Our New Home-Africa

Reenie on the grounds of the Johannesburg Temple. Our office is on the same compound and we are literally a 5 minute walk from our office to being in the temple. It is a beautiful building which meets the needs of members from Somalia/Kenya all the way down to Jo-burg/CapeTown.

This is our gold/green Nissan Tiida. It gets about 50 miles/gallon and petrol costs us about $3.50/gallon. Notice the steering wheel on the right side. We are doing very well with driving on the left. Only a few 'close calls'. The church intentionally buys ugly cars so they will be less attractive to the carjackers. We keep nothing in the front or back seats and everthing in the 'boot' (trunk) because if you are seen to have something of value you are put at risk of a 'smash and grab'. We are following the rules!

This is a shot of the outside of our flat. We are the bottom unit with the double doors and the patio looking out on a beautiful English garden. It is small but quite comfortable. The flats are within a walled compound and a security guard is there to open the gate 24/7. Very safe.

Here is a view from our patio looking out at the courtyard. Beautiful looking and smelling, as well as a home to at least 13 varieties of birds (so far), including the African Yellow Weaver. (more on them later). The birds start singing at 4:30-4:45 AM.

This is a view looking from the kitchen out the patio doors. Our desk to the left where we will be 'Skyping' with family and friends now that we have a good internet connection in the flat.

Our little kitchen- which contains the fridge, sink, washing machine, dryer, range, stove and microwave. No wasted space for sure, but Reenie has made it home and she has cooked up some great food already. Food shopping is quite different here. People shop frequently due to the size of the fridge, regular power outages and limited space for storing much. The fresh fruits and veggies are very nice. Eating out is also very affordable with a nice dinner for 2 costing only about $10-12 with the current rate of exchange.

One more view of the gardens. We have lemon trees with fruit for the picking along with herbs of every sort and several varieties of roses and other native plants.

The work in the office goes better everyday as we learn our duties and the processes that are required. It is really quite involved as we deal with so many different countries and many languages. Three of our countries speak French, two speak Portuguese, eight speak English and all of the students have VERY strong accents, since they speak a tribal tongue at home. Any one of 210 tribal tongues! The young people are excited about the opportunities we can afford them. They are a very bright lot of folks. I am really impressed! They must be worthy, ambitious and needy, and there are a lot who will qualify.

We will be going to the country of Botswana next week to help get the PEF established there. After the first of the year, which amazingly is only three weeks away, we will travel to the Kingdoms of Lethoto and Swaziland and then in February we have a trip planned to Windhoek, Namibia. We hope to get the program available in Zambia and the DRC by June. The rest of the time we will spend in South Africa where the PEF program is going strong.

We are grateful for your thoughts, prayers and all who helped make Reenie's birthday a special one. With all of the turmoil in the world, we are very happy to be here doing what we are doing.

All the best...