The Blignaut Crew: Missionary Training

Want to be a missionary?

Or a wanna-be missionary?
ha ha ha

We're just having fun with this one. Things like this makes no one a missionary but a life led by the Spirit of the LORD making them men and women of God like Hudson Taylor, George Muller, the Wesleys, Whitefield, etc. Let's allow men like that to be our instructors of this responsibility. But surely missionaries cannot be put off by things like this.

Missionary Training for Boys and Girls

Any applicants for our missionary training? :-)

We have an intensive training program for young missionaries.

Send your applications to:

Deep Zululand

Bundu Avenue

In the Sticks Circle

Tree 7 Branch 9

Here is a fair sized baboon spider in its trapping position waiting for some young missionaries in training. It's what is called a Light Brown Melalan Baboon spider. They are family of the tarantula specie in South America. The Light Brown Baboon spider is a little more slim build but the

Namaque Baboon spiders are more bulky and robust. One good thing about these spiders is that they are not very venomous but their fangs are 10 mm long and a sheer bite causes much pain. They are nocturnal hunters and usually wait on their prey like this one.

This was an enormous baboon spider, bigger than the one on the Land Cruiser's hood. You can see the size of it as it is crawling up the front steps to the house we were renting just before we moved to the campsite (also a light brown Melalan Baboon spider).

We also have some Red Romans which sometimes run over our tent in the night and you can actually hear them as they run. The long hair they have serves the purpose like the hair on a hair worm or catipillar. Stephanus found this out after he smacked one off of the tent with his hand. The hairs left a burning itchy sensation wherever they had touched him for quite awhile. An interesting thing is the Red Roman is classified as an ant and not a spider because it only has six actual legs, the rest are not considered legs.

They like to run over your foot or up a leg when you sit at the fireplace at night.

Here is a picture of a Namaque Baboon spider. Stephanus found a Namaque Baboon Spider in the bottom of the well when he climbed down to fix the one way valve of the water pump.

We also have plenty of scorpions

and as far as we know over 26 species of deadly snakes; the rare Caboon Adder which is the largest of the adders;

This black snake we could not find in the snake book. The closest we could get to it is a Purple Glossed Snake but it doesn't quite fit the description. It's nose looked almost like a dolphin's nose and it had very strong jaws.

This one is a harmless egg-eater. (at least harmless to humans) We sometimes find snakes at night by the fireplace.

Elisha and Lemuel seem to be the ones who find the snakes.

The children find snake eggs in the sand often.

There are Hippos that live in our backyard which is the most dangerous animal in Africa. It has claimed more lives than lion or crocodile or any other in Africa. This one got disturbed and ran back into the lake.

Notice how wide it opened its mouth.

You'll learn quickly to check your scrungie before using it. Brother Pierrie who visited us, found this poisonous centipede in his scrungie the first morning of their visit.

They bite and sting from the front and back end.

This preying mantis was about 20 cm (8 inches) long. Stephanus played with it by teasing it with his hand and it grabbed his one finger and bit him. He was very aggressive.

This is a Mopani Worm. People around here eat these worms. First they cut the head off and squish the goo out. Then they dry it till it is crunchy. While it is dry it can be kept for quite a long time. When they want to eat them they fry it in oil and peanutbutter. We believe they put the peanutbutter in for flavour because by themselves they taste like dirt.