‘tis the season for celebrations!

Nzoni Matanga! Bon Fet! Happy Holidays!

Today is Independence Day here in the Central African Republic. It’s one of the biggest holidays here and this year is especially big because they are celebrating 50 years of independence from France. They have been getting the city ready for this holiday for weeks now! There has been a lot of painting and cleaning and flag hanging happening all over Bangui and I must say the city is looking pretty good!

Caitlin and me with our German escorts Wilfried and Berno

Wilfried and Berno took Caitlin and me to the huge Independence Day parade this morning. We didn’t stay for the whole thing. It is probably still going on. For some reason Africans love to march! We stayed long enough to watch all the military march by. There were lots of big strong men with big scary looking guns!

Tim teaching me how to carve a turkey

Last week's holiday was Thanksgiving and I got to have two American Thanksgivings: one with the missionaries here and one at the US ambassador’s house. Both were good! We even had someone bring us turkeys from the US for our missionary Thanksgiving!

Me and Ginger enjoying our food!

our "fancy" thanksgiving at the ambassador's

The next holiday is Christmas. Tonight there is a team of two ladies flying in to help us get ready for the PHC Christmas project. We will be packing 1,100 Christmas bags full of gifts to give out to the orphans in our program on their last day of school before the Christmas holidays! It’s going to be a busy week!