Interview With Kyler - Age 8

What do you like about living in South Africa?
It's pretty.  I like the weather, it's really hot so we swim a lot.  I like a place called "Sun City" because they have a swimming pool and water slides.  It looks like a city from a long time ago (an ancient city).  I like all my friends here.  I also like the Lion Park and Pilanesberg.  Pilanesberg is a place where a lot of African animals are and it was made from a volcano. 

What do you  dislike about living here?  
I miss my family and friends in America.  I also miss the snow.

How is it different here than in the USA?
There are only lions and cheetahs in the zoo in the USA.  We drive on the opposite side of the road here.  We have Christmas in the summer. 

How is it similar to the USA?
We have a McDonald's and KFC here. 

What can you get to eat here that you can't in the US?
Weird hot dogs and hamburgers.  Bananas on pizza. 

How is the weather different? 
It is almost always hot here. 

What are your favorite things to do here?
Play outside, swim, go to Pilanesberg. 

Is school the same here as in the US?
Yes, it is the same for us because we homeschool.

Do you like working with the kids in Phokeng?
Yes, because they are silly and I like to play with them. 

Where is your favorite place to take visitors to South Africa? 
Sun City 

Is there anything else you'd like to say about South Africa?
No

I am not a professional blogger

That probably doesn't come as a surprise to most of you.

I've been reading up and asking for advice and reading more about how to make our blog better, more interesting, easier to navigate, googleable, more interactive, more attractive, more informative, how to appeal more readers, and so on.  I've received great information from many sources and I've incorporated a lot of changes into our blog.

The problem is, there is always more to do and a better way to do it (and being a perfectionist doesn't help at all, and I still can't figure out how to change the titles and links from blue and purple back to the dark red- ARGH!!).

While I would love to spend hours every day blogging (honestly, I do love blogging), being a missionary living overseas, having 4 kids, a dog, a chameleon and soon 2 kittens makes it nearly impossible to dedicate the time I need to make the blog professional enough for the professionals. 

I'm not a great writer (I'm not even a very good writer, and I use way too many parenthesis, exclamation marks, and commas); our power and internet aren't predictable enough to be able to post everyday like the pros say I should if I want consistent readers; our internet is too slow to post a lot of interesting, attention grabbing pictures and video; despite living in a foreign country, my life is actually fairly boring; and I have a strange sense of humor that doesn't translate very well into writing and pretty much only my brother and sister get anyway (and I don't know if they even read this blog. Hi Gary and Diane!)

But, I do try really hard to make our blog something that you would want to read.  So, if you can stick with me through all of my unprofessional blog writerness, I promise that I will do my best to make it worth your time!

And if there is ever anything that you would like for me to write about here, please let me know! (Really, I need some more blog fodder!)

~Jenny

Whites Only

I'm currently reading Long Walk to Freedom by Nelson Mandela, South Africa's first black president.  It's amazing to me to read about apartheid and how the white government oppressed the black citizens of South Africa.  It's even more amazing to me to that this form of government existed until 1994 when the first open election took place.  Here's a quote from the book:

"...it was a crime to walk through a Whites Only door, a crime to ride a Whites Only bus, a crime to use a Whites Only drinking fountain, a crime to walk on a Whites Only beach, a crime to be on the streets after 11p.m., a crime not to have a pass book and a crime to have the wrong signature in that book, a crime to be unemployed and a crime to be employed in the wrong place, a crime to live in certain places and a crime to have no place to live."
Nelson Mandela

 Source LSE Library 

~Lincoln

Wordless Wednesday

Martha's House

Here is an overview of the work we do with orphaned and vulnerable children in Phokeng.

We're Baaaack!!

After 4 long weeks of no internet access, we now have a connection again!

We contacted 8 different internet service providers, and aside from the one who is not taking new customers (side note: it must be really nice to be so successful that you don't need any more customers) there was only 1 option that would work for us where we are.  It's a cell phone modem that plugs into our USB port.  I really have no idea how it works, but I am thankful for it!  It's really slow right now but we have been told that a faster speed will be coming to our little town soon.

So, we can start blogging again!  We may not be able to add quite as many pictures and video as we have in the past due to speed issues, but we will start posting again regularly.

I also plan to try to figure out what is going on with the title and link colors.  It's really bugging me, it looked so nice before and I really have no idea what made the colors change to purple and blue instead of the dark red that matched the rest of the blog.

~ Jenny

No Internet Access

We’ve had every internet provider in our area come out to our new house and the only company whose signal reaches us cannot accept any new customers.  Their tower is full and they don’t have any plans to build a new tower.  The only way we will get service through them is if/when one of their existing customers cancels their service.

The other option we will be looking into is satellite internet, but we’ve heard that it’s extremely expensive.

So for now, we will not be posting to our blog regularly.

Lincoln has internet service on his cell phone, but we can’t check our hotmail accounts from his phone.  We are able to check our facebook accounts and our gmail account from his phone.  Please send emails to us at SouthAfricaLincoln@gmail.com.  If you’ve sent an email to our hotmail accounts and we haven’t replied, please resend it to the gmail account.  Using Lincoln’s cell phone for internet is costly and tedious, so we will be greatly limiting our time online.

If you need to reach us quickly you can call Lincoln's cell phone.  The number is:  011-27-76-308-4310

I Saw What I Saw

I love to hear stories of lives being changed when people visit Africa.  When Lincoln and I left South Africa in 2007, we thought we would never live here again.  Although we were leaving, we knew that our lives would never been the same, we would never truly "leave" Africa.  Who we were as people, the way we viewed life and the world, our thoughts and emotions had all been deeply impacted.

I recently heard this song written and preformed by Sara Groves.  The song was inspired by a trip she had taken to Rwanda.




~Jenny

South Africa Statistics

Based on its sample of 33,488 women attending 1,415 antenatal clinics across all nine provinces of South Africa, the South African Department of Health Study estimates that 28% of pregnant women were living with HIV in 2007. (The most current data available.) 

 Source: Avert

South Africa Stories

One day as I was visiting shacks in Freedom Park, a local squatter camp, I met a three kids raising themselves. Their father had never been part of their life, and their mother died a year earlier from AIDS.

They were 12-year-old twins, a boy and girl, raising their 4 year old little brother. They had both dropped out of school to try and find work. The sister had a “boyfriend” to make money, and the older brother was trying to pick up odd jobs around town to find work.

My heart went out to them as they tried to do everything possible to make ends meet. I offered the older boy a job working in our garden at the children’s shelter where we worked at the time, with the agreement that both he and his sister would go back to school.

He took us up on our offer and we were able to give him a job and some job skills that he could use later in life. The sister was able to leave her “boyfriend” and they both went back to school.

I spoke to their school headmaster a year later and she told me that those two kids were some of the best students in the entire school.

~Lincoln

Wordless Wednesday

South Africa's Parentless Families

I recently came across an article about orphans as the head of their family in South Africa.  Many of the kids that we work with in Phokeng have lost their parents to AIDS and are raising themselves and their younger siblings.  This article gives great insight into the plight of South Africa's orphaned children.


~Jenny