kibidula weekend

Posted on Monday, November 3, 2008 at 06:54

It’s been a real blessing to be here at Kibidula. I have enjoyed the rest and the hospitality immensely.  On Sabbath we enjoyed some of the meetings of the bi-annual Bible Worker’s convention. Jason is the evangelism leader here for Kibidula, so directly and indirectly he has something to do with the organization of the Bible workers. It was interesting to hear them tell their stories of the work in remote villages.

My Dad had the sermon and Jason translated it into Swahili. The sermon was simple but thought provoking. I videoed clips of the different choirs singing. The music is beautiful. We pot lucked with the Bible workers. Everyone was given half an avocado as part of their meal. I could deal with that!!! Later we enjoyed a walk along the edge of the escarpment overlooking the humungous swamp! It’s miles long and very wide. Hundreds of great-white egrets hunt in the swamp along with black-headed herons.

Antionette made a lovely supper and we ate in front of the computer and watched a nature DVD on caves.

Sunday morning Steve, Vanessa and I went out birding. We encountered several species of birds we had not seen before.

Red- necked spurfowl

Speckled moosebird

Common bulbul

Olive sunbird

Robin-chat ; either rueppell’s or heuglins (I really need to consult the American birdbook as this book from the Netherlands calls birds by very different names)

Magpie-shrike

Uhehe fiscal ( again this is from the Netherlands book)

Clark’s weaver

Collared sunbird

Tropical bou bou – very distinct call that sounds like a duet and we have been searching to know which bird it is!

We received a call from Teresa saying, “Don’t come back today!!!”

The fundi’s are plastering the inside of the church, so all the beds and luggage had to be moved out of the place and Teresa was worried we would arrive late at night all tired out and find ourselves in chaos at the other end. All we could hear at this end was mom saying, “It’s okay! I can rent another house. We can find more space.”

Kristen and I were astonished. We were thinking all war broke out and people were not getting along!! LOL. That wasn’t the case, or course.

Mom found out that they were ready for the roofing sheets, so she and dad took off to buy the roofing sheets and deliver them to Mago. I went out and picked lettuce for mom to take to the gang and instructed her to please find them some fruit on her way, also.

Jason took us each on a short flight in the 2 seater zenair. Everybody loved flying except Jason’s children. They wouldn’t go near the plane. How funny is that! Jason took me over the whole campus to see the layout of the land. The gardens are quite impressive from the air.  I enjoy flying and Steve started talking about taking up flight nursing. He isn’t much interested in it for back home, but he could see the benefit of that kind of work in the mission field.

Jason had quite a time with Jono. He uses a flight simulator on the computer and he thinks he knows how to fly. He walks, sleeps and dreams flying. He’s only 15 and without asking he took over the pre-check and assumed he would fly the plane. Of course, his inexperience showed through. He forgot several things and wouldn’t have gotten off the ground if Jason hadn’t forced him into submission. Jason said he was fighting for the controls, but he allowed him just enough to have a rough flight. In fact it was so rough the door flew open twice from the bumping around. Jono really wanted to do an airshow for us and swoop down between trees, etc… but he ended up humiliating himself instead.  Jason had to take over on the descent as he botched that up really bad, too. Jono wanted to have a second chance to redeem himself, but Jason had had enough.

We had a lovely picnic prepared by Antionette and her neighbor, Anita. We ate under the pine trees in the shade. The beans and rice were good; lettuce salad, beet salad and potato salad, mmmmm. The men talked orchards… They are in desperate need of someone to come here and manage the avocado orchards and whatever else they can grow. Thomas drilled Dave on orchards and hinted at the need for someone like him to come and take over them. Dave has lots of ideas… but his main concern is the need for water. Dave did go out and try to prune some trees, but he will be glad when the proper loppers and pocket saw arrive from home.

Later in the day the expatriate children had a gymnastic show for us. Twalisa loves gymnastics. Ben and Pam are from the Carolina’s. They teach gymnastics to the kids here and they do a great job. We were very impressed. It’s good for Twalisa to be a part of a team as she is quite shy and doesn’t like to stand out, but she will work in a team effort.

We had supper with the Wabers. They are a Swiss family with 6 children. It was an enjoyable evening of good fellowship and beautiful homegrown fruit from their garden, homemade bread and fresh mint tea. We are enjoying mingling with the various cultures. The littlest fellow was very sweet and shared his special stash of licorice from Switzerland with us. Their flowers and garden are unbelievably beautiful. They even have apple trees, peaches, nectarines, plums, etc… we ate strawberries, peaches and nectarines.

We got back to find out that mom had called from Mago. She said that they still didn’t want us back as everyone is crammed into the two S.S. rooms and there is no place for us until the plastering is done. Kristen and I tried hard not to be disappointed. LOL! - Not really, we have really enjoyed our excursion here.

Tom and Dale should be landing in Dar tomorrow. Cindy will be especially glad.