For those who may not have realized, we have been gone since Sunday morning and we did not take our computer so this is the first chance we have had to touch base.
We traveled by taxi to the village of Mbane which is about 1 1/2 hours away. Our first stop, however was in Richard Toll, a rather large town were we met up with our Missionary hosts for our stay in the village. There we met with several other missionaries and let me tell you, there are lots of countries represented by missionaries from around the world. We met an Australian single lady who is retiring because she is past the age for missionaries, there was a Korean couple with 2 small boys who drove 14 hours for the Sunday service, we met another Latin American missionary family, and then our missionary hosts were from Mexico. There was also another single Korean lady who has been here 14 years as a missionary.
The young Korean couple have 2 children and the 11 year old is in boarding school in Africa and has been there a year, came home for a year and now will go back for 2 years. And we worry about sending our kids off to the school down the street. They say he does fine in boarding school but you know you really want your kids close to you, especially during their growing up years. Just another thing we can pray about for our missionaries.
We then drove 25 kilometers to our village. There we met our "family" or should I say our host's family. The family all live in a compound, some 43 members, in various huts and share cooking duties, two days a month for the whole family. We met the 92 year old "Papa" of the clan and his wife. This is the wife's second husband, the first being this man's brother. But when he died, the wife marries the brother of her husband. Between the two, she had 14 kids. The village has about 2000 people, but we didn't see that many people but we were told the village has LOTS of children, and we wouldn't see all them. Our missionary host rents 3 rooms in a cement house which was originally built for the old man and his wife, but they will not sleep in it and prefer their huts.
As a little history, there is a missionary compound with 3 old buildings which was the original village in 1950. At that time, the village was growing and moving outside the original compound
missionaries from Switzerland came and asked about buying some land. The people of the village told them they could have the old village because it was spirit possessed and they said it would serve two purposes, the spirits would stay with the new missionaries and they would be able to get rid of the missionaries. Well, since then there have been Dutch, German, British, English and now a Mexican missionary in the village. There actually was one Christian convert in the beginning of the mission and he is still there today, but he can only study and learn in secret because if his family ever finds out the village will throw him out. That is another story I can share tomorrow.
Well I am going to stop for now and post a few pictures and later I will continue to tell you about our 2 days including the town riot, the giant lizard and the midnight bakery.
God bless and thanks for the birthday wishes.
Ken and Peggy
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