Children's Party

Before we left for Mozambique, we helped out with the children's party at church. The kids got small gifts, cards, candy canes, and lots of food. Just look at this little girl stuffing her face with cake!

Here's a picture of our friends Gofaone and Pere that was taken at the party. These two girls are an amazing example to the younger youth and children. They help us out in every way imaginable. Their friendship is a big blessing.

Fake Christmas!

Monday, December 18, we had "fake Christmas"! We cooked a big meal (including a turkey) and opened all our presents.

Here we get the turkey ready for cooking.

Here's our Christmas feast!

Here we are decorating Christmas cookies.

Thanks so much to everyone who sent me Christmas cards or gifts! I really appreciate everything you all do for me!

Baptism and Kid’s Pageant

So here are a few pictures of some things that happened before we left for vacation...

Sunday, December 17, Palapye Baptist Church had baptism. Six people were baptized including two of the boys from the children's ministry, Bebeto and Otsetswe!


Bebeto gets baptized.


Also that morning the children put on a children's pageant. Many of the kids can't speak English, but they proudly memorized their lines and delivered them perfectly. They even had costumes! Gofaone, Pere, Tsholfelo, and Leslie planned the program all by themselves! It's very encouraging to see the nationals take this initiative!

Mary, Joseph, and the donkey.


The Wisemen and King Herod.


The Whole Group.

More Meat!

Today we hung out in Jo-burg and went to this restaurant called The Carnivore! It specializes in game meat. I ate ostrich, kudo, hemsbok, impala, warthog, crocodile, eland, lamb, pork, and chicken. (That's a lot of meat). Here the guy cuts me off a slab of meat!It's always fun to ride hippos! Don't let them mislead you...hippos are the deadliest African animals.We also went to the Apartheid Museum. I haven't been to a museum in forever! Upon arriving, you were classified either white or non-white and had separate entrances. I wish we had had more time there!
Tomorrow it's back to Palapye after a long and refreshing holiday away!

Happy New Year!

For New Year's the hip young single missionaries went to a place called Monte Casino. There we enjoyed a lovely meal of meat. We ate at a restaurant called The Meat Co. Journeyman Nate tricked me into getting a piece of sirloin that weighed 500kg!! (ok, really only 500g...the metric system is so confusing!) Here I am with my incredibly large piece of meat! Yes, I ate the entire thing! I love a challenge!
This picture is just too good not to put up! (Kelly, Reema, and me)
The cool young single missionaries.

Prayer Retreat!

After Mozambique we went to Johannesburg for our cluster's annual Prayer Retreat. It was a great time to be with other missionaries and hear their exciting stories about ministry all over Southern Africa.

Here's a picture of missionaries and their kids playing crab soccer. (The journeymen were in charge of games...haha). We also got to enjoy some of the other niceties of Johannesburg! McDonald's is quite a treat! (Never thought I'd say that!)

I like to spend some time in Mozambique...

After a long journey we arrived in Vilanculos, Mozambique. Here's some random pictures from our vacation!

This is the house that we stayed at in Vilanculos. It was huge and absolutely gorgeous! We even had our own private pool! The only problem was that the power went out every night! That's Africa for you...
Kelly, Crystal, and I eat some stuffed crab. We enjoyed a lot of seafood this week!
One morning we got up really early and watched the sunrise. The sun rises here at about 4:30am. Needless to say, we all went back to bed afterwards.
Crystal and I pose in front of the beautiful Vilanculos beach.
We bought 10 crabs for less than $2 (US) and decided to try our hand at cooking some seafood dishes. We had some amazing crab casserole!
One day we went out to the "boat graveyard." When the tide comes in, all the boats are in water. But during the day you can walk all around them. Obviously this ship doesn't go anywhere.
That night we cooked coconut shrimp and cajun seafood pasta. It's a lot of work when you have to shred the coconut straight from a fresh coconut!

Christmas Day!

Christmas day we went out to Benguerra Island off the coast of Mozambique. We hired a speedboat and spent some time on a deserted island and snorkeling. We also got to see dolphins and look for pansy shells (sand dollars). It was quite an untraditional Christmas! That night we dressed up and went to eat seafood (of course)!

Snorkeling! We saw tons of fish and even got to hold some weird sea creatures whose names I can't remember!

A tired Emily poses with the island in the background.


The J-girls looking hot at Samara's for Christmas dinner!

Tofu Beach!

After we left Vilanculos, we headed down the coast and went to another beach called Tofu beach. Our residence was not quite as luxurious as in Vilanculos...we stayed in a backpackers lodge right on the beach.

Tofu beach --the most beautiful beach in all of Mozambique! Look at those waves!The shack we stayed in at Tofu...yes, it's made out of reeds and no, that does not make it any cooler at night!
Crystal, Reema, and Shawna braved the waves and learned how to surf!

Real Africa!

For Christmas the Journeygirls went to Mozambique. Upon arrival we realized how different Mozambique was from our "westernized" Botswana. Mozambique is "real Africa"! Here are some interesting pictures we took along the journey to Vilanculos, Tofu, and Maputo.

Women carry water jugs on their heads to get to water from the communal tap.

Traditional Mozambique houses.People selling things everywhere on the side of the road.

Buses piled with luggage and other things...sometimes people...sometimes even goats!