:: Brianna's Birthday ::

Debrianna turned 11 yrs old this past week. Coming after 6 brothers, this girl deserves a medal for all the teasing she's gotten! Bri's quite the little artist and pretty "resourceful"..."Oh! I can use that!" Egg cartons, paper scraps, tin cans. You name it, she uses it :)

Her newest joy is making orange juice for the family & an old man in the village. He supplies the oranges and she makes her concoction. 

Instead of buying mounds of gifts, we take family holidays or do something extra special on birthdays. Bri's was no different. Dad took us on a hike through a local Game Park. A few of Bri's friends joined in, too. We had high hopes of seeing wild game and weren't too disappointed. Having little girls giggle and holler, "Yoohoo!" to each other may or may not have discouraged the rhino from making his presence known :) We did see wildebeest, kudu, waterbuck, ostrick, zebra, warthog, impala, sable and a variety of other game. 

 

 

All dressed in pink without planning it :)

Getting as close to the Hartebeest as possible.

Siblings & friends

Widebeest

African Thorn bush

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, BRIANNA!

Belated Father's Day

I've always loved this book! It must have been written with Dad in mind 'cause he's brilliant! 

Things my Dad has taught us: 

 Always love and respect your mum.

Sometime you just have to step out of the boat and trust God.

You can't get away with much in a big family.

Sometimes the road in life will be rough & lined with thorns, but it's far better to be in the center of God's will than out. 

 Experience new cultures & ways of life.

Goodbyes never get any easier, but it helps to say "See ya later."

Siblings are built-in friends. Enjoy them while you can. 

You're a Wilhite. You're gonna get teased. Get used to it! :D

Always do your best, even if others aren't watching.  

It's okay to be crazy!

Love you, Daddy! Happy Belated Father's Day!

Once a year...

Don'tcha hate those mornings when the alarm clock refuses to work (or so you claim?), and you have a full day ahead? Welcome a 6:30 am wake-up call with a "pulling out of the driveway in 1/2 an hour" that follows. Rushed shower, rushed hair-do, rushed brekky, rushed everything! But we did it! And hence started my birthday :) Last year this time, we were making the 10 hour trek back from the oceanside. We may have started a new tradition of long car rides on Juli's birthday. Hmmm. Am I up to it?

Candid camera :D

We drove to Bela-Bela (formerly known as Warmbaths, due to the mineral springs there) to watch our neighbor play rugby in a competition.  We arrived a bit late, but still got in a game. 

American vs. Afrikaaner

Off-sides rugby

At the last rugby game I watched, I wasn't able to get a decent photo of a line-out. Finally got my wish ;)

In everything give thanks...so refreshing to see young "athletes" returning thanks to God. 

We stopped to see some friends and the boys lost their ball over the wall :)

As a treat, my music teacher took me to a choral concert at the military base. It was basically all Afrikaans, but for fun, the guys donned caps and sang some worldwide songs, such as Shenandoah, Danny Boy and Waltzing Matilda. It was an amazing evening. 

Southern Day Trip

Several weeks ago, my cousin wrote to say she was flying into South Africa with a college team. Seeing as she would only be 2 1/2 hours south of us, we made a plan to get down to see her. Dad took us through a small Game Reserve, which allowed us to view Kudu (personal fav.), wildebeest, ostrich, impala and warthog. 

With Becka, our cousin, at the orphanage where she's volunteering.

 Aunt Jackie had a delish lunch prepared for us when we popped by for a visit. Their daughter, Beth, and her hubby, John, were there for a visit. I so enjoyed the visit...and for those wondering,..we refer to almost all the missionaries, here in SA, as "Aunt" & "Uncle". They're basically our family away from home.

Our on a walk with my hero ;)

Blogging from the Road

We're driving down the road just now, but this post needs to go out sometime. Here, goes...Thursday morning, the kids were up at the crack of dawn, all excited about our trip too Moholoholo that day. The 3 hr trip, to meet up with 2 other missionary families and a couple guys from North Dakota, didn't seem to phase them much.

A sure overload in the giggle department with these girlies :)

All 3 homeschooling moms brought along a box of books for a summer reading exchange. Brianna had about 1/2 her books read by the time we arrived home!

We brought home Wade and Tanner, the guys from ND, for a weekend visit. Life was a whirlwind of activity from the time they stepped foot in the kombi till they pulled out the drive 3 days later. On Friday, the guys climbed the avocado tree and began the process of harvesting the fruit & pruning it down some. 

We covered several bases in town Saturday morning, with groups door knocking and passing out Gospel tracts. Later that evening, we piled into the kombi and headed off to a rugby game, to watch a friend knock himself out. Seriously….the game is brutal!

Playing football with a rugby ball ;)

Tanner preached in the village church on Sunday morning (sorry, no pix) while Wade accompanied the other 1/2 of the family to our town service, where he shared his salvation testimony. 

Sunday evenings find us in the township, holding a group Bible study. Tanner shared his salvation testimony and then Wade brought a challenge. I hope I never tire of hearing how folks come to Christ.

Dad and Mum drove the guys over to their next missionary stop-over last night. The guys were our first “foreign” visitors in roughly 7 months and were enjoyed by all. So many memories crammed in one weekend…oh, and I highly recommend you not start a towel war on a Saturday night or you'll end up wearing long sleeves to church on a warm day :)