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!

Two Weeks and Counting!

Well we are down to two weeks before we leave. Today we tried to bump things up a gear. We have a lot of packing and sorting to go, but we did make some headway. The hard part is trying to decide what you can't take even though you really wish you could take it.

The other issue is trying to think of all the little things to do before leaving home for three years. Accounts to close, bills to get paid off, handing off bills that still have to be paid while we are gone. It gets a little overwhelming at times and I have to sit back take a deep breath, and try to stay focused.

And thanks to the guy from Nigeria who tried to blow up a plane this week, things are changing a lot for security reasons. Some European airports will not let you travel with any liquids or toiletries at all in your carry on bags. Also, for international flights, the last hour of the flight you can not get up out of your seat. Tell a three year old "Honey, you will have to hold it for another hour before you can go to the potty!".

Glad we serve a great and mighty God who is in control of all these little things!

December Newsletter

Bradsher's To Namibia

Our New Address in Namibia:

P.O. Box 1122, Grootfontein, Namibia



God is Faithful!

December has been an emotional month for us. We are preparing to leave our family for the next three years, anxiously awaiting Kristen’s mammogram results, and the passing of her Grandmother Cibos. All of this happening within a few days of each other and during Christmas.
God has gotten us through it all! Our families are all 100% supportive of God’s call in our lives. Kristen’s mammogram came back clear and cancer free. Kristen’s Grandmother Cibos was a godly woman, solid in her faith and has been praying to be with Jesus for some years now.
So we are praising God for His unfailing faithfulness to us as we continue down our road to Namibia. He has used you all through your prayers, love and encouragement of our family!

We have Tickets!

It is finally official! We have now received our plane tickets for Namibia! We will be leaving from Raleigh/Durham airport on January 11th at 10:30am.
We have a long three day journey before we get to our new home of Namibia. We travel to Washington, D.C., Frankfurt, Germany, Johannesburg, S.A., and finally Windhoek, Namibia. We will then have a six hour drive to our home in Grootfontein, Namibia. So four plane rides, a long van ride, and three days later and we will be home.
I will be loading an air tracker program on our blog just before we leave so that you can follow our travels. The address to our website/blog is listed above under our names. Please check it often after January 11th, as we will be loading videos, pictures and daily accounts of our ministry. The kids also have a blog as well, and you can find the link to it listed on our blog to the right. This will give you an idea of a day in the life of a 5, 4, & 2 year old in Africa! Be sure to share it with your kids!

Newsletters

If you have been receiving our prayer letters by snail mail, do not fear. We have a wonderful person here in NC that will continue to help us in mailing out our newsletters. We will be sending a newsletter out every other month. But if you have a computer please be sure to follow our blog for more detailed communications weekly.

Also notice our mailing address for Namibia above!!!

Come See Us

If you would like to see us before we leave, please come on by. We would love to see anyone that would like to stop by. We live in Durham, NC. Just give us a call or shoot an e-mail so that we will know you are stopping by. Don’t think it will be a burden, as we will be gone for three years! 

Prayer Requests

* for safety in travels
* for health of the family
* for open hearts to hear the gospel in Namibia
* for getting settled in to our new life
* for our families we are leaving behind
* for God to be glorified in all we do each day

Many Thanks to all for your financial support of our family!

Remit Donations to:
SIM USA
PO Box 7900, Charlotte, NC 28241
Or at www.sim.org/giveUSA
Our account: #024621

Plane tickets in the mail!!!

It is finally official. We now have our plane tickets for Namibia purchased, and in the mail.

We leave out of Raleigh/Durham January 11th at 10:30am and we set foot on Namibian soil January 15th at 9:30am eastern standard time or 4:30pm in Namibia.

We are praising our Lord and Savior for how He has used you all in so many ways to finally get us to Namibia. God is so good and we are thankful for the calling that He has placed in our hearts and for the road that He has led us down to get us to today.

Yes, we thank Him for every good day and even for the very tough days. We know that He has used both to draw us closer to Himself, to strengthen our faith and trust in Him, as well as to prepare us for hard days to come in the field of ministry that we are soon to begin.

Many blessings to you all!

Kristen's Mammogram Reports

We are praising the Lord this afternoon! Her reports and scans all came back clear of any cancer or abnormalities!

Please join us in praising the Lord for His greatness!

Thanks to you all for your prayers.

We will be reporting this great news to SIM today and once we get clearance from the medical team, plane tickets ordered and departure dates, we will let you all know.

Many Blessings!

Honoring a Wondeful and Godly Woman

Early this morning Kristen's Grandmother, Catherine Cibos, was called to glory by our sovereign God. Today is both a day of great joy, but also a day of sadness.

Joy

Joy, in that Nanna Cibos has been ready for a few years now to meet her savior face to face. Only a woman who has had a close walk with the Lord, could have been as ready as Nanna was. So today, I can only imagine what that moment was for her when she got to see King Jesus for the first time.

The amazing awe to be in His presence, joining with the multitude of heavenly hosts and other believers that have been called home, all in one united worship together. Praising with their voices, "Holy, Holy, Holy, is the Lord God almighty!". God has given her a new and perfect body. A body that aches no more, that hungers no more, that is weak and failing no more.


Sadness

Our sadness will only be in that she is no longer here with us. Here to encourage us with her faith and trust in God. Here to offer her love and kindness in the many ways that she did. To see how much she cared for those so close to her, and her great joy that she had when her grand children and her great grandchildren walked in the room.

But we can not be sad for long. We will grieve today, but with the comfort that can only come from the Lord and the comfort that comes with trusting and knowing that today she is with God himself.

So we will not be selfish today, we will be joyful today. Heaven is where she was called to be. Heaven is where she wanted to be. And Heaven is where she is rejoicing at today.

God, we thank You for all 95 years of the life you gave to Catherine Cibos on this earth you created. We thank You for all the many ways that You used her in the fulfillment of your purposes for her in her life here with us. And God we thank You that we too can have the same hope that Nanna Cibos had before you called her home today. The hope that we too can one day join with her and You at your feet in worship of the One who loves us so much that you gave your Son, Jesus, to die for us on the Cross. This is where the hope came from that Nanna Cibos had. Thank You for answering her prayers and calling her home today to be with You!

2 Timothy 4:7

I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.

We love you Catherine (Nanna & Nanny) Cibos!

Pray for Kristen

Kristen has a mammogram this coming Monday at 2:30. We are praying and asking for you to pray also, that it comes back clear. If everything is clear then we will be cleared to order our plane tickets for Namibia the next day and scheduled to leave by January the 11th.

Our most important concern is Kristen and her health. So we ask that you please pray for her this weekend and this Monday that the Lord will make sure that she is still healthy and cancer free.

Thanks in advance for remembering her this weekend.

Christmas for the Bradsher's and other Thoughts

This Christmas is mixed with many emotions for us this year. We are sad that this will be our last Christmas with our families for the next three years. Excited in that we are getting ready to leave for Africa in the next coming weeks. And filled with Joy for what Christmas truly means to our family.

We have no clue what Christmas will be like next year in Namibia, but we have been told that it is nothing like here in America. I am really glad that is the case.

We have missionary friends in South America, and in his last letter he talked about what a joy it was to not have another commercialized Christmas. I think about how we as Christians get pulled into the commercialized side of what are tremendous Christian holidays.

Easter

The celebration of the death and Resurrection of our Lord and Savior. The greatest event that ever took place in the history of man. When God allowed His son, Jesus, to be killed for the sins of many, that they might one day be with God himself in Heaven if they believe in Him.

But we can't just have Jesus at Easter, but we bring in Mr. Easter Bunny. Lots of colorful eggs, gifts and candy for the kids.

We get the Easter Bunny from the German fertility goddess Eostre.

Reformation Day

Lots of people do not know much about this day, and they should, but they better recognize it as Halloween. Some also celebrate "All Saints Day" on Oct. 31st as well.

The reformation was a day when Martin Luther was fed up with the poor doctrine of the Catholic church of his time. Allowing people to supposedly buy people out of purgatory and into Heaven. You can read more on this here. But this day is important as it was the founding of the Protestant Reformation to which today we have our Christian denominations, i.e. Presbyterians, Baptist, Methodist, Lutherans, etc.

But in America, people send there kids out dressed up and again candy is given.

And at last Christmas

We know that at Christmas, Christians celebrate the fulfillment of prophecy, through the birth of Jesus. God sent His Son to earth, to live and die for a fallen world full of sinners.

But we have good old Santa Clause, Christmas trees, spending lots of money on gifts, parties and you know everything else that comes with the holiday.

All of these holidays are marketed towards kids! Kids getting eggs, getting candy, and getting gifts from Santa.

I for one am excited about being in Africa, where when Easter comes along, we will only celebrate the Resurrection of Jesus, and when Oct. 31st comes along we will celebrate how God, through a simple man, began the Protestant Reformation and the accounting for sound doctrine and giving God the glory for His work on earth for His purpose and not mans.

And at Christmas, I look forward to just celebrating the birth of our Savior, Jesus Christ. Not hoaxing up a jolly big man in a red suit, that has miraculous flying reindeer, fits through all size chimneys and gives gifts to good boys and girls. Not sure how we ever felt good about lying to our kids like that. We never have because, well we are teaching our kids not to lie, and we also want them to only focus on what Christmas is truly all about. Even though there was a Saint Nicholas way back when, he didn't fly around the world in a sled by reindeer and that is not what Christmas is about.

I know I may step on some toes with this, but we need to get the "world" out of Christian celebrations. God wants all of the attention on Himself, He always has and He always will. Read the Bible and that is quite apparent.

Just think about it. Pray about it. And just focus on God and give him all the glory on these wonderful days of the year. He doesn't want to be shared with Santa, Eggs and dressing up for candy. He wants all of our attention, our worship and efforts on celebrating Him.

Great Christmas Gift Idea

Last year for Christmas I asked for the ESV study bible. It was the best gift ever! Well it is on sale again this year at monergism.com for 40% off, which is a great deal.

Here is a link to the site.

ESV Study Bible Sale Link

Visit To Winston-Salem, NC

This past Friday we traveled to Winston-Salem, NC to visit friends before leaving for Africa.

It was a great weekend, and we packed it to the brim. I hate it that we did not get more pictures, but here are a few that we did take.

Thanks to everyone for the time allowed to visit with you, eat with you and share a few more laughs as well.

We love you all and will miss you over the next few years, and could not possibly be making this journey if not for God using you all in so many special ways to support our family!

God bless!

Hymn Melody in Afrikaans

One of the things that I am doing now is studying Afrikaans on-line. In my lesson tonight for pronunciation I had to listen to some songs. Well one of the songs that I listened to sounded very familiar, well the tune did.

Take a listen to this great melody of hymns in the language we will need to learn while in Namibia. It is really great! I had to listen to a few times myself.

Hymn Link

Slashed My Finger!

Today I slashed my finger and ended up getting 6 stitches in my hand. While laying in the hospital applying pressure to my hand to keep it from bleeding, I wondered what the scene would have been like in in Namibia.

Well, I know that God is good and that He will take care of us. Even today I sat in the hospital triage area for an hour trying to stop the bleeding while I waited on a doctor to finally look at my open wound.

I am doing better, but will take a week or so to get complete use back with my finger.

I must say that I have never seen all five members of my family get into the car and out the driveway as fast as we did this morning. So no more excuses on Sunday mornings!