Agnes Family in Africa: Anna in April

It was still on Deborah's bucket list to climb Mt Longonot and Bethanie was happy that her legs were now long enough, so off we all went

Anna had to work hard to go slow enough for us all but we all made it!

Then Caleb, Anna and Deb set off for the summit and to walk around the rim of the crater (around a 3hr walk).

And sometimes more of a scramble than a walk

The clouds were gathering, we were just hoping that they might pass by without all that rain falling on us...

At the top and no rain yet...

But about 10 minutes later it hit us and it was HAIL not rain! Ice on top of a volcano! Singing to keep our spirits up was the order of the day as our path quickly turned into a river and ice was stinging any exposed skin. Quite an adventure though...

Caleb had chosen to leave his waterproof in the car, so he got Mum's. It was really quite beautiful once the hail had stopped and we made it round in record time :) We were very glad to have a change of clothes in the car as we were heading to Fisherman's Camp in Naivasha for the night.

We'd not seen these in flower before - quite beautiful - possibly a member of the Aloe family?

Hippo grazing in the evening light

A snug and cosy spot for supper

Skipbo by the fire as we wait for our dinner

And the next day was Caleb's birthday - Happy Birthday to our 11 year old!

Dung beetles are so cool - and persevering. It's very hard work to get a huge ball up a slope...

The exotic landscape of Fisherman's Camp

Caleb's requested a trip to Crescent Island for his birthday but Bethanie is not keen on the boat ride (knowing how dangerous hippos are!) so she and Mum stay on dry land and Anna and Justin take to the water with Caleb.

Walking amongst the giraffe never gets old

Then it was time to head back to Nairobi and enjoy the local sights with Anna. Our next adventure (had by the dangerous trio of Anna, Deb & Caleb - something always seems to get a bit too exciting when it's us three!) was in Nairobi National Park

After a leisurely drive around, enjoying both the scenery and coming across animals, we paused for a comfort break. Deb had no sooner opened the door of the facilities when she heard her name being screamed and ran back towards the car. It turned out that a large baboon had jumped in the driver's side window (which Deb had naively left down) and then headed for the picnic bag (we had been planning to cook our breakfast). Caleb and Anna had bundled out of the car in a hurry. It took some stone throwing to get him out of the car, triumphantly clutching his prize of a loaf of bread and packet of bacon. They are not called 'cheeky monkeys' for nothing. Anna was just relieved he wasn't interested in her iphone!

We skipped breakfast and made it to the Elephant Orphanage in time for the baby elephants to have their mid-morning milk.

Two adopted ostriches were quite enjoying stealing the limelight. Their best trick was spinning around crazily until they got so dizzy they fell over - hilarious!

This chap had a trick or two up his sleeve (or trunk) as well

To complete our wildlife safari, we headed for the Giraffe Centre (having been fortified by Planet Yoghurt and Deb having a run-in with Father Christmas - but that's a long story)

Anna and Ed get friendly

Another day we have an drive around Lavington (10 mins from where we live), where Anna & Deb's mums grew up. We failed to locate their house thanks to Google maps being a bit sketchy in this part of the world, but found a few other sights.

This is Lavington Primary School where Deb's mum was in the first class and Anna's mum, Joy, followed 6 years later.

Lavington United Church which Gran and Grandad were founder members of, along with friends from a couple of other denominations.

It's now 55 years old :)

Welcoming baby Gavin Kidder to the world - his family were part of our team and have now joined SIM Ethiopia, but came back to Kenya to have Gavin - they knew the ropes from his big brother Ethan having been born here.

Then we welcomed our new SIM South Sudan plane to the team! It's leased to our partners AIM AIR, who will maintain and fly it for us as a crucial way to get us and our equipment in and out of South Sudan.

At the dedication service a teammate, Getachew, spoke of the people that he is able to share the good news of Jesus with, through being able to get to Doro. Many of the refugees in the camps around Doro have never heard of Jesus before and are reaching out for the new life that He offers with both hands.

Anna's visit came to an end all too quickly but it was a joy to have her and we look forward to more adventures together in the future.

Life got back to our more normal, home-based, ways of relaxing