Kilimanjaro, a Dancing Church, and a Snake

By Anthony:

This is a random post of fun pictures.

Recently we had to take another trip to Tanzania, this time to Moshi, for our World Renew regional team meeting.  It was a good time of fellowship with other World Renew staff, especially since we got to meet new staff members, one who has been working in South Sudan, and one who just joined the Tanzania team.  It was a lot of long and tiring meetings so there wasn't much time to sight see.  But the fun thing was that our hotel where we stayed had a view of Mt. Kilimanjaro.

On one of the days that week, we left the meetings and all the World Renew staff took of tour of some conservation agriculture projects, ECHO's base/farm in Arusha, and an industrious model farmer.  The funny thing for us was that our tour guide was Neil Miller, who works for MCC (Mennonite Central Committee) and with CFGB (Canadian Foodgrains Bank), and who was our supervisor at the farm in Texas a few years ago.  It's amazing how we keep running into people we know all the time.

To get to one of the farm sites, we caravanned a total of 6 vehicles.  But our caravan fell apart when these huge cylinders blocked traffic.  We had to do our best to drive through parking lots to try to pass, but it took probably 20-30 minutes before we could pass.  One of the things you may not realize about driving in East Africa is that there are only a few main roads which means you don't get lost very easily, but also means there are no alternative routes on smaller roads to bypass things like this.  These cylinders were so tall that another truck had to move with them to lift up power lines as they pass under.

We continue to visit churches quite regularly.  I get a lot of preaching invitations and have to say "no" to many of them.  We don't usually post about them, but here is a fun video of dancing in a church we visited in Kumi district.  And some pictures of the church waving to you.







Here are some photos of a snake we found in our yard.  I would never have seen it but it was moving up from the ground into one of our orange trees when I entered our gate.  It is for sure completely harmless, so have no fears for us.  There are many types of harmless green snakes like this in Uganda.  It was quite incredible.  I have never seen anything move so fast in a tree, and it did so with absolutely no sound.  It was light enough to basically float on the leaves, so it could move anywhere without being limited to the branches.  It was very hard to see even on our tiny tree.

Caleb has proved his worth yet again, in more ways besides being a good security dog.  Recently he killed a bunch of rats for us in our garage and sometimes finds them at night in our yard.  This is good because the rats try to eat the chicken eggs.  It's a good dog that leaves chicks alone but attacks rats.





One of our missionary friends in Soroti just went back to the US for home service and so we are watching her dog for her.  As you can see, it is a super lovable dog.  He's the opposite of Caleb, incredibly needy and always wanting to be petted.  He didn't really have a name (long story), so we call him Mbwa.  So now we have two dogs, both named "dog" in Swahili and Hebrew.



We are so glad to have him because Caleb finally gets tired out every day.  Basically they chase each other around and play bite each other all day and all night except for when they are sleeping.  You can see a glimpse in the video below.  Caleb being out of energy means he tries to play with the goats less, (and the goats are party poopers who don't like Caleb's biting games).

So by mid morning they crash.





Then by 5:15pm they are both rearing to go on a walk and start whining and clawing at the door.  Somehow they have an internal clock.

Last, as one part of celebrating our 10-year anniversary in August, we hiked up to the top of a hill near our house at sunrise.  We thought we should include at least one picture of us.