The end

Friday we finally completed the family room the final room to be renovated on our schedule. We're all  SO pleased but find our selves today with mixed emotions as we now all have to say goodbye. Some will stay but the majority of the team now will return home leaving a small group to stay and start stage 2 of the renovations here ready for next years internationals.Who knows whats next for us? BUT for now today we say goodbye to all the friends we have made here in Zim. We look forward to seeing you all soon untill then
thanks for reading x Love the Bells

Assembly and final week

Our assembly was last weekend and was a good weekend very hot at times, peak attendance for our section of the district 2091 with 34 baptised.

Sitting with friends at lunch was a nice chance to catch up before we were to say good by to them for the last time this visit

Don't be deceived by the clouds was Warm!

Baptism of the 34!

Me and Anne ( the I.S sister we work with on our project)

SO Just a few pictures of the weekend and since then our feet haven't touched the ground. Returning back to work monday afternoon we find we need to return to some jobs and we work through till 10pm and last night Lester was laying carpets and mending some newly laid damaged floors up until 11.40pm! But THANKFULLY tomorrow we will find our selfs finishing our last room and day of work here in Zimbabwe Bethel and we are so pleased to have been able to get to this point with the team and so relieved as well!!
We have a busy weekend planned our final trip to the dam, the team leaving do and co visit to finish before we return home tuesday oo and pack! We hope to blog you one last time but until then only 4 days left to enjoy whats left!!!

Less then two weeks to go and the count down begins!!

Helloooo Can you sense the excitement? The end is so close we can smell it!! Work is close to completion although we shall wait and see if we make it in time! But for now we look forward to our district assembly this weekend which we are really looking forward to and not only because we can sit down for three days, but because you've all told us how good it is and we look forward to seeing for ourselves.
So below is the photo of our lion, yes we have claimed her as ours as she is our first wild lion! She looked at us then walked off, RUDE! Blink and you'll miss her!

Hwange and Vic Falls

Safari begins!! Our first day after our first night under canvas listening to elephants bath less then 100 meters away. It took us 13 hours to arrive and with in half hour we'd spotted a lion walking in the distance (picture still to come!) Above the group me, Lester, Sport, Kate, Michael and June

You know we thought that he was yawning but its actually a warning when they do this not to get to close! So we didnt!!

The camp surrounded by a twig fence!! We had cold showers and then fires to keep us warm after!!

So the last night about 2am ish an elephant walked strait through the fence as the watering hole had run dry, he walked through the camp drank from the septic tank and then walked through the fence on the other side! I just pushed my ear plugs in and tried to ignore what was going on and Lester stayed inside with me, But sport and kate rushed out to make sure he didnt come to the tents or wreck the kitchen area!! We'll show you a little video of where he went when we get home! Apparently best not irritate them or they charge ( I feel the same actually!)

Afternoon snack?

This is a baby hyena, we went out most mornings around 6 to try and see the predators this little chap was very inquisitive, the other morning we saw a cheetah but we spooked him and he ran so fast we couldn't get a photo!Awesome

We saw masses of ele's and their babys!!

If you sit at the watering holes you see the Elephants run to them as their so thirsty and go nuts rolling in the water and mud we spent hours watching!

Crocks lying in wait for the other animals to slip up!

Zebra!

Giraffe!

Victoria Falls we stayed in a lodge surrounded by monkeys and wart hogs! Seeing vic falls from Zimbabwe side was far more impressive and you get to see the full length!

spot the silly fisherman!! He saw us then started waving!! People even pay to swim in a pool on the edge of the falls!

On our final day we did a final view of the falls but from the air!! wohoo!

"Raise your hand Maurice its more fun if you raise your hands" 

 

 

Awesom!!

 So these are just a few of the things we had a chance to enjoy over the past week we'll tell you more when we get home! We arrived back to Bethel to find work progessing well and more help has also arrived so we are on track to finish as planned the 23rd of August and to then for us to arrive home the following Wednesday, with a little over three weeks to go it finally seems real that we are coming home to see you all as they're already planning our leaving do's!! BUT there is still much work to and our assembly to attend before we come home!! We look forward to seeing you all soon and showing you the many more photos to come!!
Lots love us xxx

Baby Bethel

 A little experience we thought we'd like to share. A few weeks ago now a local man from one of the farms near by came to the Bethel gates in desperate need of help. His wife had just given birth and he had no way of getting her to the hospital, SO two from Bethel take the husband, wife and new born baby umbilical cord still attatched to the local hospital. Mum and baby are both fine. The new family arrive at our gates here two weeks later Mum and Dad both proud to show their new baby and tell the brothers that they have named him Bethel because of the kindness shown! They also asked for a bible study, all because the brothers were kind and gave them a lift to the hospital!
 All is going well this end of the week I haven't updated the work schedule for a while as it has now changed and a little more work has been added. We have enjoyed having some extra hands the past two weeks a couple who applied to help at this Bethel during there holiday time came and we are so grateful for their help. Also we have a brother joining in our team next week who has been reassigned from kingdom hall construction to help with the renovations of the branch here! Good timing as we go to vic falls and on safari next week so the extra hands will be a relief for the team! With four rooms left to be completed and the corridor then we move on to a few other rooms to complete we see the end fast approaching!
 We're glad your finally enjoying some sunshine and you will be glad to know its finally hotter with you than it is with us! No doubt you will all be browner then we are on our return next month! Lots of love to you all x usx

Some photo's of some of the lovely Birds here xx

Lions and Tings

Its taken a a little while to write again as moving rooms and getting back in routine took a while but here we are in a new room (air con and heater yay!) as the old one is now half way through its renovations, Its amazing to see how far our work has come as we look back down the corridor to where we started its encouraging to see how little is left. 2 single rooms 3 double rooms the hall way the family room ( a room that can be hired out for people to associate for the eve) and the infirmary all left to be completed by august the 23rd!!! At this moment we are still on track! We dont take many photos of work because we're to busy concentrating to be honest but we had another nice weekend out with some friends last week. Locally there is a lion park where the lions are captured and taken, a small game drive and also a small snake park so we spent the day with the animals and got really close to them which is always nice! It was a great day and ended with a goodbye party for Tim and Simone who are Iv's from London. Simons sister and brother in law are Bethelites here Gareth and Vanessa Jones (Gareth was originally in Liskard congregation! Small world)


Our favourtie part of the day meeting this maaaahooooosive taughtoise he's one of the giant tortoise mentioned in the August awake and has "APPARENTLY" lived for around 300 years, but we are told this as tourists and i don't think they actually live that long!

PRESS PLAY!

And Bellow you see how close we were Gareth decided to get to go off road and wind our windows down mine but stuck so i was a tad stressed being so close to this chap below!! But they are reasonable close to humans when we go camping at the end of the month thats when we'll be in their territory so hopefully we'll get to see some for real in the wild!!

                                   As you can tell by now me and Lester LOVE chameleons!!

                      This little family got so close while we had our pick nick the mum was so nosey!

Spot the monkey!

                                                                              

Simone, Tim, Gareth, Vanessa, Me and Lester taking photo!

Boys being boys

Babys! White lion cub and normal at feeding time!! So all in all nice day out and only down the road! Hope all is well at home keep in touch, thinking of you all!

Weekend on Kariba!!

We've just arrived home this afternoon from a really welcome holiday at lake Kariba on a house boat. Some friends of ours from our congregation have been excited to show us what a lovely place it is and we are so pleased they did! 12 of us shared this house boat! Kariba is actually a dam and is "Huge" one side is Zimbabwe and the other Zambia Both sides have game parks so the captain of our boat spent the weekend parking on small Islands where we sat and watched Hippos, Elephants, Crocodiles, Buck, Fish Eagles it was very special to spend a weekend that close to such amazing animals!! Lester got his fishing Fix and manged to catch two of the biggest fish untill Troy proper went and out done him with a MONSTER tiger fish, It was UGLY!!!! So the weekend was spent with lots of monopoly card games and eating, laughing and watching the wild life so i'll leave you to look at some picutres while i attempt to unpack and repack ready to move rooms tomorrow as our guest room is next to renovated! Hope you all Had a smashing weekend at plymouth x lots o love us xx

This is it!!!!!!!!!! (Its actual name!)

With in seconds of popping out on speed boat we bumped into this family there were 3 other babys smaller then this chap!!

The second they see us they are in the water, mum on her way to our little boat so we're off as we dont' want to damage Les' new speed boat!

Lester pulls in the speed boat

when we told Joss to Hoist the flag he took it literally!

The thumb suckers

We had just watched this chap have a fight so i suppose he needed some refreshments

I'd just missed getting a picture of this hippo Launching himself into the water, twas one big splash

While we're on the subject of hippos again i must tell you one quick story! Lester, Myself, Craig and Les were off out on the speed boat having a late afternoon fish when Lester's fishing line runs and pulls him hard we all yell "reel it in, reel it in" Craig shouts, "its massive it must be a Tiger fish!" at that very second Craigs line starts to pull hard to and then both Lester and Craigs Line snap hard and up pops a  HUGE HIPPO!!!! I tell you we were all in so much shock and need i say so was the poor hippo who i dont think had planned on having his ears Pierced! Thankfully he just left, but i tell you it took us all a while to get over the fact that Lester had caught a hippo!!!

None of us swam on the trip and this is the reason why! Gift, one of the crew told us that he had been working on the boat for 8 years and in that time 5 people had been killed by crocks because they had decided to jump in and go for a swim despite the fact these guys are sat waiting!! Poor Gift said that when people jump in they no longer try to help them as those that often take the boat are drunk and don't listen to the warnings!! Needless to say we all did exactly as we were told!!!!!

Every night we fished and enjoyed "sundowners" this is the kidz on the pontoon

Gift on left stood admiring Troys catch of his life this Tiger fish ripped a hole in troys shirt his teeth were so big!!

 

Anyone for a kiss!?

Dinner on da boat!

William, Gift and George these guys were so lovely, the crew of "This is it!"

Us this morning overlooking Lake Kariba (ITS HUGE!)

Baobab tree

x Thats it for now from us x