Sweet little Lily slept through most of the celebration.
Kevin is staying in the flat next to us and drives to work with on Colin most days. They stopped at a road side vendor one day to look at the metal ostriches for sale pictured below.
Below is a picture of the current FMS Maun staff, in January another person will join the staff to fill the gap of Julie's volunteer office help.
The lovely Kowalski children pictured below, drop by the office occasionally when in town with their mom. Lily is growing fast and is very a happy baby. We really have been blessed by having the Kowalski family as part of the FMS team here. 
Colin still has to spend some nights out at Jack's camp. October and November were very hot, but the rains started toward the end of November. In the photo below, you can see the clouds building in the sunset. When it is hot during the dry season, clouds are and exciting sight.
With the rains, all the bugs return. Every year there seems to be new ones we have yet to experience. They come in all sizes and there are always lots of beetle types. The one by the watch was found in Colin's pants pocket one morning.
Colin is always on the lookout for new birds and has only identified a fraction of varieties present here. A Melba finch is pictured below.
Hercules has pretty much adopted us and even sleeps outside on our patio at night. He is pictured next to a worn out shoe that Colin snapped a picture of to send to our son in Alaska. Colin cannot find size 13 shoes here, so our son sent him new shoes. We brought two pairs back from the states when we were there a little over a year and half ago. The sand here wears everything out.
Colin also had some fun shooting squirrels with Jacob Kowalski's BB gun. The deal was that Jacob would get all the hides. Hercules was around for all the action and has become quite a squirrel dog now. Colin is keeping up his skinning skills for our return to Alaska.
Misheck and Debra's little boy, Brain, turned two on the 10th of November. We went over the night before to take gifts as both of us were working the next day. He loved the truck best.
Julie has been totally focused on her group of children in Standard 1 and 2 these last few months. In the photo below, the class had been studying about animals. Since animals are living things that can move, the students made masks of their favorite animal. Then the student in the middle of the circle called out either "nocturnal" or "daytime" animal, and if their animal was one that was active at that time, then the students had to quickly move to another spot. The students had lots of fun and were learning at the same time.
The class also took a field trip to a local game farm and lodge owned by the school to tie into the same unit. It was a fun filled day and there were lots of animals to be seen on the walk around the property. Julie was blessed to have an aide, a volunteer, and a short term missionary to help with all the students this term. Everyone in pictured in the next photo while on our field trip.
The short term missionary had her last day in class just before Thanksgiving. She was a huge help and the children and Julie loved having her as part of the class.
Thanksgiving was spent with other Americans and hosted at the home of the founders of The Love Botswana Outreach Mission. This was our forth year celebrating together and each year the gathering has been growing. There were close to forty people this year, though not all were Americans. The turkey has to be specially ordered ahead of time and has been a real treat each year. Of course there was plenty of other good food to go along with turkey.
There was so much food inside the house, that all the deserts had to be placed outside.
As the school year draws to a close for this year, it was also time to take a term break from Sunday school. Many of the children attend the government schools and finished at the end of November. Attendance drops off a bit during term breaks, as some of the children go to their family cattle posts. For the last Sunday school of this year, the students shared a couple songs with the church.
Julie has worked with a great bunch of local kids to train as helpers to give out drinks and snacks after class. This next picture is of two sisters, Thapelo and Pretty, in addition to two brothers, Obekeng and Mompati. The helpers get to wear a name badge that acknowledges to the others that they are the ones to help that week. Badges, uniforms, etc are worn with pride and note position.
After a review of the 3rd term lessons, it was time for "prize giving". The kids that had good attendance all year were given certificates and allowed to pick out a brand new T-shirt that had been sent to us from family in the states. Notice Abby and Jacob getting their certificates in the next photo.
The shirts had come from Cypress Gardens when the amusement park had closed down in Florida. In addition to the certificates and shirts, students also got Bibles, book marks, and to pick out of the prize box.
For children that have so little, it was quite an event.
They were all so proud of the new shirts and wanted the tag left out to be seen. Everyone would then know they had a new and exclusive brand shirt.
Notice all the tags intentionally left on the outside of each shirt in the picture below.
Thapelo and Pretty in their shirts are pictured below. Notice that Pretty also made sure her helper name tag could still be seen.
Here are more kids coming out of the classroom for snack, wearing their new shirts.
Obekeng in his shirt.
The last week of school was extremely busy for Julie with parent/teacher conferences, practice for the Christmas play, and a class party. For the play, each class was representing a country and Julie's class was assigned China. She was also expected to have a class booth with a few items of Chinese food to sell as part of a fund raiser. Fortunately, she had a couple of parents that assisted and prepared spring rolls and sweet and sour chicken.
Parents were asked to provide costumes and the class made a few additional items such as hats and Chinese lanterns. There was an award ceremony before the play and as people sampled food items of the represented countries, all the students had to change into costumes. Pictured below are a few of Julie's children on their way to the stage just before the show began.
Every class had a song to sing and a few students with speaking parts to explain the Christmas traditions of their country. The next photo is of some of Julie's kids as they sang their song.
The next day after the Christmas concert, Julie had a class party to close the term. There were games to play with the ice cream ball sent from the states by our son. It was a fun way to make a special treat to go with the birthday cake for Jesus.
After making the ice cream with the game ball, it was time for cake. It was a full day of fun, with a swim party to close the day.
Just for fun, here are some pictures and news from around the airport. Colin noticed one of the airport employees had posted a picture of her son while visiting the family cattle post. He asked to scan it, because it was so funny that we had to share it also. There are advantages to living on a farm when you are hungry and Mom just won't listen!
FMC has new VGs to add in performance.
Flying Mission Services is now in a partnership to be flying a 737. It arrived in Gaborone shortly before Colin had to take one of the planes from Maun down there for maintenance. The new 737 is pictured below.
We are heading to Mozambique shortly to spend some time with friends there and will return just before Christmas. Our time is growing short here with only 6 more months before returning to Alaska. This will be our last blog before the holidays, so we would like to wish you all a very blessed Christmas and wonderful New Year. Thank you so much for staying in touch with us through this blog, it really means a lot to us!
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