We arrived in South Bend at 8:35 pm this evening.  It had been almost 30 hours since we left for the Johannesburg airport.

We drove through a very heavy snowstorm on the way home from the South Bend airport.  Fortunately it was not sticking to the ground which was still warm.

We are looking forward to sleeping in our own bed tonight and will likely sleep in tomorrow morning.

We are in Johannesburg and should be leaving for the airport within an hour.  We tried to checkin on line using our reservation code and were unsuccessful.  By going through the Northwest Airline site (instead of KLM on which we are flying out of Joburg) we finally found out that our code had been changed because our flights from Amsterdam and Detroit were changed to give us almost a 3 hour layover in Amsterdam instead of 50 minutes.  This will put us into South Bend a couple of hours later than originally scheduled, so should finally arrive home about 10 pm on Monday night after travelling for about 30 hours.  We appreciate your continued prayers.

This is our last full day in Swaziland.  I did a little wash and hung it out on the line so we’d have clean clothes to start the long trip home.  It’s a beautiful day today, again.  We ate breakfast on the veranda and watched the birds.  We saw the turaco again and watched it fly.  The wings are such a bright red. It is something to see.  Quite a few different varities came to visit the bird bath.

Today we plan to go to the office to get some more money.  I am not trying the bank again especially since  I don’t need much for today and tomorrow. Then we plan to go to the market where I hope to buy some material and maybe a few seed necklaces. Then we’ll go past the supermarket and buy some boerwors for a braai tonight then out to the transmitter site to join the guys for lunch.

Makes 7-8

250 g. flour

15ml. baking powder

pinch of salt

60g. margarine

60g.raisins

30g.castor sugar

125ml. milk (about)

6.5 cm. cutter

Set the oven to 220 degrees C. Sift flour, baking powder and salt into a large bowl.  Cut margarine into pieces: add to flour and rub in until mixture resembles bread crumbs. Stir in raisins and sugar.  Stir in most of the milk and mix to a soft, not sticky dough using a round bladed knife.  Turn on a lightly floured surgace. Knead lightly. Flatten dough and cut out. re-roll pieces to cut out. Place on greased baking sheet. Brush with milk. Bake towards top of oven. 10-15 minutes. Cool on a wire rack.  Serve with butter, or cheese or favorite spread.

Today we had another busy day.  Lorraine did some laundry and then we went to town.  We stopped at the office to take care of some things and then went to Ruth Crowie to pick up some things she wanted to send to her daughter in America. Her daughter married an American and now lives in Ohio. We had tea with Mrs. Crowie and Jillian Zwane came to have a time of prayer with Mrs. C.  We had a nice time visiting with both of them.  When we were ready to leave, Ruth Crowie brought out two scarves she had knitted and gave us each one.  They are beautiful.  She said that she made E1,000 last winter selling them. Today, that is only about $100. I think it was probably more last winter.  She does beautiful work.

We went to the grocery store and I bought some candy for the grandkids. It is different from American candy. Some think it is better.  I can’t say if it is or not.

After the grocery store we went to the office where Lorraine did some work and I worked on the blog and read some e-mails.  It was nice to use the office computer. It was much faster and the print is bigger so I can read it easier

This afternoon I saw one of those beautiful birds again, the purple-crested turaco.  It was up in the tree and flew down to drink and then flew off.  It is a beautiful bird.  The birds sing constantly here.  All kinds of bird songs and birds.  Blue birds of some kind, birds with lots of colors, big birds, little birds, there are so many and their songs are so different from our birds.  After the rain yesterday, the frogs also started singing. They sound pretty much like all frogs.

Tonight we are having pot luck dinner with the Schillers. They are a German couple with Trans World Radio. They have three young children.  It will be fun to have the kids around.  We haven’t seen too many young children while we have been here, not even in church.

There are a lot of children in this country.  Many of them have no parents because of HIV/AIDS.  There are orphanages everywhere. Pray for the churches and others that they will be brave and speak out against this life style that brings so much suffering. Pray for those who have lost family members and are losing family members.  It is becoming so common, that they can’t morn any more. It is a way of life to bury someone they love. Pray for the children and the grandparents and others who care for these orphans.

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