The Lovingers come to Africa

February 2013

Crystal and Eric came to visit us!

We have really enjoyed having Crystal and Eric here with us and have tried to show them as much as we can.  Monday we took them to a devotional at the Area Office where they got to meet many of the senior missionaries.  Later that evening they viewed a couple of West African Church history videos at a missionary fireside.  We took them to a great place to get steaks afterward.  Tuesday it was out to lunch with the Eppels and then a temple session afterward.  Something Crystal ate must not have agreed with her as she excused herself from the endowment session.  She was able to participate in the prayer circle for the MTC missionaries just prior to that though. 

 

Must stop and tell you about the Eppels.  They were scheduled to leave for a month long trip to Madagascar on Thursday.  When we had lunch with them they told us they had received distressing news about their son, Desmond, who lives in Peoria, Illinois.  He had a seizure at work and was diagnosed with a brain tumor in the hospital.  Surgery was going to be performed on Thursday.  Their daughter who lives in Camas, Washington flew to Chicago to be a support for him.  The Eppels postponed their trip until they heard the results of the operation.  We were all praying for him and put his name on the temple prayer roll.  We were so relieved when we got home from Madikwe Friday evening to learn that the operation had been a success and they expected a full recovery.  So the Eppels left for Madagascar trusting that the Lord would bless their son while they were on His errand.
 

Wednesday morning we left early for Madikwe game reserve in the northern part of South Africa.  In fact it borders on Botswana.  It was about a 5 hour ride.  We got there in time for lunch and then an afternoon drive in the bush to spot animals and birds.  Madikwe was created in the 1990s and is owned by and operated by the Northwest Province Game Board.  Besides protecting the wild animals it was also created to provide employment for the local people in an eco-tourism industry the only viable industry the government deemed could exist.  So they moved out the local farmers and small towns people and created this huge game reserve, the 4^th largest in South Africa.  Some of the species were imported from other reserves; some had survived the people who had settled there.  It is a blend of eco-climates so it is a habitat for a great variety of birds and animals.  There are several private businesses who have leased some of the reserve from the government for lodges – places for people to stay.  Madikwe is different than Kruger or Philanesberg in that you can’t just drive around in your own car and make a day trip of it.  We stayed in the only bush camp where one experiences camping as opposed to staying in a hotel.  The little cabins have nice beds.  There is no electricity, so paraffin lamps are used for lighting at night and donkey boilers are used to heat water for showers.  All the food is cooked over a fire.  One night we had a delicious potjie (dutch oven) stew.  We are awakened at 5 am for a 5:30 drive in a Land Rover.  These drives last about four hours and cover a lot of territory.  Some of it is on graded roads and some just through the bush on little trails.  It was much fun and a great safari experience.

Our driver’s name was Justice and he did a great job in finding animals for us and knowing what animals and birds we were seeing.  Our first two drives starting with the evening drive the day we got there and the morning drive the next day we had a couple from South Africa that really knew their birds.  They were helpful to those of us with less birding knowledge.  We identified about 37 different kinds of birds and that doesn’t count the many we just let go. 

 A long-tailed paradise-whydah.

  A southern yellow-billed hornbill.

  Eating at the Boma restaurant in Victoria Falls.  We ate antelope and warthog. Elder Green and Eric ate Mopani worms and we joined the floorshow in dancing.

  These wild dogs could have enjoyed wildebeest for dinner.

 

As far as animals that we saw there was an abundance of zebras, impalas (not the Chevrolet kind), and wildebeests.  There were other animals but not in the many, many, groups.  We saw some kudos, warthogs, giraffes, rhinos, lions (no males however), elephants, wild dogs, African wildcat, water buffalo, springbok, and maybe some others.  One kind of unusual thing involved one wildebeest and a pack of about 22 wild dogs.  Wild dogs are noted for their ability to take down a wildebeest even though they are pretty big.  This wildebeest just wandered right into this pack of wild dogs and Justice, our driver, said well there is dinner for the dogs.  We stayed around, not because we wanted to see a wildebeest slaughtered, but it just seemed like an opportunity that doesn’t come along every day.  Anyway the wildebeest, when the dogs surrounded him just stood his ground and pretty soon the dogs lost interest and as far as we know they never killed him.  Another interesting item was a giant bull elephant that was walking down the road towards us.  Justice pulled over and backed off the road behind a tree and we waited for the elephant to pass.  He did and just kept going.  It seemed like he didn’t even notice us.  Justice said he was out looking for girl elephants.  Later in the evening we were driving and again this same giant elephant was coming towards us.  There was no real place to pull over and hide at that place so Justice just pulled over to the side of the road.  The elephant continued to plod along towards us. As he got closer he took a little swing away from us and it looked like he just wanted to go by us with some room to spare.  Then he started to swing back and was coming right for us.  When he was only a few feet away and headed right at Tom.  Justice started the engine and we took off.  Tom asked if elephants could turn over one of the Range Rover trucks and Justice said they could and had; so we were happy to get away.  It was a fun few days.

The next week we took a trip to see Victoria Falls.  It is located in the corner of Zimbabwe, Zambia and Botswana.  We stayed on the Zimbabwe side.  We got quite wet at Victoria Falls and not because it was raining.  It just felt like it was raining.  The mist from the falls was very heavy.  They call the Falls “The Smoke that Thunders”.  We took a cruise up the river later in the day and looking back to the Falls it looked like smoke arising high in the sky.  We saw hippos in the river but no crocodiles.  The hotel where we stayed overlooked a watering hole and it was fun to use our binoculars and watch the animals enter and exit our “stage” as we viewed it.  One afternoon one of the kitchen staff took the leftover raw meat and fed the vultures.  There must have been 100 or more vultures swoop down and fight over the pig’s head, and other scraps.  Then there was a marabou stork which patiently sat in a tree just waiting for the vultures to leave so that he could have the bones.  We had a great time at Victoria Falls and then did some other things around here including a trip to the Rhino Lion Park the day the Lovingers left.

 "The smoke that thunders"

 

A week later we made a quick trip to Mozambique to attend the Coordinating Council held in Maputo.  Jaimie (Jai’-mie) is our assistant auditor there.  He can speak English well.  We invited him and his wife to dinner at the hotel Friday evening.  She doesn’t speak English, but appreciated being invited and promised to learn English.  The official language in Mozambique is Portuguese. Jaimie also picked us up at the airport and took us to the coordinating council meeting Saturday morning.  Elder Bricknell promised us 20 minutes at the beginning of the meeting.  We actually were given an hour and a half.  The senior missionary couple in Beira is going home soon with no replacement coming.  They have been making all the Sunday deposits for the branches there.  It is thus time for the branches to take more responsibility and they need to be trained to make their own deposits and write their own checks.  Solomon Malidadi in Beira is literally going the extra mile to train a couple of the dependent branches.  The counselor in the Mission over these branches was at the coordinating meeting – so hopefully they will do better in getting the audits performed and done on time.

 

The temple was closed for a couple of weeks for maintenance, but is open now again.   We attended a great session with the Senior Area missionaries after a zone conference on Thursday.  A dinner was enjoyed in the sister’s flat afterward. Elder Renlund spoke in the zone conference about “mighty prayer”.  We commented on how the prayers of the African saints are humble and sincere.  They are grateful for life no matter their circumstances.

In the Church News this week was announced the formation of 58 new missions effective July 1^st.  The Africa Southeast Area there will be two new missions, Angola Luanda and Botswana, Gaborone.  We were interested that our old mission, Tokyo South, was resurrected. The Lord is hastening His work and the time is coming for His Second Coming.

We heard from the Kings from Washington that they accepted the call to be area auditors here in Southeast Africa.  They will enter the MTC on June 10^th and arrive here on June 18^th.  We are now starting to think about going home and will need to make arrangements.  We have mixed feelings about knowing the end is coming.  I am excited about going home and being with family again, but also feel there is more to be done here.