I’ve just not found the time (or motivation) to post anything. I’ve got some great pictures from my time in London with Andy and lots to talk about — once I get to it. Hopefully that will be sooner than later.
Thanks for hanging with me.
Here’s the caricature our friend Ro Diaz drew of Graham when we were in Kenya.
When it was Graham’s turn to be drawn by Ro, he walked up to front of the room, sat on the chair and said very seriously, “I want to be on a moto jumping off of a ramp.”
We cracked up when Ro told us about it. He loves riding things with two wheels and I don’t doubt that someday, he’ll be doing something like what is pictured in real life!
On Monday, I drove down to Lome to renew our Togo visas. (I had tried to do it in August but I was denied due to the fact that our visas were still valid for a month.) I was not looking forward to this process, but it had to be done as the visas expired… on Monday.
Since I asked many of you pray for my trip and our visa renewals, I wanted to let you know that the trip was successful and the hand of God was with me.
First, the grumpy customs dude who rudely denied my request to renew the visas in August was actually helpful when I made the same request on Monday. He suggested (demanded?) that I change the wording of my explanation of why we were in Togo - which could be seen as being nit-picky, but since he gave me whiteout and didn’t force me to do my work back out in the crowded lobby, I’m giving him the benefit of the doubt. (Beside you guys were praying for me so - influenced by a holy hand - his motives had to be partly altruistic right?)
A huge burden was lifted off of my chest when the visa applications were accepted with out a fight. Answer to prayer #1.
Answer #2 came when I returned to the visa office on Tuesday. They had told me that I could pick up our passports at 4pm — too late in the day for me to make the drive home to Kara. So, I arrived there just before noon hoping that they had the visas done AND would give me the passports.
Things were looking up when I saw that grumpy customs dude was not at his desk.
Then one of the other customs guys starts talking to me in Kabiye saying, “Hey there! What’s up? You remember me right?” I indicated that there was a good chance we had met before but that I couldn’t remember where. Turns out, he used to work the customs checkpoint I drive through every week to get to one of the villages where I work.
Things were looking WAY up.
After more greetings and pleasantries, I humbly inquired as to whether our visas were done and if so, could I please get them now so I could drive home. Since our common bond as Kabiye speakers had melted the bureaucratic ice, it was only a short matter of time before I had our 5 passports, which contained new Togo visas, in my hands. Praise God!
I thanked my Kabiye ‘brother’ and customs ’saviors’ and happy hit the road for home. I was home by dinnertime and reunited with my family a full 14 hours before expected.
Thanks for praying for this trip and our visas. Rest assured, those prayers were answered.
Resoundingly.
Here are some more pictures from our safari in Kenya…
This is the one male lion we saw with a big mane (the only we saw really well that is). He was hanging out near a stream and was kind enough to sit and pose for us. His size was very impressive. The picture doesn’t really do him justice.
After he moved back into the brush, our van got stuck in a huge rut. Our driver tried to get us out, but we ended up having to be towed out by the other van. It was bit unnerving to think that a huge lion was well within striking distance as they hooked up the cable. Thankfully, the lion stayed away and we got out the hole and on with the safari.
These hippos are in the Mara River, which is right along the Kenya-Tanzania border. We were lead on a guided walk along the banks of the river to look at hippos and crocodiles. We had hoped to catch a glimpse of wildebeests migrating across the river, but the timing just wasn’t right. Maybe next time…
Here is a decent picture of a zebra with lots of topis (a type of antelope) in the background. These species can no longer be found naturally W. Africa (although, the president of Togo has zebras in his personal game reserve which is not far from Kara.) It was really cool to see these animals ”in the wild”. Since he loves the movie Racing Stripes, Owen got a big kick out of seeing the zebras run and prance around.
I was looking at the blog today and thought to myself “there are a ton of animal pictures on this page.” The scary thing is that I’ve got at least 4 more posts full of safari pics in the queue. So, for a change of pace, I thought I’d throw in this picture. (For you safari enthusiasts, I put a new elephant picture in the header - in case you hadn’t noticed!)
While we were at the All-Africa Missionaries’ Conference in Kenya, Ro Diaz, our friend from Dallas and an awesome artist, did caricatures of the kids. The boys got to pick out what they wanted to be drawn as and Isaac liked the idea of being Superman. He wasn’t crazy about the exaggerated head size of the drawing and he complained when we put it up in his room. (Tracey and I liked the picture so we left it up, but only for a few weeks.)
For some reason, though, he didn’t complain about the extra muscles…
