Mountain Hike

I (Luke) recently got the chance to climb the Uluguru mountains. Unfortunately Esther got sick the day before we left, so Gina had to stay behind and watch her. Here are some pictures of the hike.

   Here's what the trail looked like most of the time

A little church that we saw along the way

   They farm everywhere, even on the sides of steep mountains

Here's the old abandoned German vacation home called "Morning Side"

It was a pretty tough hike that took a little around 2 1/2 hours of fast walking to get to our destination. Our destination was an old abandoned vacation home built by German missionaries long ago. It was called "Morning Side". It had a beautiful view of the town of Morogoro and the greenery of the surrounding hills.

Strange Creatures

We have been intrigued by the many and various creatures we have encountered since our arrival. They range from primates, to reptiles, to insects and bugs. We have no idea what some of them even are. Take for instance this mean looking one:

Long "arms" on the front.

Then there are other ones like these guys. A spiky caterpillar that is about 8 inches long, and a bug that looks like a snowflake.

A plague of these caterpillars, they are everywhere!

You think it's a bit of cotton ball, and then it starts to crawl!

Then there are giant "double decker" millipedes. The longer one was about a foot long! We also found a balloon frog that filled itself with air when it got nervous. (Sorry, the picture is not very good.)

They are so big, yet harmless.

He just wanted to be left alone!

There are termites on almost all the trees here and they destroy any untreated wood on buildings too. Fortunately these lizards like to eat them and help keep the numbers down.

The bane of Africa!

Mealtime!

Can you find both lizards in this picture?

Plenty for everyone.

And other animals include a monkey that likes to hang around, big snails, and giant wood-boring bumblebees.

Vervet monkey.

Big snails.

Big bumble bee, everything is big!

April Update

Student and teacher practicing verb drills.

Hello dear praying friends. We hope you are all doing well and walking with the Lord daily.

Well the rains have returned. We had rain when we first arrived and then it stopped for about 3 weeks and now it is back. We have been getting heavy rains every day and it has cooled things off nicely.

Gina's studies continue to go well. They just finished their first course book which has 30 chapters. On Monday they will start the second and final book. So we are about halfway through our time already; time really has gone by quickly.

As for me, Luke, the Lord has been exposing areas of my life that need His continual grace and forgiveness. He has done this in a way that I did not expect, but I guess God often works that way. Although Esther has been a wonderful blessing and a source of much joy and laughter, she has also brought challenges to us, as I'm sure any parent would testify. Taking care of a toddler has proved to be tougher than I thought, and God has clearly shown me that I cannot do it without His help, wisdom, patience, grace and strength. The process is humbling, and yet needful, and I thank God for what He is teaching me and would continue to ask for your prayers.  

I have been asked to teach the book of Amos at the Moshi Bible School during their upcoming session (End of August to the end of November). My course will only last a little over a week but of course it will all be done in Swahili so I'm going to need a lot of extra preparation time, both in Bible and language study. 

I have also been continuing to work on an online mechanic's course and I need to complete it by a certain deadline which is coming up soon and I still have a lot to do. 

Here are a few prayer requests that you could keep in mind when you remember us in prayer.

- Our language learning 

- God's help in raising Esther 

- That God would help me (Luke) as I prepare to teach Amos at the Moshi Bible School in November

- That God would prepare the way for us after language study (Housing, transportation, and ministry-wise)

Thank you for your prayers.

In Christ,

                  Luke, Gina, and Esther Johnson