8 months pregnant and Kruger National Park

Our missionary team had a gal from Oregon come and shadow us for the month of October. Erica is considering joining our organization and has a heart for Africa. We thoroughly enjoyed having her with us and it was fun to plan her itinerary and show her around. She went to Zimbabwe and Swaziland and visited local ministries in Johannesburg with myself and other teammates.

On her first day with us, we took her to the Lion Park just outside of Johannesburg. The animals there are relatively tame and provide some great photo moments.

Dan and I are with a very friendly giraffe named Gammit and Erica is in the lion cub pen.

This is a rare "white" lion with bluish eyes. Gorgeous!!

Since Dan and I work with short term missionaries and short term teams as a part of our job description, we did lots of driving with Erica around Southern Africa. While normally that isn’t a big deal since we LOVE traveling, being 8 months pregnant made the time in the car a little more challenging. I calculated out that Dan and I spent 30 hours in the car in 3 days last weekend. I think that is a record somewhere…at least for doing that voluntarily.

We showed Erica through Kruger Park and saw some fabulous animals. I’ll post some of my favorites here:

Also, my friend Beckie F told me I should definitely try to get a picture of me pregnant with an elephant over here. She was convinced that no matter how big my belly was that an elephant in the background would make me feel smaller. We captured that photo moment in Kruger!! This was a smallish elephant, but that is okay. I didn’t really want to pose next to a huge one.