Back from Kruger, in the Final Stretch

We are "home" safe and sound from Kruger- despite warnings that it's the end of summer and everything is overgrown and you might not see any animals, we saw probably thousands. Of the big five (Lions, Rhinos, Cape Buffalo, Leopards and Elephant) only the leopard eluded us both days. We saw an entire herd of Cape Buffalo cross the street by us. Dozens of elephants, hundreds of impala, two lions at different times, giraffes, hippos, crocs, warthogs, wildebeests, baboons, monkeys, storks, zebras, white and black rhinos, mongooses (mongeese??), and I'm sure I'm missing lots of others. Lynn, our tour guide, was wonderful-our accommodations were awesome, and it was a really good break- the girls and I had a chance to heal up a bit and get rid of our congestion (a drop in humidity helped a lot), and Dan's cough sounds a lot better too.

I'm still laughing about Kylie's and my time in the nursery this morning- Francisco (Fran-chee-sco), who will turn one on Monday, doesn't like to stay awake until 10:30 nap time. He literally fell asleep sitting up on my legs which had Kylie busting up laughing.

Kylie came with a mission to distribute some Gospel bracelets on behalf of her dear Awana's leader, Miss Lynn. Because we are discouraged from giving individual gifts to the kids here (partly there is a "beggar" mentality to overcome, also when you live in community with 300 kids, it's a little difficult to justify who gets something and who does not). But, this morning, Kylie felt led to give them to the three Tias (aunties), the Mozambican paid workers that work 96 hours on, 96 hours off in the nursery. We've come to have a good relationship with these three ladies so in my broken Portuguese we explained what they were for. You should have seen their faces light up and I could hear them "ooh"ing and "aah"ing over them and throwing out words like sparkly and shiny. It was a great blessing to Kylie.

We can't believe we only have four more days here. In some ways we feel like we've just begun. Though we don't really have a clear direction as of now, we are open to whatever the Lord wants to show us during the next several weeks as we return home and process all that we've seen, done and experienced.

There is about a dozen girls that we've adopted, (or rather, they've adopted us???) that we eat our meals with and hang out with during our off times. It's been neat to see them come to accept us and be able to joke with us and teach us some Portuguese.

We love you and can't wait to share photos so you can be more a part of this, too! I will not take high-speed internet or automatic washing machines for granted!!