Any Tree’s a “Lavatree” (And by that we mean a lavatory.)

Well, tonight is our last night in Botswana…we’re headed for Johannesburg bright and early tomorrow. We’ve been busy since our last update, though. (And the computer cut off while we were in the middle of typing just now, so we have limited time, so this will have to be quick.)

Yesterday we went on a SAFARI! After sleeping in a little and eating a delicious breakfast of eggs, bacon, and toast, we drove down to Tau Game Lodge in South Africa.  We had a five-star buffet lunch, and then we had a few hours until our game drive, so we watched animals from a deck overlooking the main watering hole.  We read our Psalms and had tea on the deck before we loaded up in two amazing vehicles. Our first stop was lions, and it was quite an eventful sighting. We’ll save the rest of that story for later… Then we saw an elephant who had a tire stuck on its foot. They said we might be able to be there when they tranquilized it, but that didn’t end up working out.  We also saw zebras, impalas, guinea hens (kamikaze chickens) and lots of other birds, and a herd of cape buffalo.  When we stopped for a snack break, we had some delicious meatballs, samosas, and biltong and all the girls (and most of the boys too) successfully used the bush as a restroom.  On the second half of the drive, we came across a watering hole where we saw three herds of elephants and two white rhinos!  After dark, we stopped the truck to look at the stars.  The whole drive was an amazing demonstration of God’s power and the beauty of His creation, but that was particularly stunning. We saw Venus, the Southern Cross, and could even see the Milky Way!  Then we drove back to the lodge to warm up (yep, it was freezing. Wait until you see the pictures of us in full winter gear) and drove back across the border to our hotel. 

Today, we spent the morning watching all the missionary kids who weren’t in school while their parents were having a meeting.  They are so precious and we had a lot of fun playing with them, acting out the story of David and Goliath, and making some crafts.  Then we went to some curio shops (that’s what souvenir shops are called here) and got to do some shopping before coming back to the Warner home for a tasty dinner of nacho impala (but whose impala is it?).

It’s been hard saying goodbye to people because I think we all feel like we’re leaving family behind, but it is an encouraging thing to know that the work will continue both through the missionaries and the church communities we worked with.

See you soon!