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Flying ants, there is never a chance to wonder 

whether they have arrived or not. 

 It is always quite evident that they are here.

Dead inswa all over my floors.

Usually, you notice they have come out of the ground at night, 

because they fly through your window toward the lights in your house.

Inswa on the walkway outside my house.

Once in your house, they fly around (which is very irritating),

then they drop thier wings (which is even more irritating),

then they crawl around like helpless creatures (which is so much more iritating),

finally, they die (which at first makes you happy, 

but then is the most irritating, 

because you have to sweep all of the bug remnants off your floors).

Let me just say, that those piles of dead inswa stink like rotten animal.

Yuck! Hold your nose!

Pile of dead inswa.

Below is a short video of a pile of inswa outside my house.

You can see how they are getting ready to drop their wings, 

because they are crawling around.

This happens about every other month.

The only good part about the inswa

 is the fact that the Bemba people love to eat them!

Bemba girls gathering inswa outside my house.

Many of the people who live on or around our farm will send thier daughters or wives to my house to ask if they can have my dead inswa.

"Of course", I say.

And they happily chat as they pick up this nice treat that they will take home

 and fry in oil and crunch away on.

Bon-appetite!

~~~

The inswa remind me of people who come rush to God (the Light)

at differant times in their lives.

They don't really want to have God as the center of thier lives, 

they are just attracted to Him because of the difficulties or seasons happening in thier lives.

Sadly, it is not too soon after that, that we find them crawling away to die spiritually

and then they are swept away by the world.

Let's pray for our brother and sisters in the Lord,

as well as, new converts.

Pray that they would make sincere and lasting decisions.

Spider, Spider,.....

I have to admit,

when I first set foot in my house

on the night I arrived,

it was a little scary.

I HATE SPIDERS!!!

Not that I am terribly afraid of them,

but I hate things that hide 

and then crawl around when you don't see them

(like roaches and snakes too....)

I took the above picture in my bedroom when I first arrived.

A huge spider on my cupboard near my bed!!!

What that picture does not show is 

the other four on the rest of the cupboard.

Even in South Africa, 

I have never seen spiders as big as some of the regular spiders I see here.

Needless to say, that first night as I lay in the dark trying to go to sleep I had to  give it over to God and decide to trust Him to watch over and protect me.

After all, I could not live out my days being afraid of falling asleep.

~~~

Since then, I have grown accustomed to these spiders and others.

(Below you will see a short video clip 

of a huge hyper spider running around my house.  

That night, the first time I saw it, 

I didn't know what it was, because it was so fast.  

Now I know it was a Roan/Rain/Roman Spider, 

here they call it any of those three names 

and they come out just before the rains come.

These spiders are very fast, but "friendly" spiders.)

I have learned to keep bug spray and a flip flop within arm's reach

and I have also learned which ones are harmful and which ones are helpful.

~~~

In fact, I was feeling quite used to them and rather kind toward the spiders

as long as they kept away from me.

This beautiful one was living in the corner right outside my front door.

I thought I would be courteous to him and let him live, 

as long as he did not come in the house.

The kindness ended after I came home one evening.

I had forgotten to turn the outside light on, so I walked down the path with my flashlight, hesitated to point the light up in the corner to be sure the spider was there and not on the door.

It was when my light hit him that night 

that I saw the bright red dot on his belly.

God made the creepy crawly creatures with warning signs.

I went in the house after taking these pictures and looked him up.

Yup!

I knew it!

He was not a friendly spider.

In fact, he is in the Black Widow family.

The article I read said that they lay 200 eggs per pregnancy and will do that 6 times in thier lifetime.

My mind went wild:

How many thousands of spiders are right outside my door 

or even in my house..... 

in that same corner was a "teenager" of the same kind,......

Oh dear!!!!

When daylight arrived the next morning,

I found a nice can of spray to kill them with.

"Sorry spider, I was trying to be kind, but found out you were not friendly".

Life Lessons from Living in South Africa- Roaches: a Lesson on Faith

Before moving to South Africa,

I knew that there would me a number of strange and exotic bugs and creatures that I would come in contact with.

Now, I am a country girl.

So, seeing spiders...

...and killing snakes are not really a strange thing to me.

Speaking of strange...

When I arrived here I met a number of strange creatures.

When I bought my car,

I didn't realize that there would be a hidden surprise

 that came along with it.

I opened the trunk (or for you South Africans "boot"),

about a week after I had the car and found this ----EWWWEEEE!!!

If there is anything I the world I don't like, it is roaches.

They creep and they crawl and the only time you know they

are there is if you find one dead!

After getting over the worry of one crawling in my mouth while I was sleeping,

I realized that I just had to prepare for the possibility of roaches

 by periodically spraying all of my cupboards.

What lesson can we learn from the roaches?

Well, as I pondered the new roach problem, 

I thought about how the dead roaches are evidence of things not seen.

Sound familiar?!?

"Now faith is the substance of things hoped for,

 the evidence of things not seen."

Hebrews 11:1

Yep, the roach teaches us about faith.

We never realize how important our faith is until the "evidence" shows up.

Does your life show evidence of that unseen faith?

I have to admit that many times my faith is a bit waning.

There are times when God brings me through a trial 

and I become a surprised in how well I deal with it.  

There it is - the "evidence of things not seen"!

That's faith!

Don't Monkey Around

While I was studying for the up coming 5-Day Kid's Bible Club, 

I heard a ruckus outside.

I looked out my window.

"What could it be?"

There it was again- crashing and thrashing.

The sound of avocados hitting the ground.

The neighborhood dogs were barking.

There I see it!

There it goes again!

You guessed it - a monkey!

(actually a whole family of monkeys)

This is an adult Vervet Monkey (Chlorocebus pygerythrus).

Check out his hair!

Here is a young Vervet.

He is not as afraid of the camera

(or maybe he is just not older and wiser).

He sat there watching me, as he ate the avocado right out of its skin.

The Monkeys are smart and stay away from the dogs.

Walking safely on the electrical wires,

they move from house to house looking for fruit to eat.

As I stood there watching them, 

I thought about the children I will be teaching during the 5-Day Bible Club.

You know, they like to "monkey around", 

trying to stay safe and looking to get whatever they can from life,

 when all the while they are so close to the danger of Hell.

God has commanded us to go out and win the lost.

He says "bring them in" and that's what we will do this week(Mt.22).

People are not monkeys, they have a living soul.

Jesus said, "Suffer the litte children to come unto Me,..." Mark 10:14

Please pray that some little children will come to know Christ as thier personal Saviour this week, as I teach 5-Day Children's Bible Club July 2-7, 2012.

All Creatures Great and Small

Ge 1:24 ¶ And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so.
Ge 1:26 ¶ And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.

Recently, we have had alot of wet weather in eastern PA. Along with that wetness comes every little creeping and crawling thing. I was amazed and kind of concerned about all of the creepy things that are crawling inside my house and just outside my door. The Bible tells us that God made them in the begining. I started to try not to be concerned where I might find them and to enjoy that God put them there for me to observe and remember His handiwork. Take a look at some of the creeping things that I have seen.

Ge 8:19 Every beast, every creeping thing, and every fowl, and whatsoever creepeth upon the earth, after their kinds, went forth out of the ark.
As I read this verse, I couldn't help being thankful that I was not Noah's wife on an ark with the creeping things. Nevertheless, I have been enjoying the great and small creatures that God has made.