Farewell Zimbabwe...(sniff, sniff)!

Thanks a billion...actually 100 billion to all of you beautiful spiritual brothers & sisters in Zimbabwe who made us feel to welcomed and so appreciated and so loved! Words cannot even begin to describe how I feel at this moment as our family awaits to board our airplane headed toward home!

The time has finally arrived...

Finally...we have wifi! There is SO much to share !

It has been super frustrating not to share our pictures and the thoughts in our hearts during what turned out to be not only historic, as Zimbabwe's first International Convention but one for the record books due to its size. The brothers expected 40,000 - 45,000 in the National Sports Stadium which holds 60,000. The first day the attendance was almost 67,000, the next day almost 75,000 and the final day was close to 82, 500! It was absolutely incredible! 

Many, many photos and such will be hitting our blog here as long as the wifi holds. This was absolutely the BEST thing we could possibly do at this stage in all of our lives! Jehovah has taken such good care of us!

Yes we are still alive.

Selfie by the Ruwa River on our last night in Africa

We canoed down the Ruwa River that night. But when we turned over the canoe, there was a green mamba in it. Needless to say, Beth was not too excited to enter the canoe even after the snake was cleared!

A lot to do and not much time to do it!

Here at rainbow towers there is over 400 delegates now. Yesterday morning we all piled on the bus and went to a local hall for service, greeted by about 80 publishers complete with choir singing. Fast forward and we went out in service, placed all kinds of literature, ran into some monkeys on the road, oh ya and I ended up doing a spur of the moment demo for the service meeting this morning in front of like 110 people! Then lunch and just some crazy stuff, and a get together this evening and dinner in the hotel, tribal dancing, choir, marimba etc.....it's just the first day 😂

Sunridge Congregation Day Snaps

The beautiful sister above in the orange jacket was my service partner for the morning. She is a regular pioneer here and I told her that when I get home, I was going to follow in her footsteps!!!

That's all I have stored on Isabella (my beloved iPad)...so I'll have to add more as I can get them off my iPhone. 

Good food, good friends.

Thank you for the lovely tea time, tour of your wonderful family place there with its lovely gardens, awesome classic cars bad the delicious lunch to Patricia, George, Freida and Danielle. You are amazingly generous people who have worked so very hard to make this convention a success. Thank you for your self-sacrifices!

Service, Singing, Dancing = AMAZING

We finally have a wifi connection so I'm going to attempt to share a few pics from yesterday's activities. We were picked up by bus and taken to the Sunridge Kingdom Hall for field service with the local brothers and sisters which was such a treat. Upon arrival, we were greeted by a singing crowd of witnesses of all ages. It was a stunning experience, but that just got the day started. 

After service, we were treated to a delicious meal lovingly prepared by brothers and sisters which we are outdoors on the peaceful lawn among friends from all over the world.

Following that, we enjoyed experiences, interviews and absolutely breathtaking singing by the brothers and sisters. No music, no books, no instrumental accompaniment...just the totally beautiful voices!

Back at the hotel, after a short break, we attended a large banquet with other international delegates and locals with amazing mirimba players, traditional dancers, more singing...even the children who stole the show! There was a video history of the work here in Zimbabwe and encouraging interviews...plus lots and lots of happy chatter everywhere you looked!

My heart if full to overflowing...

Update - Much is happening

The days have been full and exciting, but the wifi to post our pictures has been almost non-existant. I appear to have a winow of opportunity so here are a few or maybe just one...we will see

This is a picture with our dear new friends, the Juru family. Brother and Sister Juru were both Pentecostal preachers but now the entire family is serving Jehovah. This picture was taken Sunday outside the Greendale Kingdom Hall. Brother Juru gave the public talk that day on the fate of false religion...WOW

Ok, that worked. Let's see if the wifi will hold out long enough for a second picture...

Missionaries are happy people!

It has been a joy getting to know Brian and Pam Fergusen who are serving here in Harare as missionaries. Such great stories and great fun in the ministry!

A few new finds

Today, while at a collection of stores (similar to our outlet malls) we stumbled upon this interesting creature

But a more important find proved to be this: Some new friends.  Tony and Tracy Knapp from the 129th Gilead class. As well as Jessica and ??? (Sorry we forgot your name) who are from the Patterson and Walkhill area.

Random

No real ryhme or reason just a few more cool pics from this week!

Food is fun!

We thoroughly enjoyed roaming about the grocery store, here are some snap worthy finds:

Airplane antics and more...

Welcome to Ethiopia...

Lion & Cheetah Park after a great morning in service!

Its a beautiful thing when you can balance a productive fun day in service with dozens of new Zimbabwean brothers and sisters with going to the game park just outside of town to marvel at Jehovah's creations. Such a variety of critters we saw!

What was crazy is that you could just drive around among them. At one point, with three people in the back of the truck there was an ostrich that was running toward the truck...a little too close for comfort.

I just couldn't help myself!

It has long baffled me how African women wear their babies on their backs. It just always looked like they could fall right off, so I asked two young mothers at the Kingdom Hall if they would please let me try it for myself. Giggling with delight or perhaps at my silliness about the whole thing, they agreed and the darling little dear didn't even wake up! It certainly put me in my happy place"

I just love our boys!

Fun afternoon at Mukuvisi Woodlands

Our new friend Lovemore from Kutandara Lodge joined Colin and Sean and I for an afternoon at a small private game park close by our lodge. Here are some snaps from our fun outing! I befriended three chatty children who live here but are Serbian by blood. The youngest girls name is Montana, so she was thrilled to meet folks from there. The bottom photo shows Sean trying to find a lizard he wanted to catch but it was too quick and got away.

Kenny and camera

This kid......