Family Night at Ziggies

Friday nights are family night for us. The rest of the week is full, and most of the time in the evening. So tonight we went to Ziggy's house for dinner. Ziggy is the town butcher in Grootfontein. The kids loved it. Ziggy has lots of pets at his house, the most famous one in town is his full grown male lion!

The kids really enjoyed seeing him tonight before dinner. They even got to see the helper feed him. The lions name is Mufasa, from the Lion King. The story of Mufasa is that one day when Ziggy was out hunting, he came upon a lion cub that had been left by the tribe. So he took it home and nursed it. For a while Mufasa was the house pet until one day Ziggy came home and Mufasa had killed his horse and was eating it for dinner. So now Mufasa stays behind a fence.

Ziggy also has some cheetahs, prairie dogs, wart hogs, bob cats, emu's, rabbit's and who knows what else. Below are some pictures from the night.

We also got Hannah a mozzie net tonight. This is what they call mosquito nets. Hannah is just so sweet that they can't get enough of her at night time. We told her it was a princess tent for her bed! She liked that idea better.

Tomorrow is my first youth group, so I am excited about that.

Hope everyone is getting ready for the Snow. Enjoy some for us, and we will enjoy the sunny and 95 degree weather for you! :)

To see more pictures we are taking in Africa, you can visit Brian's facebook photo album.

Pictures of the Day

Today was another long day in that it is around 95 degrees and Kristen and I are still suffering from a major head and chest cold, so it is not a good mix. Today I headed out to buy fans, and screen doors for the sliding doors of our house to get some air flow going. Well no where in town had either. So tomorrow I head about 2 hours south to hopefully find a desk chair, to which I could not find either, and the fans. At least the screens can be ordered.

I finished the day off with praise and worship practice at the church. It was great! Some of the songs are new to me, but that is neat to have a fresh take even on worship music. The Pastors Wife leads worship in the church, and she does a great job of it. So I will begin helping in the worship team this Sunday.

Cell phones are big over here, and cheaper to use, cheaper to buy and texting is the main line of communication for everyone here, even adults. So thanks to youth in the US, I am well trained for this function here. The youth have already started to spread my cell phone number around town and I am getting messages from all directions.

The kids had a fun day of exploring today, and they are starting to feel better. Cameron caught a frog, found a really cool grass hopper and Hannah has a pet lizard that lives on her window sill. We also enjoyed some ice cream tonight. I nice treat for the end of a hot day. Corbin enjoyed it the most!

That is all for today. Tomorrow is my one day a week off. So after I travel to get supplies for the house, we are going to a butchers house who has a restaurant at his house. He also has a pet lion, cheetahs and other wild animals. So the kids are excited about that.

Blessings to you all!

Arrived in Grootfontein!!

Thanks for all the prayers! We finally made it to Grootfontein last Thursday afternoon. We are slowly getting settled in, and just received internet access tonight.

Everyone is a little sick at the moment with head and chest colds. So please pray for our improved health soon.

Things with the church are going nicely and I am very excited about working with the 140-150 kids that are currently involved with the church.

It is rather late now and I have been going through over a week of e-mails tonight, but did want to let our blog followers know that we are finally home and settling.

Here are a few pictures to share with you now, and many more to come soon! The pictures of the kids with some new friends was really neat. None of them could speak the same language, but they sure had fun every day while we were in Windhoek playing together. The language barrier did not bother them at all.

Blessings to you all!

The Bradshers!

We Have Arrived in Namibia!

Well three days, four flights, and 48 hours later we arrived in Windhoek, Namibia! The flights went well, our kids did great, and all 17 pieces of luggage made it with us on our last flight!

We are praising God today for his protection, and care for us during all the travel.

We got some crazy looks at RDU Monday morning with all our luggage and boxes, and many looks when we got on the air planes. But at the end of each flight people told us our kids were great! A big sigh of relief there!

The kids are enjoying Namibia so far. Learning to try new foods, we did some exploring this morning for bugs, and found a ton of 8 inch long centipedes! They look like baby snakes, they are so big!

We are now getting ready to go for our first grocery run! Should be a lot of fun!

We will report more once we get our own Internet service up and running!

Thanks to all for supporting us financially and through prayer!

We are excited that God has brought us here to serve Him in this capacity. We are also honored to be the hands and feet of each of our supporters as we each serve the Lord together to make is name famous in the land of Namibia.

God Bless!

Made it to Frankfurt!

Well we made it to Frankfurt on time at 1:30am EST time this morning. The kids did really great! There were lots of kids on the flight, but people on the plane said that ours were the best behaved. Praise the Lord for that one!

Kristen and I did not get much rest, but we all took about a four hour nap in our hotel room today. We are getting ready to go grab a bite to eat and then head back to the airport for flight number 3 to South Africa. So please continue to pray for our last two legs of the flight.

One funny note, after the eight hour flight this morning, Corbin cried because he said he wanted to do it again! But when we told him he got to ride a bus from the plane to the airport he was happy to get off.

Cool note for Brian and Kristen, when we got into our room it had not been made, so the hotel put us in a fancy suite. We had a nice spacious room, slippers and robes in the bath room, and free food.

Thanks for all the prayers and we will keep you posted on the rest of our travels.

God Bless!

The Journey has begun!

Well we left the house before 8am this morning. It took forever to get through the baggage check process. We were late for boarding, but the people working with United were great! They helped us get on the plane just in time to take off.

We are now sitting in DC waiting for our next flight. Attached are pictures of us waiting. Wish I could sleep like Corbin. I got two hours sleep last night, and am extremely exhausted, but God has been good and getting us through everything smoothly! We got lots of stares when we got out at RDU with 27 bags!!! :)

Blessings to all!

Where in the World are we!

Well if you want to know where the Bradsher clan is at in our journey, then you can click on the link below titled "Track Us", and you will see where we are at.

Please keep us in your prayers as we travel the next three days. We should arrive in Namibia by 7:30am Wednesday morning your time, well Eastern Standard that is.

Many Blessings to you all and we will be in contact soon!

First Flight January 11th 10:30-11:30 EST "Track Us"

Second Flight January 11th 5:50pm-1:30am EST "Track Us"

Third Flight January 12th 4:50pm-4:00am EST "Track Us"

Fourth Flight January 13th 7:30am-9:30am EST "Track Us"

Packed and Ready to Go!!!

Well, the day is finally here. This is our last full day in North Carolina for the next three years. We are all packed, and ready to go. This will be an emotional day of many sorts. Saying good by to family and friends, nervous about all the travel, anxious about the days ahead, but standing firm on the Rock for all our needs!

I will be posting one more post on the blog this evening. It will be the last until we get set up over seas. It will have a flight tracker link posted on it for anyone that may want to see where in the world the Bradsher's are at.

God Bless!

One Week To Go!

Well we are now down to the final week. Next week at this time we will be enjoying our last good old southern home cooked meal at my moms house and saying our good byes to friends and family.

The packing process continues to progress, but we are not where we had hoped to be by this point in time. But everyone has been a little under the weather this past week, Brian preached at a New Years Ever service Thursday night, we enjoyed spending time with the Callahan family on Friday, spent time with Kristen's family here in NC Friday night, and had our rescheduled Christmas gathering with my Dad's family on Saturday. So we still have quite a bit to do, and not much time left to do it in.

Luckily we have no furniture to bother with, as it is all to be left here in the missions house. So we have to finish boxing up what we have left that we can't take with us. We are still open for people that may want to come stop by and say farewell to us before we leave. Just give us a call and come on by.

Continue to pray for us to all get healthy before leaving, to stay healthy for the journey, for our families that we are leaving behind, and for God to prepare our hearts for the next step ahead.

Many Blessings to you all!