Loading Thatch

Dave and Jessica Bonvillian came to spend some time with us this last week. It was a blessing to see them. We were only able to get in one teaching session in Vincent's village because, as you can see by the pictures, we were interrupted by other plans (this is the way things go here in Zambia!).

After we arrived at our campsite, our friend Dominic informed us that the people from the village across the river were delivering the grass bundles in their mukolos (canoes) to the village of Mutanda on our side and that we needed to go and fetch them quickly because they were waiting. Oh dear.

So we dropped everything, sent a hasty text message to our friend Gavin Johnson and asked him if we could borrow a trailer. He was very gracious in lending us a spare boat trailer which we rigged (and I do mean "rigged"!) to carry three loads of 4-inch-thick, long grass bundles (600 bundles total). It was pretty funny because the trailer was designed for boats, not bundles of grass. It reminded me of some kind of team building exercise - a design your own hauling trailer competition! We changed our design three times and the by the very end of the second day, we got it right!

So what's up with all the grass you may ask? Well, this is what we will use to build the thatch roof on our base camp pavilion. A camp pavilion is a shelter (like the kind you see at state park campgrounds), that will house a kitchen, bathroom, and storage for each of the two
families. We will use this pavilion the whole time we are building our permanent homes. Then it will be for guests and teams to use when they come to visit.

We submitted to the Lord's change of plans over the next two days and it felt good to take the first real step to getting established out in the bush. We are hoping to have the pavilion finished before the rains begin at the end of October. Then we can stay for longer periods of time and really devote our time and energy to learning Lozi!

Trip to Sioma, Zambia

This past week we spent in the home of IMB missionaries, Daniel
and Sky Scott. We had an amazing week! What a blessing from theLord! We worked on learning some Lozi using a method called PILAT. Aunt Sky gave Morgan some piano lessons! We took several boat rides, swam in the Lumbe River, took the boat up river to see Ngonye Falls, sat on the deck overlooking the Zambezi and enjoyed sweet fellowship with a brother and sister in the Lord! Here are a few pictures.

Nathan and Shannon at Ngonye Falls. These falls are horseshoe shaped and are very beautiful. The river actually flows under the rock on on either side of the falls.






Nathan and Shannon climbing down the rocks to get closer to the Falls!!! They had a blast!!






The walk from where we parked the boat to the Falls took us about half an hour. Some of the way was very rocky. Quite an adventure for a 9 year old!!









Both Reece families at the Falls.





Piano lessons with Aunt Sky. Morgan was SO excited! It really gave her a boost to get back into practicing each day. Sky has a degree in piano! What an unexpected blessing from the Lord!






Dinner at Mutewma Lodge with the Johnson Family. Shan is a year older than Morgan and Kayla is a year younger. They also have a daughter, Tammy, who is four. They served us dinner around the campfire. Each table had its own tablecloth, candle and place setting. It was such a fun atmosphere and the fellowship so sweet! You can see more pictures of the lodge at their website

http://www.mutemwa.com/