Hey, Kelton, Luke, Ryan, and Cameron!  And anyone else who would like to see BATS!  There is a large colony of bats here in Bujumbura, about 5,000 I am told.  All day long they hang upside down from the branches of some large trees that border one of the main roads in town.  It was amazing to look up and see the trees packed with bats.  It was like brown furry clumps of an exotic fruit.  These are fruit bats,  a larger species of bat than our little insect eating bats at home.  I believe they are called flying foxes.

One evening we decided to go to the trees to see the bats take off for their nightly flight.  We got there about sunset.  Gradually they started getting more and more agitated.  The noise was loud from all these bats and got louder as the time came for them to take off.  Finally it was time to go feed all night on fruit, and small groups would take off together.  It's really quite a sight and sound to stand and watch this happen.  Pretty amazing!

I had taken a few photos at a sewing class Sister Van teaches and had them made into prints.  Yesterday at a baptism, I spotted a mom and her cute little boy.  I had taken a picture of the little boy so I handed the photo of him to the mom.   Her face lit up from the inside out,  and she was so very grateful.  I suddenly realized that most of these moms have never had a picture of their cute babies.  I thought about how much I love having photos of my kids and my grand babies and could not imagine never having had a photo of any of them.  Suddenly I realized the reason for the depth of the mom's joy and promised myself I would take more photos and give them to these moms.