A Hot November with More Guests

Hi all... Really I don't know why I haven't blogged earlier. Now that our last overseas mission team has come for the year, things have quietened down a lot for me in the Transit House. It's nice having some time to sort out jobs that have been on the back burner (or rather the paper conglomerating on my desk). And Hellen, the woman who cleans in the Transit House, has been blessed with so much more time to give everything a good clean.

Recently we had two members the Solomon Island Workgroup of SWIM come over for a week. It was great to spend some time with them, talking about our work here and struggles and joys on the mission field, as well as letting them be a part of our work for a week. I think they went home blessed and we were certainly blessed by their visit.

Well, I thought the Solomon Islands was hot. Until I met November. Now it's really hot. Indescribably hot. Or actually, the temperature is probably much the same, but we have this relentlessly high humidity level. So we're all feeling a bit weak and fatigued as the heat drains our energy. Apparently, the next few months should bring a lot of rain - so we've started the pre-flood preparations like clearing the "drain" area for the water to flow, building up around the side of the fence that fell over with the last flood, and Lord Willing, this week Jair plans to do a bit of tree lopping. You might remember from earlier on in the year, a tree fell down after

a flood. The ground becomes sodden with water and the flimsy roots with the weight of the tree result in a great big crash. So, the trees all need a drastic hair cut. But thankfully, it's been dry lately, so the weather is ok for doing all this work.

Well, in other news here at SWIM, some people next door at the sawmill recently caught a croc. Yip that's Jair with his new friend. We've heard there are a few around and I think they're better dead than alive so we wish all the best to the locals who catch and kill them.

Also, we have some interesting night time security!! They hang out on the fences (we're told the big ones are on the fence by our house... )

And finally, after many months of waiting - we now have a parrot. We've called it Gehazi (it was given to us by Elisha, seriously). Gehazi is still a baby. He can't talk yet and his feathers are still changing from grey fluffy baby ones to colourful red, orange and green, and his beak still needs to grow. But he's cute, although he does squawk alot.

Laki is extremely jealous of Gehazi and now whines a lot and begs for a lot of attention. Oh well.