Christmas in Africa

The rest of 2019 in Africa, especially the Christmas season, was unforgettable. (Some pictures for this post were taken by friends or from news sources.) 

The kids are learning some "Twi" (roughly pronounced "chree"), the most common local language in our area.

Halloween is not celebrated in Ghana, but we trick-or-treated our senior missionary neighbors with makeshift costumes.

Our dear Sister Bernice is an amazing seamstress and made Sarah a doll.

Sarah's doll is also named Bernice.

For fall break, we took a family trip to South Africa.

We rented a van and did a self-drive safari through Kruger National Park. We saw many amazing animals.

We petted lion cubs who had been rejected by their mothers.

We even adopted some dogs for a few days at the Airbnb!

The Johannesburg South Africa temple. We are grateful to be a family forever.

We spent time each week with our amazing young single adults.

We had a potluck Thanksgiving with missionaries and expats.  The next day, we helped launch the "2019 Light the World Initiative" for West Africa as an "invitation to everyone to transform Christmas into a season of service and to follow the example of Jesus Christ by ministering to others—just like He did."  More here.  

The night included singing, a live nativity, talks from local church leaders/government officials, and candle lighting (to represent sharing the light of Christ with others). It was a wonderful way to start the Christmas season.

Our family is seated on the right, towards the back.

I'm handing out candles, back left.

Our Christmas tree.  Tyler gave a presentation in his KG class about a symbol he found and its meaning: Christmas bells tell the world that Jesus was born. The kids have had great experiences in school.  Having children from 62 different countries creates an amazing learning environment.

Tyler has also given presentations on Father's Day and coconut trees.

Mary performed in and played a piano intro for the play, "On the Way to Fifth Period."

Anna and Austin have enjoyed playing flute and clarinet in the school band.

Sarah played the xylophone for her class' performance of "The Best Day of My Life."

For our stake Relief Society Christmas activity, each ward (or congregation) in our part of Accra performed a play or a musical number.  I love the women in our stake. In the video, Mary is eating Fan Ice, a bagged ice-cream treat, after the performances.

The primary children also had a field trip to Aburi Botanical Gardens, where they sang Christmas carols and danced for each other.

We happened to be there on "Africa Exercise Day."  Check out all of the people exercising in the gardens.

Our most amazing Christmas experience was on Christmas Eve at the Missionary Training Center.  All of the missionaries participated in a reading of the Nativity story in French and English.  Our family sat on the stage with the senior missionaries and expats.

 Sarah was invited by the MTC president and his wife to join "Mary, Joseph, and baby Jesus" during the program.

It was a merry Christmas Eve to sing about our Savior's birth with these faithful missionaries--and a blessing for our family to participate in Ghana's Christmas celebration.