Close Encounters with Animals

May 22, 2009

Natasha Yoder

We have had some fun adventures this past week. We had a retreat which was a lot of fun. It was Monday - Wednesday, and then Thursday morning we left. We went on nature walking tours and a bird watching walk. We got to have a canoe ride. The man who was steering used only a bamboo stick. During the canoe ride we saw crocodiles. One even was swimming under our canoe for a few minutes! We went to an elephant breeding center and got to see twin elephants that are only 6 months old, and one that was only five days old. My favorite thing was we got to have an elephant ride. That was a lot of fun, and we saw some wildlife. We saw some deer with huge antlers and another crocodile. We also saw rhinos! At one point the elephants went into the river and the trainers were bathing them. To get back on, the trainer climbed up the trunk! One day we also visited a village for a little while as part of the package. But, for us we have been living the village life for the past few months. One evening we went to a cultural dance. It was really neat, and it was different than the other ones we have experienced. It was guys dancing and they were using sticks and one guy even did one dance with fire.

Last Sunday we went to the BREY graduation in the previous village we were in. It was good to see everyone again.

Now we are in another village in the South. It is very warm here, to everyone else it is very HOT! Everyone is sweating, and for once I am not cold. There is a training program going on here. We will be doing devos and sharing our stories and possibly teaching English, probably in more of a one-on-one setting. One of the girls here is very interested in learning English. Last night she asked us if we would help her learn and she got out her book. She tried to teach me the N_pali alphabet, but it was a bit difficult and I cannot hear any difference between some of the letters; they sound the same to me. We are not one hundred percent sure how long we will be in this village yet.

Praises:

The fun we had during our retreat and the animals we got to see

We had safe travels.

Requests:

good health

that we would be sensitive to the H.S.'s leading.

Natasha