued friendship with Misheck and Mmatshimo who help care for the house and property where we live. They have become like family to us. Misheck takes such good care of the plants in our yard and is pictures below in the vegetable garden he planted for all of us to eat from. We are still waiting for Debra to deliver any day now. Please pray for a safe delivery of the baby and also continue to pray that Misheck's work permit paperwork will go through successfully.

An additional praise is that Innara has safely returned to Zimbabwe. She has tried to call a few times from there, but we have been disconnected each time. Our hope and prayer is that she will continue to grow in the knowledge of God's love for her and Gift. We trust they will remain healthy and happy there with her mother. Please pray that the Lord will continue to provide for her physical and spiritual needs.

Another praise is Daniel, our next door neighbor. When the Kowalskis were living in the flats, Daniel and his little sister were always over playing with Abigail and Jacob. When helping with the Bible camp in August, Cheryl invited him to come with us and he did. On the last night at camp, an alter call was given to see if there were any children that wanted to accept Jesus as their Savior and Daniel raised his hand. Since then, he has faithfully been attending church with us each Sunday. Cheryl and I were able to get him a youth Bible that he could easily understand, and he has been reading through it regularly ever since it was given to him.

As for us, we are so thankful to the Lord for the opportunity to be here in Botswana. We continue to seek direction and wisdom in ways we can help and encourage others that the Lord has placed in our lives. It is our hope that those we have been drawn to, "May be encouraged in heart and united in love, so that they may know the mystery of God, namely Christ." Colossians 2:2.