PHOTOS!

At Last! A long time promised and now finally here. Enjoy!

Dipuo enjoys the sprinklers on one of the hottest days.

Nkamo and Dipuo

Nkamo and Ariel after playing in the nice cool water.

Santie painting faces.

Shelaine helped too!

This little lady liked her face painted.

Nkamo and I with his artworkon my face! :)

Neme and her son with his face all painted.

Seeing all those faces being painted was thirsty work!

We returned tothe compound to find that the men had caught a snake when moving an old tent. It was still alive when we arrived, but here it's clearly seen better days.

It's a puff adder for those who are wondering. :)

Before this particular group arrived they prayed for rain on the dry world around us. Whilethey were there we were blessed with 39mm of rain. God is good and does answer prayer, so keep on praying!

(P.S. I do know the names of the children that aren't named in this update, but my relationship with them isn't such that I feel I can go publish it on the net. :)

Pretoria

Hi there everyone!
Well, it's not so much Marlene in Motopi anymore as Marlene about Motopi. :) As most of you will know by now, I kind of had to leave the country as I didn't managed to get my visa extended/residency permit/waiver sorted out. It's a bit of a paper work story, but the point is I had to be out on the 19th of May, which, thanks to my parent's visit, was very possible. I kind of cut their holiday in Botswana short though (Sorry again!). Thanks to all those people who have been praying about my visa and for my work. You can stop now for the first, but the second does continue. I must say that I take great comfort in the knowledge that all of this is in God's control and part of His plan, not mine! :)
So yes, After doing a rather rapid sightseeing tour with my parents I evacuated and am now situated in Pretoria. It's a very different world and something to get used to again. We arrived with the cold, making the daytime temperatures around 30 C colder than I was used to! The first week was a bit much. I was really tired and reached a point one afternoon when I just didn't want to see or meet another person anymore. After 3 months (with only short breaks) of seeing pretty much the same 2-3 people everyday, and the few village people, this was a whole new (very crowded) world.
I seem to have gotten past that and was very greatful to go along to a small bible study group of other people my own age (a first in 3 months, not just the study, but the people my own age as well!) on Sunday night at my aunt's church, which was really nice.
Another exciting thing, which gives me some assurance that I'm here for a reason, was that i've managed to organise someone from that same church (Reformed) to translate my lessons into Setswana. It's really great because i know that Mrs Cronje is pressed for time and it would take quite a while to get 92 lessons translated if she had to do it all by herself. I've typed up the first ten lessons and they are being printed today so that he (Seni) can get started. So please pray that this will go well.

I was also very glad to be here yesterday as I seem to have gotten some kind of stomach bug, which left me in a considerable amount of pain. It was really nice being able to come back to a warm home (not a caravan) with power etc and just sleep for most of the day. I'm glad to report that it's almost completely gone now and i'm able to get on with my work.

I have to appologise once again that there are no photos. my memory stick is at my uncle's work as he's printing off the lessons for me, so the photos are temporarily stuck on my laptop. :(
but i'll flick some on as soon as, this time it's a promise!

Well, that's about that for now. Please continue to pray for the work as i finish off the last few activities and it all gets translated. I hope to finish it all in the next 3 weeks.

Outreach Groups

Pretoria Group

The group from Pretoria came for almost a week. I went along to help working with the children 3 days that week. It was great fun, with face painting, drawing pictures and singing songs. The children loved the attention, but i won't go on because I wrote about that in my last email (I think) but here are some photos.
Ok, Maybe not. This computer keeps making things disappear so before i reach complete frustration i'm going to leave! Ill try update photos another day. So sorry!

The Tabazimbie group came after them, but I don’t have any photos sorry!

We then went to SA which ended up being for nearly 2 weeks in the end. On the way we saw an elephant, which was the first one for me since I’ve arrived.
I stayed at my cousin’s place for 3 days, which was really nice. They’ve got a large farm where they grow all sorts of stuff like sun flowers, corn, millet, beans etc. I was there when they started harvesting the corn, which was quite interesting and something I hadn’t seen before. From there I went to Pretoria and stayed at my Aunt’s place. While I was there my mum’s niece arrived from Holland. I hadn’t seen them since I was 7 so that was interesting and a good chance to brush up on my very lacking Dutch skills! Understanding it isn’t the problem, it’s speaking it, but I managed to communicate pretty well in Afrikaans with a fake Dutch accent!

After this I headed back to Motopi and here I am. I managed to finish the first year of Sunday school for the 7 and under group, which I’m really excited about. Thanks for all the prayers, I needed them, and they were definitely heard. The last 8 lessons came in 2 days! So now I’ll revise those. There are a few little things I want to change, just making the lessons more interactive. I kind of wrote them thinking somewhere in here I could add a question etc. Then remembered I’m not the one teaching them so I’ll have to put the questions etc in!
Anyway, I’ll take a day or two to do that, then I’ll start with the new testament lessons. I wrote the other one not thinking about school holidays, so I’ll write the new testament lessons shorter than 52 weeks, then together they’ll be a 2 year curriculum with holidays. (If that makes sense?)

Anywho, all in all it’s going well here. I’ll admit I needed that break to SA, but I have been much refreshed by it and hope to get a fair bit done in the next 3 weeks before my parents get here. (Something I’m looking forward to heaps!)

So till next time, God bless you and keep you! My He guide your paths and strengthen you each day!

It's 3 May now and the first chance i've had to get on email again. As mentioned above i can't update photos now though, so i'll try another time, or maybe a little later!