Rain, lovely rain.  It was a nice slow soaking drizzle most of the day.  It didn’t seem like a lot of rain, but I sure got wet taking care of the chickens and collecting some things from the guest house to use in this house.

Since  it was rainy, but not too rainy, I decided to take pictures of flowers for our granddaughter, Megan.  She wanted to see pictures of flowers.  This is not the best time of year for flowers, but I found some!  A few I can identify, most not. So if you know the names of the flowers, please comment .

It was a good thing we were up early this morning.  The hot water was cold! The water in this house is heated by solar, which normally is fine, but we have had cool, rainy days lately, so it doesn’t heat quite as well.   There is a switch that will turn on the heater and Larry thought it was set to come on, but for some reason it didn’t. We were up early enough to turn it on and still get a warm shower in the morning.

Men singing.

We had a great worship service on Sunday.  The choruses/ praise songs were lively and pleasing to the ear.  It was true worship.  This church has been blessed with an excellent pastor who truly knows and loves his Saviour and has a heart to impart that love and knowledge.

The men in church were all called up to sing to the ladies for Mother’s Day and after church every lady was given a pretty shopping bag as a Mother’s Day gift.

After church on Sunday we went to Ruth’s house for tea and then took her out for lunch at Swazi Candles. Swazi Candles is where they make candles to sell along with other locally made crafts, such as soap, carvings, etc.  and they have a little coffee cafe that serves food.  The food is not fancy, but plentiful and very good.  We had a good time and Ruth said she enjoyed getting out and liked to eat at Swazi Candles.

Mother’s Day shopping bag.

Candle making 2014

Ruth’s daughter is in the States, one son in England, and one son locally.  It was nice to have a ‘Mom’ to take out and enjoy for the afternoon.

Since today is Mother’s Day, I will wish my daughters-in-love Happy Mother’s Day, also my Mother-in-love.  They are all very special to me and all have had more influence on my life than they will ever realize.

My mother has been in heaven for nearly 10 years, my sister, since her youngest was 3.   Now that little boy is all grown up with children of his own .  Both of those ladies are greatly missed.

Mother’s Day can be a very bitter sweet day for many, but I pray that we all can see God’s blessings through the difficult times and the good times.  Also, Happy Mother’s Day to everyone who has had an influence in our lives and the lives of our children.  You are all special people and we appreciate you and thank you for the part you play and have played in our lives.

Today was rainy and cold.  We wore jackets and drank tea all day to keep warm.  The power was off for over two hours today so did not have anything hot for lunch.  Was thankful that I did have cheese and crackers to eat for lunch.  We did have a nice hot breakfast of mealie porridge for breakfast.  It was a good meal on a cold morning.

Eating and enjoying the picnic.

We stayed home today and Larry worked on the plans for the antenna expansion.  He tried to download a program that he could use for the drawings, but was unable to.  I think the slow internet was part of the problem.

We had a quiet and uneventful day.  Here are some more picture of the picnic on Thursday.

Monday, May 2, was a day off for Workers Day, which is celebrated May 1.  Since it was a holiday, Larry was able to rest a bit more after being so sick.  Besides resting, he was also able  to do work on the antenna upgrade from home and then in the evening, we visited with some of our ‘old’ friends in their home before they left the next morning.  A blessing to have the time to fellowship!

New building across from Mormond Electric. Mall, Offices, Parking,

Tuesday, Larry went to the transmitter site to work.   I went to town with Ingrid Clarke.  She was working in our office, so I walked from there to some shops to pick up a few things I needed.  While I was out, I decided to stop by King Pie for something to eat.  I was purchasing a pie and the young man asked me if I were Mrs. Hynd.  Mrs. Hynd has been in heaven for quite a few years, but I am probably about the age she was when this young man last saw her. I explained that I was not Mrs. Hynd and that she had been gone for quite a few years. But he still thought I looked like her.   So, as we were talking, he asked how old I was and when I told him, the girl working there, acted surprised and said that I looked 50 or even 40 (I thought that maybe they wanted me to buy more food and were giving me compliments)  and then they wanted to know if I worked out.  Ha!  Then they asked if my children were here and if my husband was here.  When I explained that all our five sons , who were all born in Swaziland, were in the United States, their response was, “Hauw, so many children!  You people only have two!”

Mormond Electric

Then they wanted to know who was taking care of us, if all our children were in America,  who was doing the cooking and washing and cleaning. When I explained that I did my own, they were quite surprised,  and didn’t look as though they believed me.  It’s not unusual to have these types of conversations with people here in Swaziland.

Wednesday, we moved to another house.   We had packed most of our things Tuesday evening and  then were up at 5:00 a.m., Wednesday morning instead of our usual 5:30 a.m. to get most of our things moved over to the other house. Larry made several trips early that morning and after he left for work, I finished up and washed the sheets and towels and did a quick cleaning of the house we were leaving.

Thursday, was another holiday, Ascension Day.  The church we are attending, combined with

Wash day

another church met together at a farm.  We had a service in the morning, which included the dedication of the farm to be used in a way pleasing to our Saviour.  After the service, the children played games, the ladies prepared the food and the men moved the tables to the shade and we were ready to eat.  After the most

Beautiful scenery

delicious meal with all kinds of food (my favorites are the curries), we had a nice walk down to the river where the young ones and the young at heart played in the water.

We headed home around 2:00.  On the way home we stopped by the Luke Commission, a mobile medical mission, and had a brief tour.

We found out on Wednesday that we were going to have a house guest for the night on Thursday. We were

Braai Food

surprised, but I just made up the spare bed and made sure there were towels and we were ready.  She was traveling with an international group of six people from our Cary,  South Carolina headquarters. I did not have to plan meals.  The Schillers put on a braai for all of us, twelve adults and five children.  It was wonderful. Besides all the meat, we had mealie pop which is a white corn mush, a spinach sauce and a tomato sauce to eat with it plus a baked bean, banana and mayonnaise dish that was quite tasty, salad and  dessert of two types of cake and custard to pour over it. I am probably forgetting something, but we did enjoy it all even after the huge picnic fare.

Friday – We enjoyed our house guest.  After breakfast we walked around the compound. enjoyed the view and the beautiful weather.  We picked a little tangerine type orange from a tree, which she enjoyed and picked up some granadilla  and took pictures.

Tree by the river at picnic

Four tables of food

When we came back to the house, she got to taste and enjoy her first granadilla and eat some fresh Swazi avocado. They were off to Malotja Game Reserve, where they will spend the night before heading back to Johannesburg.

More picnic photos  (Will post more later)

Larry’s work on antenna upgrade.

Hopefully Larry will have time to write something soon for those of you who enjoy the technical end of things.  Since Friday, April 22 was a holiday for the King’s birthday and Monday, April 25, was flag day, he has not had a lot of opportunity to investigate the expansion at the site.  Then yesterday, Wednesday, he went to the transmitter site, but became ill and ended up sleeping on a desk and going to bed as soon as he got home.  He did go out today, but he was still not 100%.  He did spend all last Friday, Saturday and Monday working on the computer preparing for the upgrade.  I do know that he is trying to plan how to implement the upgrade with the least lost air time.  When TWR is off the air, people let us know that they are missing the broadcasts.

Monday, we were home home and Larry worked on the computer planning the upgrade.  It was also the day that our computers were ‘registered’ so we had useable internet.  We also figured out the washing machine and it’s hookups and did laundry.  There is a dryer, but I haven’t figured it out yet.  The weather is nice and there are clothes lines, one in the back yard and one on the screened in verandah. So right now there is no need for a dryer.

We had gone grocery shopping on Sunday afternoon on our way home from church and on Monday, I was washing the lettuce.  That reminded me that if I want to have a lettuce salad, I have to beat the slugs and worms to it, so it is a good idea to wash it right away.  Sorry I didn’t take photos,  I fed the worms and slugs  to the chickens.

Tuesday and Wednesday, the kids came over to play.  They are on school holidays right now, so moms are happy to have them do something a little different for awhile.  One of the mom’s is quite busy doing the finances and with other office responsibilities,  so it is a help to her to have someone help with her children.

Hoopoe https://search.yahoo.com/yhs/search?p=hoopoe&ei=UTF-8&hspart=mozilla&hsimp=yhs-001

One morning, I looked out the window and saw an interesting bird.  At first glance, my thought was that it was a cardinal because of the red head and topknot.  Just as fast as I thought that, I realized that it could not be a cardinal. Then I saw the interesting black and white tail and it turned so I could see it’s very long beak. I was able to get a fairly good picture through the window.  It is called a Hoopoe.

Friday, I caught a ride into town with Ingrid as she had some errands to run and was stopping by the office.  I bought a few things that I forgot to pack.  I also bought some groceries that would hopefully be easier on a tummy that has not been feeling well.  I also bought a shopping bag, that turned out to be much larger than I expected.  It is elephant sized!  They packed my groceries in it and it was pretty heavy.  I was glad Ingrid was picking me up at the shop and I didn’t have to lug the bag very far.  I may decide to take a wheeled duffle bag with me when I go shopping.

Africa – Benin. Can you find Swaziland?

In the afternoon, I did one load of laundry because it was a nice day and would dry quickly.  Ifigured out the gas oven and baked a butternut squash and then did some computer work.  I am thankful for those who take the time to drop a note.  I love it!

Our very good friends the Stavropolous family, arrived Friday evening.  What a joy it is to see them and have their company.  As I have mentioned before,  Steve and Lorraine are South Africans. We have been friends for about 40 years.  What a blessing to be able to spend some time with them before they head back to Benin, where they are Iwith TWR.

Larry continues to be ill.  I will see if I can get a ride to the Pharmacy and get something for him and pick up more coke and yogurt.  He is finding it very hard to be ill.  He has so much to do, but just can’t.  Monday is another holiday.  I think they call this one Worker’s Day.  Pray that he will recover over the long weekend and be ready to work with energy next week.  Oh yes,  next Thursday is another holiday. Not sure what it is.

How many countries fit into Africa?

Africa is a huge continent.  I thought it would be interesting to see how many countries fit into Africa.  You can see the United States does not take up much space.

It is Friday night.  Larry was up for about an hour and we made a quick run to the store to get him some medicine and he got a quick hair cut. We walked in the door and he went straight to bed.  He has been up maybe 4 hours today.  Pray that rest will heal his body.

Thank you all for your prayers and your interest in us.