Veggie Tales

Making muddy memories.

What an amazingly big flower blossom!

Veggie Tales

Paul has been preaching this week on farms. These must be HUGE farms because he’ll have as many as about 300 workers listening to him at a time.

The first day, he came home with a box of avocados (yum!) and a jar of honey (double yum!) that they had given.

The next time he preached at a chicken farm and arrived home with two packs of chicken (take a little break here and make sure it’s thawed out to cook for lunch).

Another farm gave him SEVEN large bags of sweet potatoes! Sweet potato casserole, here we come!

Now he wants to know why the explosive factory where he preached last week didn’t give him any explosives :-). Actually, the owner of that company and his family kept us and fed us for two weeks, and we swam in their pool every day. Also they tracked down a South African supplier of chalk art paper and bought us 300 sheets. That's probably good for 7 or 8 months. Matt Bowman has good, inexpensive chalk art paper in America http://www.eternityarts.com/, but airmail to Africa is very expensive.

Paul has been traveling with Pastor Johannes to all these farms so that the pastor could translate as well as help to find the places

We’ve been staying with the Frew family all this week. Dad, David left in the middle on his own missionary trip: up to Mozambique.

Our kids have loved being with their kids. They’re also Christian, missionary homeschoolers, and have a similar ideas of fun too, so that makes for lots of good fellowship. Yesterday the kids rushed outside to try to squeeze in a scene for Evangel’s Abraham movie before a brewing thunder storm hit. They accomplished their scene, but then “Ishmael” threw some water on “Hagar” (typical!) and it all degenerated into a massive water/mud fight. Cute. I think they made some precious memories, and I know they made another load of laundry.

That sinking feeling in Carletonville

Our journey continues, and we've left Carletonville behind, but I learned a lot there. One thing was that judgments like what happened to those Israelites can still happen. In Numbers 16 Korah, Dathan, and Abiram spoke against Moses, and ended up getting swallowed, not by a whale, but by the earth!

See that monument above? It's a memorial to a family that lived near there. Their house was completely swallowed by a sinkhole. We were told that these sinkholes are caused by dolomite. I'd like to research more about that, but for whatever reason, an entire house with a mom, dad and 3 kids, disappeared beneath the surface of the earth. I'm not saying it was a judgment on them, just that it still happens.

We were told that this family had just come home from a vacation. They were planning to leave again the next day to head to Cape Town, but they all died in their house. Freaky! But a good lesson on always being ready to go.

Carletonville is a mining town. The Main street is called Gold Street,

Other streets are

Opal St.

Mica St.

Sapphire St.

Dolomite St.

Anthracite St.

Kaolin St.

Talc Rd.

It's like a vocab lesson in mining rocks and terms! What a fascinating place to Google. Google Earth shows up the mines around the town.

The people there were kind to us and so enthusiastic about Paul's message. We hope to go back before too long.

What a day!

But we made it through without Paul getting sick. I'm thankful.

We left Carletonville before 6:30 a.m. to head for an 8 o'clock service in Johannesburg and only got home around 9:30 at night, so it was a full day.

We really enjoyed the church in Jo'burg. They had so many people that they have three services, each one geared for different people. The 8 o'clock one seemed to cater to older people, while the 10 o'clock one was primarily family groups. The 6:30 p.m. had a majority of singles. The music differed a little for each group. They had also started a church plant and some of their people were gone to support that baby church.

After the morning service we had to shoot up to Pretoria for a conference in the afternoon. Paul only had to preach once, so the kids and I took advantage of free time and went to other meetings while Paul put the seat back in the car and tried to rest a bit.

Josh and I loved our lesson on puppet shows, and I'm very charged to get ours out and in ministry again.

Evangel went to a music lesson and got some ideas to teach to her girls in Cape Town, while Timothy kind of floated between the two.

It took us less than an hour to get to Pretoria following someone, but we got a little panicky on the way back. Gypsy, our GPS, was supposed to guide us, but "she" doesn't know about construction sights, so it took more then an hour to get back to the Jo'burg church. We arrived back at church at 6:28 for the 6:30 service. Ooops. Not a lot of time to set up, but we all pitched in, and they sang a long time anyway, so Paul was ready to preach when it was his turn.

I had 3 near accidents in all that driving, and am VERY thankful that they were misses. One of them left us facing a bunch of grass wondering where the road had gone. Another one was just some slammed on brakes for a stop sign I hadn't seen coming. Got a lot of comments from the back seat on that one. So why was I driving? Two reasons: to help Paul so he can rest and because I've been feeling a little queasy with Paul's driving lately. I wonder why.

Ben and Marietjie McIntyre with their grandson Jonathan at the game park Bufflesvlei.



I'm "cheating" and using a picture from a self drive, game drive, we went on last year in Mokopane.

We've all got Kudu breath this morning which is a novelty. Our hosts, Ben and Marietjie McIntyre have gone way beyond the call of duty in feeding us and doing special things with us. Last night was super special. They took us on a game drive where we saw tons of wild animals---eland, running ostrich, zebra, and my favorite, three giraffe. We even saw reindeer! The reindeer are imported, so that's the first time we've ever seen those in Africa.

However, I couldn't take any pictures as my batteries had gone suddenly and completely dead in the camera. I was frustrated, but later relieved because we all wanted to stand up for the game drive, and I needed both hands to hold on. Evangel had her little video camera, but I'm not sure about putting videos on here.

While we out at Bufflesvlei, that game park, Paul received a wonderful call. A man called to tell us the story of his wife. She was in the Sunday night service and was unsaved. Paul preached "Hands Up" about how Moses had to keep his hands up for the Israelites to win the battle. He taught how we have to keep praying for each other to have success in our Christian life.

Anyway, the Holy Spirit worked in this lady. She picked up one of Paul's DVD's after church from the book table and took it home to start watching. She watched one sermon after another until about midnight! There are 26 on there. Then she got a booklet, I think in Afrikaans, that a pastor had written. She read that and around 2 a.m. was ready to pray with her husband for Jesus to save her. That's wonderful news!

Paul preached in three schools yesterday too. I must say, I've been so worried he's going to get sick again as his schedule gets busier, that I was even afraid to go on the game drive last night. This weekend is very full, but then Monday is totally free for rest so we'll try to keep him healthy til then.

First trip of 2010

Ahh, the perks the Lord provides! Our kids were not thrilled to leave Cape Town for the first long trip of the year, but look what was at the first house where we are to stay for a week! Not only that, our host is an explosives person, just the sort of thing our boys are interested in.
Sunday after church we went for lunch at the game reserve where their daughter lives. This Red Hartebeest has a funny expression.
This Wildebeest seemed to take things pretty seriously.
This mama giraffe suddenly went crazy on the game preserve and had to be shot for running through fences. Only after she was dead did they discover she was expecting the little one. Sad. I guess most expecting moms can sympathize with the "going crazy" feelings.
Our kids are enjoying the extra space in the new car.

Our new (to us) Kia Sedona.

The Youngs are off on their first family road trip of 2010! With great vim and vigor we packed and paid bills and generally ran around like chickens with our heads cut off on Thursday afternoon, to prepare for an early start on Friday. All was going well, until an ATM ate Paul’s credit card!

We’re glad that happened at home, because we had our handy Magic Jack for cheap calls to the States to sort it all out. I was able to get some cash on my card, and we got the rates paid, and James and Gloria have something to live on, and we got to pay a bit on our car insurance, and can pay the rest somewhere along the way.

Next glitch in the plans: I got insomnia. 1:19 saw me awake and aware, and that was the end of sleep for me that night. I think I could have dozed off around 4 when Paul got up, so I gave up trying and started helping. We were on the road at 5:05 a.m. heading to Worchester for Paul’s first two preaching appointments. I won’t mention any names, but one of us was really struggling with gritty eye/grouchy mind syndrome. A long day stretched ahead.

One of our missionary friends, Jonathan DeSeno in Romania, asked where we were going and I teasingly told him, north, of course. Where else can you go from Cape Town? Actually you can also go east, but we did head north, through the impressive Huguenot Tunnel which is about 4 kilometers long and makes me think of Princess Diana about every time we go through it.

Worchester is grape growing territory which has rich farms of vineyards in a rocky valley. The craggy mountains always speak to me of how violent The Flood must have been to have tossed up the earth so high. But I just squinted at them through fat eyes with less than my usual appreciation for their awesome beauty.

We got to the first school early, so Paul had time for another sandwich before he went in. There was a little break before the second one so we went to a brand new mall in between to try to work on the insurance. Paul went to the bank, while the kids and I went to check out some new wheely things that are like a j-board that isn’t connected in the middle. The saleslady made it look easy to glide on, but I wasn’t fooled. It’s way out of my coordination league.

At the second school, I went into a "coma" in the car, while the kids worked (I hope) on their school work, and Paul went in to preach. My coma got interrupted once by a little boy calling, “Tanie” (auntie) very insistently. His top had fallen through the school bars and he wanted me to fetch it for him.
After that school, we really felt “on the way.” My nap had perked me up enough that I could drive and Paul could rest. First stop, the Hex River Valley. I posted pictures of that back in July, I think. We love to stop there and buy grapes, fresh and chilled, from a Padstal (farm shop) with lovely bathrooms.

With grapes and sandwiches for lunch, we had no need to stop until Beaufort West, about 4 hours down the road, but we did stop. There were several construction stops, and once a tractor trailer’s trailer had turned over.

We made it to Colesberg around 6 p.m. and hunted a bit for a place to stay, though not long as we all wanted to get out of the car. Next came a hunt for food. The elderly hotel we were staying in had a limited selection of meals, all delicious looking, but none inexpensive. We decided to walk around to find something more economical.

Colesberg was in Friday-night-celebration mode with many people staggering around drunk already. We found a little fast food joint where we had eaten once before, but it was just closing. They sent us to another restaurant, but after we’d walked awhile in the dark, we decided that the hotel food might not be such a bad idea. It was DELICIOUS when we finally got to tuck into that stuff around 8 p.m.

Our hotel was on a hill, so I wondered if I’d sleep well, in spite of my tiredness, because of the noise of the Kwikka Likka next door, and the shifting of big trucks as they came up or down the hill. Earplugs to the rescue! I popped those in and was unconscious for the better part of 9 hours.

Breakfast was a repeat of the night before. Hotel’s too expensive, walk through the streets, can’t find anything else, back to hotel.

Traveling on the national highways in South Africa, is a lot like traveling on major roads in the USA, but there are some differences. Of course we drive on the opposite side of the road, but some other differences are not so obvious.

1. Yellow line driving is acceptable here. The yellow line is down the side of the road, so people commonly pull over into that area (stopping lane) to let others pass making for a better flow of traffic, though more risky for pedestrians.

2. After someone pulls over like that for you, it is normal to flash the car’s hazard lights at them to thank for the courtesy of pulling over. So nice and proper.

3. There are no rest areas like in the States, but the “Petrol Ports” are very nice. They have gas/diesel, a restaurant, a play area for the kids, and toilets.

Day 2 was peaceful in the car. The kids did book work since they had exchanged Thursday for Saturday as a day off. We crossed out of the Karoo (semi desert), into the Free State (one of South Africa's 9 provinces) which was greener.

Besides written school, the kids are listening to audio lessons from Vision Forum on historic battles. Those CD’s make the kilometers fly by.

Around 4:30 we arrived at the house of Ben and Marietje McIntyre where we are to stay for the week. Ben just called the kids together and lined them up like a captain giving orders. When they were nice and nervous, he pronounced to them, that they must feel free, and feel happy. They are to get drinks without asking. He told them he likes to spoil kids, and he doesn't know how he got so blessed to have this chance to spoil American kids. :-) Very nice!

They have a pool with a long, wet slide into it, so the kids and Paul had a long swim to get the travel kinks out, while I watched and shivered.