Costume Party!!

After a long awaited time, due to technical difficulty a.k.a. no computer, i have finally posted some pictures of all the great things that have been going on from January to March!! So sit back, relax, drink a coke and enjoy!!! We'll start with the month of January, and of course with any new year you need to start out with parties....so I started the trend with celebrating my 26th birthday (Jan.6) by having a braai, then we moved on to having an ice cream welcome back party for the FYF group, then we had a big blow out with our Costume party for everyone!! The costume party was a big hit, and let me tell you i saw some pretty creative outfits!! I dressed in my normal attire as a Queen ;) We all had a great time!!!!

Everyone had a blast!!

Girls just wanna have fun, Girls just wanna have fun!!!....and we did!!!

Don't let the costumes fool you those are my responisble supervisor's Kittie and Randy!

Mission Team!!!

Back in January we had a team of 8 university students and 2 leaders come to Botswana from Union University in Jackson, TN. They had so much energy, well at lest after they slept the first day, but they where really great. Our students just loved them!! It could have been from the special guest visit of Napoleon Dynamite, but i don't know. Yes, we had just showed the movie the week before so the students where really into it when "Napoleion" started to dance!! See just another thing university students have in common across the world!!! Anyway the team did a good job while they where here. They help out in an AIDS daycare center in the morinings, then came over to UB in the afternoons, and also led our student retreat! It was really good to have them around!!

Union University mission team!!

All the way from TN.....it's Napoleon!!! The crowd went wild!!

Youth and Children's Day!!

The mission team was also ask to help out one Saturday at Bosele Baptist Chruch. They where suppose to do a youth program at the regular time the youth group met, but i think more kids came then youth, which was fine since we had enough people to make two groups. We had to go out and inivite the youth/kids to come, which is always fun i think. One thing i love about kids everywhere they are so open, friendly and trusting. They would just walk up to us and grab our hands or wave at us. Some of them even followed us around just wanting to know what was going on. It was a great day!

When we went out, the children where pretty easy to find since they where already having a good time playing football/soccar...so they just kick their ball along to follow us and see what was up....they ended up staying at the church and had a good time!

Prince, the little guy on top, was such an active little fellow. I think he used all of us as his own personal jungle gym!!

These little guys where so cute...the one in the middle was a big help with the little kids, but he was also very funny because he wouldn't come with us till he went home and changed his clothes, he said that what he had on wasn't nice, so he wanted to put something else on nice. Well he was the little man when he showed up.

After we had went out and got the kids we all came back to the church for some songs, stories, and lots of fun!

She wanted to show us how it was really done! How cute is she?!!

Student Retreat!!

This was sooo much fun!!! Each semester we have a universtiy student retreat, and this was bigger then any before!! We had to move to a new location because of the size of our group!! How awesome was that?! It was a cramed packed retreat from early morning wake up calls to dancing the night away with a dance compation that really just turned into a big blow out after the "compation" was over. Yes, i even made an appreance on the dance floor!! We also had a snake come into the girls dorm... it was kind of funny all the girls where screaming outside the door and backing away and we had to hold the guys back from going in the investagate!! Besides all that we really did get down to our theme of the weekend "the cross-centered life." We talked about everything and how above all Christ should come first. The best part of the weekend came when one of the girls gave her life to Christ!!! It couldn't get much better then that?!!

Group shot of everyone at the retreat!

These are some of the guys at the retreat, all of them are great and added tons of laughs to our weekend!

Metho (L) and Juby (R) take time out from talking to smile for the camara!

Board games are one of the must haves at a retreat!

Game Drive!

OK, so you know we're in Botswana which just happens to be the home of the Big 5...which is the big 5 must see animals in africa....so of course we went on a game drive one afternoon at the retreat.

When the sun goes down, or in this case hides behind a cloud out come the blankets, but nothing could keep us away from the game drive!

Did you know the older a giraffe is the darker his spots are?! Just a little fact thought you might want to know...

Simon shows just how close and personal we got with the elephants!!

FYF Birthday Party!!

So every month, we try to do something fun with our FYF group. Since we had just went on the student retreat last month we or i should say the girls decided to have a great big birthday party, with tons of food, lots of laughs, and loud music!! Let me tell you that i love my FYF group, they are always so much fun and no one else knows how to party like they do!!

(L-R) Thelmah, Noma, and Kgomotso are waiting for the birthday cake to make their wishes!! Happy Birthday girls!!

Sun City!!

While the students went home for the short break, i went down to Joburg, only for a day, but it was still fun. I went with my friend Jillian and her family, we had a good time. Acutally how could you not when you get to splash around in water?! We went to a place called Sun City which has a "water park" if you will, in the middle of it for the kiddies to play in. Of coures that's where i was. It was unlike anything i've ever seen. They really tried to make it look like a real beach, and they did a pretty good job of it too. The sand wasn't the softest i've ever felt, but it did provide for good free pedicure, by softening my feet :) They even had their own version of a "lazy river."

This is just the begining, after you walk down the walkway and by the monkey fountain, and get your ticket....

You get to walk out onto this beautiful "beach." Hum, i've come to love water so this was so amazing to me, it was great!!

Team Building!!

So as the leadership team of our campus minstry, we held a team building day for all team leaders and memebers. We had a great time! KG, my friend and co-worker, led the group. Come on like you can't have fun with popsicle sticks!!! One of the task was to work together in steps of course to build a bridge that 1 little car could pass under and 1 big car could go over. Everything looks easy right? Well that's till you get to the part of drawing your steatch and building WITHOUT talking!!! Oh yeah, i think i may have pick up on some grunts, and groans to get a couple of points across! As you can see it all truned out great!! Plus we had pizza for lunch!

If we all put our heads together something great will happen!!

Ta-da, look what a little team work can do!!

Two Good-byes, and one Hello!

Well, what can i say good-byes are somewhat a way of life over here. Although it was hard and strange to say good-bye to one of my really good j-friends this month. Reema, who lived and worked in Francistown finished her term and is making her way back into life in the states. It's just strange to think that she is not here. I mean when Brandy (my roommate & fellow j-girl) & i lived in Masunga we always hung out with Reema & Stacie. It was like we where the 4 j-girls of the North. We did everything together like going to Zim, rafting, almost drowing, to walking with the lions & swimming with the elephants. Everything, all the youth events, sharing ups and downs in minstry, you name we did it...we'll name it if it won't get us into trouble...but you get it. Although, i know i'll see her again in the states and maybe even at seminary...oh the fun...I also said good-bye to Will who was a fellow missionary in Gabs with King's Foundation, which is a sports minstry program based in the UK. I do believe that he left quit an impression that few will forget with his break dancing skills, and his love of sports. I wish both of them well, and great sucess in where ever they go. Good-bye...

From L-R, me, Reema, and Shawna smiling for one more picture together in Africa before we have to say good-bye! Reema you are going to be missed so much!!!

Saying good-bye to William

This is our Young Adult Bible Study, we usually divide up into 2 groups but we all came together to give Will a good farewell.