Catching Up Part 2: Little K

Before I go any further, I want to talk about one of the most heartwarming experiences of my life. My time with the children of the Lorato House of Love

Catching Up Part 1: Getting back to Bots

It's high time I get back to this blog. My opportunity to have gone back to Africa for a month last year was a huge blessing, and something that I don't want to take lightly. I was able to reconnect with old friends, kids I had fallen head over heels for, ministry partners, etc. I became a coffee drinker on this trip! I was able to walk with lions, ride elephants, and pet cheetahs. I went back to Victoria Falls. I  helped out in Children's Church. I spent time helping at the school...I mean, there was so much! I was just in Heaven all over again.

Going to Actually Follow Up With More Posts

I had a very hard time coming back to write more about my time in Africa after the last post, but I am finally ready to do it. So once I have time to sit down and get started on this (not now, because I am getting up in 4 hours to take my sweet friend Mason [Bots! What what!!] to the airport). Anyway, this is me officially declaring my intent to share the joy of Botswana 2011 with you. Just give me a few more days....

The Accident

*NOTE: I apologize if this post consists of a lot of rambling and incoherent thoughts. It's a difficult subject to tackle, and things that I am going to write about are still jumbled in my head a bit. Also, some of the details could be incorrect. This is just my experience and how I personally remember the events*

Many people who come to this site are ones who personally know me or have heard about this site from my friends and family. So most people who are here have likely already heard about the incident that took place when I was visiting Botswana this past Feb/March.  If you have no clue what I'm talking about, you'll understand shortly. Now, I want you to also understand that I had an amazing time out there and I am working on some posts to talk about the trip in general and the wonderful things I saw and experienced this time around. However, I felt like I was only fooling myself by trying to avoid talking about the incident, so I couldn't bring myself to finish any of those posts until I wrote about the incident that took place on March 2, 2011 (which I just realized is actually a month ago today as I write this).  So here goes (deep breath).

Victoria Falls Part 2

Ok, so it has taken me over 2 months to get back to this blog. When I have so much to say, so many pictures to look through, I tend to get slightly overwhelmed and back off until I feel more ready. So back in January, I had a lot of different things going on in my personal life and couldn't face the task of dealing with this blog. Then February came, and I had an opportunity to get back to Botswana (more on that in posts to come). So now that I am back and a little more settled in my life, it is time to pick things back up and tell you about my time in Victoria Falls, March of 2010!

As I mentioned in my last post, I was looking forward to this Monday being the best day of my life. On the agenda: a trip to the falls, a stop at the curios market, jumping off a cliff, an elephant back safari, a dinner at the Boma, and a nighttime safari drive. What could possibly ruin this day? Waking up with the most violent stomach ache that I could hardly stand up straight.  Well, I wasn't about to let that get in my way! Let's do this!

Victoria Falls Part 1

Well, it has been quite a while since I've attempted to post about something that actually happened while I was in Botswana, and I think it's time I do something about that!  So, without further ado...here's Zimbabwe!

Heaven on Earth

Breakdown.

I am sitting in a coffee shop in Minneapolis right now, putting off some things I actually need to do by looking through pictures from Bots.  Of course I break into tears in public again (this happened at another coffee shop 2 months ago after I had a chance to Skype with my beloved Brenda and see some of the children from the Lorato House of Love).  I miss Love Botswana so much...man alive, did the Lord put a burden on my heart for the place and the people there.  Anyway, thought I'd share some of the pics that did me in:

This was after spending a few hours with Mma Sibingole's family.  The little ones changed into their best clothes for us.

Sehitwa

Well, 4 months later and I am now finally getting ready to finish out some of my stories from the last month or so in Africa.  Up first: the visit to our branch church in the village of Sehitwa!

Sehitwa is Pastor Sunny's church, and is a couple of hours outside of Maun.  The girls and I loaded up the van with all of our camping equipment, drive into town, picked up Pastor Sunny and hit the road.  The only thing to note from this drive was that I finally saw my first black and white cow in Africa.  Kirsten and I (the midwestern gals) got excited, and everyone else yawned.  That was that.

Our church!

Once we arrived in Sehitwa, we pulled into the church property and started unpacking.  Within about 3 minutes we already had a hoard children surrounding us.  You definitely make a splash when 7 white girls show up in a village of a couple hundred people!  We got to work right away on cutting the grass with slashers (think of machetes, but duller).  One of my interns (Heather) was an all-star with this.  She grabbed a slasher and went to work, and while the rest of us were taking turns with the other slasher, she finished half the property.  It was nice to have her along, that's for sure!  The best part of that experience was having 7 year old children take them from me to show me how it's done :) The kids were so sweet and so talkative.  I was videotaping a group of about 5 of them as they were teaching me Setswana; it was great.  Anytime I repeated something correctly, one of the boys would say (so encouragingly) "Yes!  That is correct.  Well done!"  After we did this for a while, I was going to play back the video for them and sadly discovered that I had never pressed "record."  The kids were disappointed, but not enough to re-enact the scenario for me.  So now I don't have any video of that.  Bummer.

After we got the tents set up and finished slashing the yard, it was time to split up into 2 groups and begin evangelism in the village.  In all honesty, this type of ministry pushes me out of my comfort zone more than any other, and definitely challenges me each and every time I did it.  This time was no different.  We spent quite a bit of time in one woman's home, having a lovely conversation with her about her family and life, and then things took a turn.  She explained that it is so difficult to make any money in the village (which I completely understood- in all honesty, I don't know how anyone could make money there).  Because of this though, she was struggling to feed her children and admitted that she felt like a failure and has been contemplating suicide. What do you do with that?? We did our best, and I still think of her and pray for her often.  I hope that she's giving church another chance.  Anyway, we spent about 2 hours doing evangelism (while getting attacked by millions of ants), then met back up at the church/campsite.  It was time for Saturday night youth group!  All of the kids returned, along with about 20 teens, and we had a great service that the youth led.  I just can't get enough of our branch churches.  The cute little boy who was teaching me Setswana earlier sat with me during the service, and he knew my favorite song was "Jo Na Na" and he kept trying to request it for me.  When they finally sang it, he grabbed my arm and gave me a huge smile.  The memory of that is bringing a huge smile to my face as I type this.  Goodness, I miss Africa.

Home

I am back in Minnesota, safe and sound after 30 hours of travel.  I will spend some time over the next few days to go back and share stories from my last 7 weeks in Botswana, as well as let you know what it's like to readjust to life in America.  Hint: I cried in Target twice...and not tears of joy.  Eish.

Truth be told, I am so happy to be back with my family (and of course the hubby).  I feel like I saw them 3 weeks ago though!  It doesn't feel like 7 months have passed.

Anyway, I need to get some sleep.  I only slept for about an hour and a half on my 16 hour flight from Jo-burg, so time to crawl into bed (in fact, it's 4:15am Bots time, so I feel like I'm missing another night of sleep).  My prayer is that the jet lag wont be nearly as difficult to deal with this time around.  It took me nearly 2 weeks to get over when I went to Bots back in September!

Love to all!  Sala sentle!

Getting Ready to Leave

I still have many things to update this blog with- children's ministry, our trip to the branch church in Sehitwa, our trip to Vic Falls...but at the moment the only thing that I can think about is the fact that I am leaving Botswana in two days.  I have been an emotional rollercoaster the last few days.  At one moment I am ready to head home and see Roger and my family again, and the next I am weeping because I don't want to leave.  These past 7 months have been some of the best of my life.  I have learned so much, grown so much, and loved so much.  I am head over heels crazy about the people in Maun.  Not just the kids (which, if you have read my prior blog posts, you would know has definitely been the case); I have met some amazing people while working at the school, ministering at the church, and helping with the women's shelter.  I have made some very dear friends that I will have trouble keeping in touch with, as most of them don't have access to computers at all.

I am nervous about returning to the states.  In all honesty, I'm not looking forward to it at all.  I like the slowed-down pace of Africa; I love the ministry opportunities; I love spending my evenings at the baby house (rescue center).  I love getting kissed on the nose every week after children's church by Shawn, one of our 5-year olds.  I love looking at the clock at 10am on the weekdays and heading down to the offices to hang with the teachers over tea time.  I like getting frustrated at the donkeys, cows and goats that wont move out of your way on the road.  I like driving stick shift on the left-hand side of the road.  Eish, watch out, drivers.  I'll be second-guessing myself for weeks, I'm sure.  I love saying "Dumela, mma!" to every lady I pass on the road.  I love how I have to touch my right forearm with my left hand when shaking hands or transferring items.  I love seeing our plot dogs, Big Man and Livingstone, happily wagging their tails as they roam the property.  I love my Thursday night LOST parties with the Claytons after church.  I love doing prayer line ministry in the church if I am not working in the children's church that Sunday.  I love sneaking off the plot with Dietra for lunches at Wine and Dine or Nando's.  I love stopping by the playground at school and having 30 kids run at me screaming "IT'S MISS ASHLEY!!!!" to each other and then getting tackled. I love my greeting with Pastor Sunny: "Hi, Pastor Sunny!" "Hello, my dear!  How are you?" followed by a big hug...and we do this every single time we see each other, even if it's 12 times in a day.  I love playing games with Dietra and Brenda.  I love knowing that I am living on the tip of both the Kalahari Desert and the Okavango Delta.  I love that I could go for a walk any day and see a giraffe if I wanted to.  I love that I go out for dessert so much that staff from 2 different restaurants have become friends of mine.  I love our dinner parties at the Lackey house.  I love playing "The Game" with Mason, Dietra and Godfrey in the pool.  I love the babies we are caring for.  I love that I am blessed enough to have spent 7 months with our little Olisego.  I love that you never know when a snake is going to pop up.  I love that when I see bugs, I can say "Oh, that's only a wall spider; those are good" or "That's a blister beetle.  No biggie, just don't let it touch you." I love making fun of Dietra for talking like a Motswana.  I love leading the Heart Ablaze Bible Study.  I love doing something meaningful every single day.

It's going to be an interesting adjustment, coming back to America.  For those of you who know me, please give me a grace period to readjust.  Don't be offended if I don't seem to want to be there; Africa has completely stolen my heart.

Game Park and Delta Ride

Shortly after Roger left, I took the girls on a walk in a park in town.  How cool is it that the town park has giraffes, zebras, baboons, wildebeests, warthogs, impala, and eland?  So cool.  We were there for about 2 or 3 hours.  Here are a couple of the pictures:

Rest of Vacation with Roger

I am over a month behind on this blog...oops!  I have been without internet at my house for about 6 weeks, so it's difficult to get online.  Poor excuse, I know, but it's true.

Wrapping things up with Roger...we got back from the Moremi Game Reserve Monday morning and took the day to relax and repack for our next adventure.  Off to the Tree Lodge!  We picked up my cousin Jacob and 5 of his traveling partners at the airport Tuesday morning, and took off for the Lodge.  When we arrived we went for a game drive, and then just rested.  This time at the Lodge was wonderful for the two of us.  We felt so lazy, but we basically just sat by the pool for 2 days straight.  At first it was difficult for me to be alright with just hanging out; I felt like we needed to be doing something at all times.  Once Roger convinced me that it was ok to take that time to just rest and breathe, I loved it.  Wednesday morning we all (including Jacob and the other Texas guys) went on a horseback safari early in the morning.  Talk about amazing!  I remember looking at my watch at one point, thinking "It's 7:30am and I've already seen 7 giraffe, 5 zebra, and countless antelope...I am so blessed."  We spent 2 nights at the lodge, and then it was time to head back home.

So, like I had mentioned before, Roger and I dealt with a stomach bug while at Little Kwara.  That passed, but when we retuned to Maun, Rog mentioned that he felt like he had a bug bite behind his ear.  While we were at the lodge, we realized he was developing a rash, and by the end of the second day, so was on.  On my eye.  When we got home to the plot, some of the missionaries sent us into town immediately to see the pharmacist (who is just as good as any doctor out here).  She took one look at us, asked us where we had been and then said that we must have been touched by a hairy worm while in Moremi.  She gave us some medication and treatments, but there wasn't much else we could do but wait it out.
Here's the thing about the rash...it didn't itch, it burned very painfully.  Rog had it on his neck, chest and arm, and I had it on my ear, chin and eye.  Lovely.  We pretty much spent the next 3 or 4 days shut in at my house, just laying on the couch and watching movies.  I didn't want to see anyone while I was dealing with this!  Not only was I crabby because I was in pain, but it was just so gross!!  I had to force myself to go to church.  By the time Sunday rolled around it kind of looked like I had been beat up, and I didn't want anyone to see me like that.  It took over a week for it to go away, so when it finally did, I was so happy!

The rest of the time we were together, we really had a great time just hanging around town.  We went out to all the different restaurants, spent time at the baby house, hung out with some of the missionaries, and just enjoyed each other's company.  It was really tough to say goodbye to him at the airport...tears were definitely shed, but it helped to know that we'd be back together in less than 2 months.

So, despite the stomach bugs and the hairy worm rash (ew!) we had 17 of the best days of our lives.  I can't wait to reunite with him on April 13 :)

Pictures' Links

Aha!  The moment you have all been waiting for...links to see all of the pictures from our trip to Little Kwara!
Enjoy:

Group One

Group 2

Day 3 at Little Kwara (Part 3)

Ok, plan is to finish up Little Kwara with this post!  I left off after we went back for our siesta time at the camp.  Rog and I spent some time at the pool again, just enjoying the sun, reading some books, and taking a dip in the pool.

We had two more men join our group that afternoon; they were from Germany!  What I loved about this place was that we had 2 Americans (me and Rog), 2 Germans, an Englishman and a Frenchman.  So diverse!

That afternoon instead of going on a game drive we took a boat ride on the Okavango Delta (world's largest inland delta).

Hippos!

It was a beautiful night.  So after we were done on the Delta, it was time to head back for dinner.  That night it stormed like crazy.  It raged all night long (beautiful lightening storm!) and unfortunately continued throughout the morning.  We were supposed to go on a mokoro ride (the dug-out canoes), but the rain kept us inside.  Then at 11:00 it was time to hit the road, and off we went to the air strip.  It was tough to leave...we had such a wonderful time!  Rog and I realized that it beat out our honeymoon for the best trip we've ever taken together.  Not easy to do!  

Day 3 at Little Kwara (Part 2)

After we were rescued from the snares of the hippo watering hole (slight exaggeration, but that's how I felt at the time), we drove off with no particular agenda.  As we were driving, we came back to the huge elephant femur...and I wanted to pick it up.  It was heavy!

See, I look strong, but in reality Roger had to pick it up and hand it to me, and then after about 10 seconds I had to give it back to him.

After that, we had our tea time and then headed back to the camp.  Right before we made it back there, we came across a warthog.

Ew.

Hee Hee Hee 

This is a short post, because I now have to run home and prepare for a meeting with Jerry and the girls.  I'll keep plugging away at this until I finally finish my stories from when Rog was here!

Jonathon Mark Bonnema

Today marks the 4 year anniversary of the accident that took my little brother's life.  Jon was a phenomenal kid, annoying younger brother, and one of my best friends.  I miss him dearly, and it's especially difficult today.  It's hard to be away from home this time of the year, but it will get better soon.  The hardest part this time around is that nobody here knew Jon.  The interns are so preciously praying for me and trying to offer encouraging words, but it's not the same as when I'm with people who knew him.

I am thankful that I get to go to Victoria Falls next week; I was telling my dad the other day that I feel like Vic Falls is the closest thing that we have on earth that resembles Heaven.  I get to experience a tiny piece of what Jon gets every single day :)

Seriously, can you believe this?

Day 3 at Little Kwara (Part 1)

The next morning we woke up early again and hit the road around 6:30am.  It was lion searching time!  We drove around for about an hour and a half or so without seeing a single animal.  Not one.  I didn't mind though...the scenery was beautiful, and I was listening to my "lion huntin' music"- The Lion King's "Be Prepared."  I just sat there with a silly grin on my face the entire time.  After a while, I was starting to get a little discouraged...if I wasn't going to see lions, I at least wanted to see something cool.  All of a sudden we turned a corner and it appeared we entered paradise.  There was a clearing, and we came upon hippos, an elephant, giraffes and zebras.  All together, just enjoying the day.  It was beautiful.  We parked our truck next to the watering hole with the two hippos in it.

The giraffe was eating, obviously :)

All of a sudden we turn around, and I feel like I am in the Jungle Book...a herd of elephants start marching our way from a distance:

They were marching in a line!  It was so cute.

And then they were upon us.  

Day 2 at Little Kwara

The next morning, Roger and I woke up at 5am (or so), had a lovely breakfast around a campfire, and then off we went to find cheetahs!  Our guide had heard that there 3 of them (they call them the Three Brothers) about an hour away from camp.  As we drove over there, we came across a few cool things:

An elephant femur!

A hyena!

Tons of zebras, and we were able to walk up to them!

The Three Brothers!

Picking Back Up...

I am almost 100% back to normal now...I went to the doctor, who thought I had pneumonia or bronchitis, and found out I had an upper respiratory infection.  That was comforting news!   I was put on antibiotics and some pain meds, and within a week I was feeling much better.

So, back to the story! I left off talking about the elephants and the hippos our first evening there.  Well, after that we went driving again and came across the giraffes as the sun was setting

After that, we had tea time, then drove back to the camp for dinner and crashed into bed.  That is the end of day one for Roger and Ashley's Safari

Interruption

I want so desperately to update this blog with more stories from my trip with Roger, but at the moment I am fighting some form of the flu and can't put together a single coherent thought.
Until I am better and able to write more, enjoy these two pictures!

Elephants rule.  That's all.