Mikumi National Park: favorite photos

Dec. 7. 2017

At last, a chance to post some more photos! Taking pictures in Tanzania has been challenging for me. I had aspirations to take National Geographic style portraits, but I haven't for a couple reasons (besides the obvious, I'm not a NG-caliber photographer). First, it's culturally inappropriate to take unsolicited pictures of Tanzanians, and second, I'm too shy to ask (and probably pay) to do so, which also ruins the candidness of it. However, here we are in Mikumi National Park, where animals don't care!

Two of the stranger animals in the park

Mikumi is a large preserve near Morogoro, where our Pioneer Bible Translators branch is based. We had an opportunity to join some friends on a safari after our branch meeting a couple months ago, and we were blessed with a perfect overcast day, so the animals weren't all hiding from the sun. So we had some amazing views. I've posted my favorite photos below, but here is a link to the full set. A few of the full set are atrociously out of focus (I have some more learning to do on my new camera), so they aren't here in my favorites, but I still included them because of the cool subjects they captured.

There were eight of us riding up in the back of a rugged safari-truck in the open air, but for a tarp-like covering to protect us from sun. The open format gave us great panoramic views without being confined to windows. By the way, safari is simply the Swahili word for 'trip' or 'journey', but as you know, English has adopted it to mean a specific kind of trip.

Without further ado, the photos, and as a bonus, learn some swahili animal terms!

Aw, cute little warthog (ngiri) babies!

Impala is swala

pundamilia literally means something like 'striped donkey'

Tembo na mtoto wao (Elephants and their baby)

See the full set (link above) for closer pics of this simba, as well as a cub hiding in a bush. The focus was wrong on those. You don't see lions (especially cubs) every visit to the park, so we were pretty grateful.

The lion above was wounded, and this lone wildebeest (nyumbu) seemed to be standing sentry, eyeing the lion yonder. We wonder what had happened.

I don't know what kind of ndege (bird) this is, but I like his eyes

one kiboko, many viboko

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A Tanzanian New Testament Dedication

Several days ago Jenneka and I had the opportunity to attend our first New Testament dedication.  It was about a 3-hour drive to a village, a center for one of the languages that our PBT branch is involved in.  It was a very good for us to be reminded of why we are here in Tanzania, and the hopes that we have for one day the language we will be working with.  It was also an honor, as we were seated with the prestigious guests and given respect for being with PBT, who facilitated this project.

Please enjoy the photos below!  Click on any to open a photo-viewer.

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The New Testament was presented to the guest of honor, who is a professor and a mother-tongue speaker who has had work published in this language. The mzungu (white person) in the picture below is Yancey Yarick, our branch director as well as the translation adviser for this project.

Several people were invited to speak, including a couple of our teammates, some village leaders and a local mchungaji (pastor).  The lady below is from Faith Comes By Hearing, which records and provides audio scriptures.  She is playing a sample scripture for the people to hear in their language.




Interspersed was traditional dancing and music, and the New Testaments were distributed among the people.

This is a photo of Yancey and the two mother-tongue translators.  The way the mzungu and the people of this tribe pose for photos is quite different!  In PBT translation projects, translators are trained who are native speakers of the language.  We as missionaries act as advisors, bringing translation, linguistic, and biblical expertise to the table.  A better translation is produced through such a partnership.

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I really like to take photos of watoto (children). On this day they were very interested in the pomp and excitement, but many seemed to be a bit bored with the whole ceremony. We normally need to be careful taking pictures of people, to always ask permission. During this dedication, though, media was more expected.

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Bryce National Park: Top 10 Photos

September 5, 2016:

I'm in Minnesota visiting my sister and her family.  The other day we saw the latest Imax national parks movie, in which Bryce Canyon was one of the parks featured (none of the Washington parks were even mentioned: dissed!).  I now am inspired to finally post the Bryce Canyon pictures that I took when we visited there this April!  It's always a challenge to narrow it down, but here are my favorite 10 of those photos.  For the rest, visit the Flickr album here.

Bryce Canyon National Park reaches 9000 feet elevation, and there was still some snow in April

Jenneka, of course, took this photo

The trails were pretty busy, but I liked capturing some activity here, especially the horses.

That's me.  My nephew Ender asked how I climbed this cliff.  Admittedly, I didn't.  It doesn't look like a good idea.

Back at our KOA cabin.  We like KOA cabins.

And a bonus photo.  Horseshoe Bend isn't in Bryce National Park, but I was super excited to finally see it.  It wasn't the right conditions to get a good photo, and I should be using a lens hood to prevent the flare, but it's a stitched panorama of Horseshoe Bend!  I have to share it.

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Phoenix Air Show: Top 5 photos

May 10, 2016:

The Phoenix Air Show happened to be happening on the same weekend Jenneka and I were in Phoenix visiting our friends Ben and Joanne.  I always loved air shows, having grown up in Yakima, WA, back when there was an annual air show with the Navy's Blue Angels visiting.  In Phoenix here we got to see the Air Force Thunderbirds.  Below are five of my favorites of the photos.  To see the rest of the set on Flickr, go here.

It was difficult to take satisfying photos of the planes on display, because of the great hordes of people, who liked to take shelter under the wings (sounds very biblical!).  These are the tail fins of an F-15 Eagle, which was my favorite plane when I was a kid.

My dad used to fly an F-4 Phantom, which is one of the coolest jets of all time.  I had to get a picture with one.

We were dazzled by the USAF Thunderbirds, who fly F-16s

This pilot was flying horizontally, even though the plane is angled up.  It was amazing skill!

The B-17 Flying Fortress "Sentimental Journey" with a Thunderbirds flyby.

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En Route to Dallas

Feb. 9, 2015:

We've been staying in Phoenix for the past week with our good friend Ben.  The drive down here from Seattle was amazing!  One of the things that struck me about these wide-open western states was the bigness of it all.  The picture above in Nevada illustrates it for me.  You can see someone at the far end of the valley, driving towards you, and yet not pass them for a good 10 minutes, even though you are heading 70 mph towards each other.

As we entered Arizona we saw Hoover Dam for the first time.  That feat of 1930's engineering has awed me from pictures since I was a kid.  While we've been in Phoenix, we've been working on our online class, but have had time to enjoy being here.  We've visited some sights from the old west.  Ben and I have loved the old west since we were kids, so that was a treat.  See some pics below from the ghost town Goldfield, and you can see the full set of photos on Flickr here.

Tomorrow we leave Phoenix and set out for Dallas.  We're very grateful to be renting a room there from a Christian family that Jenneka got in touch with, and are looking forward to settling down there for a while.

James in his new cowboy hat

Ben and his family

Jenneka: "Mom and Dad, look how big the cacti are out here!"

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