Hippo Lakes Day Five

Since we were not going to Table Top for a aunriae breakfast, we decided to skip breakfast and sleep in a bit.

We walked over to the lodge.

The crew had been up all night fighting the and finally returned at 6 AM. They had the fire under control and almost extinguished.

We had a presentation by Kevin with South African Theological Seminary (SATS). He indicated that only 5-10% of all pastors in Africa are formally trained. In order to get the pastors some training, SATS offers a "micro-seminary" which Bible School on Wheels is a part. If a person completes all three BSOW courses, it will count as 20% of the requirements towards a B.S. degree. He went on to show how the seminary had adapted BSOW to work with their online platform.

We next watched a film documentary about Immanuel Landman's trip across Africa. Immanuel is a pastor of a church which is adjacent to a major university. His testimony of going from a white supremist to a pastor of a mostly black (term used in Africa to designate those whose parents are both black; colored is the term used for mixed race individuals) congregation is amazing. When God got ahold if his heart, the result was a radical change. He now calls many black children his sons and daughters. Immanuel has a ministry of reconciliation.

The next item on the agenda was another presentation about uae of artificial intelligent.

We left for Entabeni, a neighboring game reserve which has the big five-Elephant, Lion, Cape Buffalo, Hippo, and Rhino. The drive to Entabeni is about 1.5 hours.

We were really interested in seeing the lions, rhinos, and elephants because Hippo Lakes does not yet have these animals.

We drove throughout the very large preserve. It is amazing how many more animals that Hippo Lakes has per square meter than the larger preserves have.

Early in the game drive, we were able to see wildebeast, giraffe, wart hog and RHINOa. As we drove though beautiful countryside, we finally spotted 4 female lions being lazy under a tree.

We then headed to the area of the preserve where the elephants are typically found. Jenni spotted elephants in the distance. We were fortunate that they were heading to the water as it was a very hot day. They had to cross right in front of us to get to the water.

After our elephant encounter, we headed to a compound for a restroom break and LUNCH!!! It was now near 3 PM ...our last meal was the evening. Hmmm...skipping breakfast was not our best decision.

After lunch, we quickly made our way back to the parking lot for the drive back to Hippo Lakes.

When we arrived at Hippo Lakes, the van driver took us up a game drive road which resulted in an extremely rough ride for a few miles. We were met with by MJ in a safari vehicle and were whisked up to Table Top where we had a devotional and a quick dinner. I passed on dinner since our lunch was so late.

We the had a night game drive with Shawn as our ranger.

We collapsed.into bed as aoon as we got to our tent.Read more