Term 1 ended on a great note. Many of the secondary students traveled 6 hours to Lusaka for a weekend sports tournament, which they qualified for in March. The girls came in 2nd place in volleyball for the secondary schools in Zambia. The boys came back with a huge trophy (as seen below) for placing first in soccer. They were so excited and now our little school has got a name in sports.


A few weeks ago, there was a ground breaking for a new building project on campus. The money for the new building was donated from Germany, so we are grateful to get this project started (only wish that dorm parents would come so Jason could help with it). The building will be the site for a new cafeteria and indoor gymnasium. You can see the founders below, Michael Pflaum and Phil Grove, breaking the ground.

Our term also ended great for another reason. Jason's parents arrived 2 days before the end of term for an 11 day visit. It was great to have them here to meet some of the staff and students before everyone left for term break.

We made a 2 day trip (total of 14 hours driving) to Livingstone to see Victoria Falls and take a one-day safari trip. Since we are at the end of rainy season, the falls were very full of water. The mist was so strong that you could hardly see them, but it really was a neat experience. Here are Jason's parents preparing to get wet with the falls to the right.

Since we're in Zambia, the safety precautions are not quite the same. At some places there is no limit to how close you can get to the water. As you can see in the picture below, we are standing at the top of the falls and right behind us is where the water falls over the edge (as seen in the mist). The current is quite strong here, so we went to the bank to touch the water further up-stream where it was more calm.

We spent one full day on a day safari trip to Chobe National Park in Botswana. The day started with a bus trip and ferry across the border to Botswana, on to a nice 3 hour boat ride down the Chobe River. On the boat ride, we spotted many types on birds and antelope and African buffalo on land and even one elephant, but mostly we saw tons of hippos in the water and even a few on land (as seen below).


After the boat ride, the trip included a nice buffet lunch under a big thatched roof deck. Immediately following lunch we took a safari truck drive for 2 hours through the park. We saw tons of elephants and even many little baby elephants. There were some giraffes, water buffalo, and antelope too. It was a fantastic trip.

Amongst the excitement of family visiting, we did find time to relax. We spent one afternoon at a 5 star hotel (No, this is not where we stayed :-) enjoying a nice view of the river and a light lunch. The hotel has zebras roaming around the property and we happened to find some on a walk.

Well, we hope this post finds you all enjoying the spring weather back home. Things are going to start to cool down for us very soon and we'll need to get good practice making fires in the fireplace. Please pray as we prepare for term 2 and the students arrive back in 1 week.

Time is going quickly. We are just about finished with term 1 with just a week and half left. Grades 10-12 will be going on an outdoor nature trip this next week, so it should be a bit peaceful around the dorm. Jason's parents will be flying just one week from now and arriving here on Tuesday morning, April 15th. We are getting very excited for their visit and will be sure to post some pictures.

Jason and Dave took the grades 8 and 9 on a team building trip for the day. They spent the day doing group activities and relaxing by the Kafue River. Here is a picture of the students on one of their missions.

We always like to add some pictures of nature in Zambia. If you look closely this is a leaf bug. It's an incredible creature that has wings just like a leaf.



Our dear twins have found a new hiding spot. As Jason has tried to get them ready for bed, they suddenly went missing until he found them hiding in their drawers.



Even though we keep very busy, we try to take time to rest on the days when we're off duty. There is a nice hotel in town that we visited with our friends, Dave and Tine (pictured above). If you pay for some food or a soda you can use the swimming pool. We think we'll be visiting this place more often as it feels like a 'real' get-away and it's only 15 minutes from school.