Happy New Year!!

Dear Family and Friends

Happy New Year!!!! We are writing you all with overflowing but sad hearts. We had a wonderful visit with my parents but were sad to see them leave today. What a blessed time it was to see familiar faces and to be encouraged and loved on. The kids loved all the attention and couldn’t get enough of their Mimi and Papa Steve. We had a great first Zambian Christmas and enjoyed sharing Christmas dinner with the housemothers, three elders from the church and the 5 kids at the orphanage in Kanyama. We bought them simple gifts like backpacks, coloring book, crayons, candy and so on and their faces just lit up as they opened everything. We all blew bubbles outside together, sang songs and danced, ate dinner, and Luke shared a little about the true meaning of Christmas. As we drove out of the compound we thanked God for a wonderful time and felt very full of love that Christmas evening. It was hard to imagine that it would have been just another day in the lives of these kids and housemothers if we hadn’t spent the time that afternoon to love on them. We are so thankful that God has given us this orphanage/kids to practically show His love by giving into their lives.

We had a great time showing my parents around Lusaka and what our lives look like on a daily basis. We also visited Livingstone which is 6 hours south of us and were able to do some sight seeing. We hiked down Victoria falls(one of the seven wonders of the world) and were amazed by its beauty and massiveness. We were chased my some baboons because of the apples the kids were eating as we hiked down. It was totally scary, but some local boys helped us by going ahead of us and throwing rocks and also following us and making sure the baboons stayed at a distance. Emma cried most of the hike (as many of you might remember she had been bitten by a baboon earlier in the year out at the farm,) so she was a little freaked out to say the least!!!! On a wetter note, Luke and my dad went white water rafting down the Zambezi River which flows from the falls. It is one of the most dangerous rapids in the world, and you better believe that mom and I were praying all day for them. They had an awesome time and were tipped four times out of the 9 rapids. They have video and pics to prove it. They were pumped but very tired when they returned to the hotel that evening. We were thankful that they returned in one piece!!!!

We also went on a day safari, which included a 2-hour boat trip, lunch and an afternoon game drive. We had beautiful weather despite the previous rainy days and were amazed at Gods creation. We were able to see several elephants and watch them play in a big water hole. Babies were splashing and bathing and the mothers and other adult elephants sprayed their backs and rolled in the wet mud. This was our fist time to see elephants and so we were all very excited. Then as the afternoon continued, we were very fortunate to come across an ambush that was happening right before our eyes. There were 14 lions positioning themselves in preparation to attack some warthogs at a small watering hole. We watched for quite a while as the lions gradually positioned themselves closer and closer to the unsuspecting warthogs. Unfortunately the first lion got a little anxious and went for the kill, but ended up losing in the end. We were just amazed at the whole thing especially after being told previously that we might not even see the lions because of the time of day it was. The guides were amazed and said we were pretty lucky to have seen that many lions. Little did they know that we had prayed that morning for God to provide a great display of his creation for us……and He definitely came through!!!!! We went home that night our cameras full of pictures and our hearts full of thanks.

Also during our visit we took our own vehicle through a game park and saw many more animals such as zebra, water buffalo, giraffe, many birds, impala, warthog, hippos, and monkeys. We drove in the rain and followed a path through the park and have many hours of video!!! My parents have a ton of pics to bring back home and we were all so grateful for our special time together.

Anyways, just wanted to give you all an update of what we have been up to over the last couple weeks. We are continuing to count down the weeks until we meet our new little #4 Whitfield!!! The scheduled date is Feb 20th and the kids are especially looking forward to seeing if it is a girl or boy. I am feeling pretty good and the baby is doing great and growing ahead of schedule. We will keep you posted on all the news as the date approaches. We will also continue to write our weekly e-mails and we hope you all received our holiday letter in the mail. We will try to post more pics from these past two weeks on our blog so feel free to look their for updates too. We love and miss you all and hope this New Year is filled with many blessings for each one of you.

God Bless,

Elise, for all the Whitfield’s!!!