Good Bye Beautiful Gate

 Our main goal for this week was to paint the River Chapel. Denise started the logo, but because of the rain, and our scheduled days for the end of the week we were not able to finish. The maintenance staff of Beautiful staff finished the job for us!

Here is Francis finishing the logo.

The finished River chapel. Notice the top picture on our blog, that was the before, and this is the after.

Our group outside of the front gate of Beautiful Gate.

We all cannot believe that our week here has come to a close, it went by way too quickly. 

We have all been blessed beyond belief, and changed in a big way forever.

Flying with MAF

Hey this is sick Cindy checking in.

Today we got an amazing opportunity to fly in the planes from MAF. Five of us got to fly in the plane at a time, we flew around 7,500 feet. I liked how the pilot said a prayer for us before we took off.  We got to tour Maseru from above and were even able to spot Beautiful Gate. At the end, one of the planes were getting ready to do a rescue mission and the pilot had asked us if anyone wanted to go with them. We elected Doug to tag along. It turns out he was "kicked off the runway" due to space limitations. 

Our Day With World Vision

Today was the day we were eagerly waiting for.  This was day we were to meet our sponsored children from World Vision.  Pictured here are each of us with our sponsored child or children.

The Vander Tuigs sponsor 6 children but we don't have a picture of all of them.

We were presented with the native blankets.  The chief now told us we were officially Basotho!

Quiddler, Sudoku, Skype, Journaling & Blogs

Now those are words you don't hear everyday!  Only in Lesotho!  These are some of the things that we do with our extra time together.  With technology we are able to talk to our loved ones from across the ocean.  It's been fun!

 

The River Runs Through Beautiful Gate

 It started to rain last night and continued all day. The ground was saturated - kind of like it has been in So Cal.  Check out the pictures!

Praise & Worship & Prayer

 Today we had the privilege of joining the staff from Beautiful Gate in their praise and worship time.  We sang songs together, read scripture and prayed.  There were specific areas that we prayed for regarding Beautiful Gate.

We prayed for the Management Team and the Administration Team.  We prayed for the House Mothers and the children.  They are coming up on their winter, which can be very cold and the houses here are not the warmest.  We prayed for warm clothes and good health for the children.  We just discovered that three of the children have got the Mumps and their is no immunization here in Lesotho for mumps.  So please pray that no other children get this illness especially any adult males.

We also prayed for the preschool here at Beautiful Gate.  Pray for God's provision and guidance during some changes and transitions in the preschool program.

We also prayed for God's wisdom for the nurse, Tiea (pictured below) as he cares for all these children.  I'm sure what he faces everyday is overwhelming and needs constant prayer.

Please keep these concerns in your prayers.  This worship time was a time I will never forget.  It was such a blessing to worship with people who live half way across the world, speak a different language and love the same faithful God.

Thanks for visiting!

Rain & Shopping - Two of our favorite things!

"LUMELA" (Hello)

It's Whitney and Lindsey here to tell you about our day of shopping in the city, and the rain!

After lunch, the rain clouds moved in and we got to experience our 2nd African storm, but this didn't stop us from shopping! :)

 Our first stop was a local coffee shop to visit one of Pastor Bill and Harriet's good friend Solomon.

We got our U.S. dollars exchanged to rand, which is the local currency. The exchange rate is currently about 7 to 1, but the prices are pretty comparable to ours in the United States.

 In downtown Maseru there are many street vendors selling things like
vegetables, fruits, clothing and other things. 

Downtown is very busy, filled with many shops, tons of honking taxis,
and many people strolling around.

From Lesotho to YOU! <3