Why did the chicken cross the road? "To get to the other side" you might say. Actually, it is to get away from our mom. You see, we had a pet chicken named Chikitito which means "little" in Spanish. We got to keep her for about um…20 minutes! Our mom doesn’t really like live chickens even though she grew up with them, so we only have our cat Champignon (which means "mushroom" in French), and Charlemagne and Caesar our dogs…for now.

Our dad had been preaching at several annual conferences for the Baptist Convention of Zambia. After preaching at one conference out in the bush, he was given a live goat as a thank you gift. However, Goaty was not allowed across the Province border. Too bad, it would have been best friends with Charlie and Caesar, (or not).

The story about the chameleon is not long but it is quite funny. One day when we were out house hunting, we were sitting in our car waiting for the owner to come. We were looking out the window because we had just discovered that there were three dogs circling the car. Then we spotted a pretty large chameleon that was very well camouflaged. It was doing this type of dance like it was swaying in the wind. It was really funny, and we all wanted to keep it but our parents said no.

So, that’s three pets we almost had, and three that we do. We also wanted a snake, and our opportunity to have one came along when we found one slithering in a tree in our yard. "What was a snake doing in a tree" you might ask? To which we would reply, "It was being pelted with rocks by our next door neighbors." It was suspected to be a poisonous snake so they were trying to kill it. We were trying to save it, but they came over to our house, and got a shovel and …dream pet number four…gone.

Our June-August school break is really winter months for us, but thankfully it doesn’t get colder than the low 40s. We were very busy and we kept our parents busy as well. We made new friends when a bus load of volunteers from Pomona Baptist Church in California came to Zambia for a mission trip. We are still in touch with several of them through e-mail and Facebook. We enjoyed their company for the few days they were here and learned a lot from them.

School started August 16th. Suddenly there is a lot of homework and on top of that we all have to deal with ‘teenagedom’. Chasah is in 11th grade, Caleb is in 10th now, and Charliese is in 8th grade. Chasah is doing rock climbing, and is involved in college hunting and musical rehearsal for her drama class. Caleb is playing basketball and tennis as after school activities and Charliese is doing basketball and volleyball. We are all excited about our new school year and look forward to making new friends.

From left to right: Charliese, Caleb holding the jackfruit, Chasah,Charlemagne and Caesar

Have you ever heard of a jackfruit? It is big, yellow and tastes like a cross between a banana and a pineapple. The outside is spiky, and the inside is smooth, and when our mom cut it, sticky white stuff poured out. There are about 100 seeds per jackfruit, and the part you eat is yellow. The Jackfruit is said to have medicinal properties and can be curried, fried, canned and just eaten fresh. It tasted pretty good, but it was so big that it took us a couple of days to finish it. We weighed it and it was about 10 pounds. It was bigger than the head of either of our dogs, and this is a small one. They can grow to be bigger than a grown-up's torso.

We hope you had a great summer also, and we thank you for praying for us and supporting us on the field in Zambia.

In His Service,

Chasah, Caleb and Charliese West