South Africa blog

Click here for day by day details about what Seth and the rest of the South Africa missions team are up to!

South Africa Team!

This is Seth and the rest of the youth missions team, at the Pudong airport before they headed out Thursday night. We haven't heard from them yet, but by now our guy should be "playing a band" in South Africa. Love it. :-)

Playing a Band

This photo was taken after church a couple of weeks ago when Seth and some of the other
band members gathered spontaneously to sing a few songs together.

When Seth was very small, I used to ask him every night as I tucked him in bed what he wanted to do the next day. His standard, two year old's answer was "Play a band." :-)

Fast forward a dozen years... this guy has had many opportunities to "play a band." He is part of the youth worship band at our church, and as a part of that group has played for a city wide youth worship night, weekly youth group at our church, and both Saturday night and Sunday services. I don't think there is anything else that brings him as much joy as getting to play and sing with this group.

Pretty awesome for Scott and I to get to see our guy leading this way!

Under the Sea... sort of

I don't know about you, but I found this diving tank at the hotel we stayed at in Sanya just a little bit funny! It was salt water, and had some colorful fish in it. We all gave it a try... the fish were fraidy cats and didn't come too close to us. Perhaps a little food would have helped. Seth's giving me a thumbs up from inside the tank in this photo!

Food and Seth

Seth and a little buddy at a feeding site in Boracay

No valentine treats for Seth today. The eighth graders at Concordia are doing a project this week entitled "The 50% Experience." Their task was to purchase food for themselves for seven days with only 70 RMB, the US equivalent of about $10. They also had to turn in their personal electronics, and will need to take cold showers this week. The required journaling about their experiences this week must be written by hand, in cursive. Who writes by hand anymore?!

I let Seth do his food purchasing on his own. He went to Carrefour with a buddy, and came home with two loaves of bread, three carrots, 6 kiwi, 2 chicken breasts, 2 packages of instant noodles, 15 eggs and a bag of bulk rice. He had 7 RMB left over, about $1. He decided to keep that in reserve for when he might be desperate towards the end. Seems like a fair amount of food, but it's not really.

He chopped up all three of the carrots yesterday and put them in the blender with some water, thinking juice would be a good way to consume the carrots. Just raw carrot and water didn't turn out to be as tasty as he'd hoped, although he did drink some of it. Last night we brainstormed an idea to cook some of the leftover carrot juice with the broth from cooking his two chicken breasts... maybe if we throw in a little cooked rice and put it all in the blender again, it could pass for carrot soup. Necessity breeds invention, right?The idea behind the project is that 50% of the world lives on less than $2 per day for food. Interesting for this project to be happening for Seth on the heels of our Boracay trip, where we were feeding impoverished children. Hoping he makes the connection.

Singing with the Cross Border Orchestra of Ireland

Seth and Madelyn, as members of middle school before school choirs, had the opportunity to sing in a concert at the Shanghai Oriental Arts Center with this amazing orchestra from Ireland. The Cross Border Orchestra of Ireland, which includes bagpipes and electric guitars as well as traditional orchestral instruments, came to Shanghai to perform at the World Expo. While they were here, they also performed at some of the international schools and then did this concert with a combined choir of nearly 300 international school students. So many students singing together, accompanied by this amazing orchestra and its solo tenor, couldn't help but sound fabulous!

The Concordia choir directors decided that special outfits were in order for this special concert. Here are Madelyn and Seth in theirs, right after the concert. I love their smiles!

Rugby, Anyone?

Seth is giving rugby a try this month in an instructional league for 6th-8th graders at Concordia. It's co-ed, touch rugby, so not the full-on, British version of the game, but they are getting a chance to learn the basics. They do have some matches against other schools, and Scott took these pictures at the match against Shanghai American School last Thursday. I love Seth's intensity in these shots!

Check Him Out!

Several months ago, Seth quietly filled out an application for membership in the National Junior Honor Society at Concordia. I knew vaguely what he was doing, but he did it all on his own. Fast forward to last night... Seth was inducted into NJHS, along with 15 other seventh graders, for their high achievement in academics, leadership and service to others. Where did this boy come from? He continues to amaze us! :-)

She's Had About Enough of Me...

Credits for this picture of my cousin Tamara and me, me and me go to Seth. We had a fun little photo session tonight in the living room, and then Tam and I watched in awe as Seth adeptly altered the picture in iPhoto in about five minutes to end up with this final product.

Beach Boy

So Seth decided to go for a new look while we were in Boracay. Not sure what you'd call it... anyone have an idea what this lovely hair style should be named? Check below for a closer look.
Isn't it crazy? Seth didn't keep it in for too long, because it was pretty painful, the rubber bands were so tight. His buddy Lance, whose hair is a bit longer, had his blonde hair corn rowed. Together they were quite a sight!
Seth is modeling not only his crazy hair, but also a fresh mango shake. There were many, many little stands making fruit smoothie/shakes along the beach walk. Our hotel made wonderful mango shakes... they day we arrived we were all served a complimentary mango shake, which was a pretty smart marketing ploy, because it got us hooked! We enjoyed quite a few of these fresh fruit shakes during the week we stayed there.

Seth and Water

Can you believe this Boracay water? It is such a beautiful, clear color! We couldn't get enough of it... probably why I have about 1200 pictures to sort through this week. :-)

A Little Family Magic

Guest posting by Seth

Hi, my name is Seth Liptak. In school, and at home - just fooling around - I've learned a lot about making movies and special effects. This is a short video I made while babysitting my sisters, Gwen and Madelyn. What I did is really quite simple, and I bet you will be able to figure it out. My intent isn't to fool you, just to amuse you.

It is amazing how easy it is to do these kinds of things on macbooks. Now, for old people (or PC users) like the people who are probably reading this, it might seem that these type of effects would take great skill and many hours to create, but believe it or not, this took me only a few minutes.

Now also, for most of the people who are reading this, I'm also going to be visiting you this Christmas. I would be glad to show any of you exactly how I made the video, I'm sure you will understand it, and maybe even want to convert from PC to mac! Uncle Justin and Aunt Mary, I know you guys have a mac. As a matter of fact the first time I EVER used, or even saw a mac was a day about four years ago after we had gone to the Ohio State vs. North Western football game. Afterward we went back to Mary and Justin's. They had a mac. That was my first time.

The next year we moved to Shanghai. I started school at an international school, a mac school. In every class 5th and 6th grade class room there are 9 iMac computers. Everyone in grades 7 and up have their own macbook computer. So as you can see I have been using macs pretty much every school day for the last 3 years. Making movies is a large fraction of the projects we've done on computers.

Well, my mac story is over, hope you liked the video.

A Boy in a Bowtie

A shot from Seth's Christmas choir concert last week... I just loved the bowtie! The music was pretty good, too. :-)

Dakota Dan, the Law Lovin' Man

Last night we got to witness the exploits of a sheriff from the days of the Wild West, Dakota Dan. Seth played the part of this law lovin' man in the 7th & 8th grade drama production at Concordia. His job was to fight that cantankerous cactus of a villan, Russell Herd. He and his trusty beast, Magnum the Wonder Horse, rescued the children from the silver mine and saved the day, all while winning the hand of Miss Penny.


"Seems every day there's lots of things to make a cowboy blue...", sings Dakota Dan.
Miss Penny fears that Dan's heart is lost to her because of his love for Lady Law. Dakota Dan and Magnum the Wonder Horse pose for us after the show.Part of the cast poses with the director and writer of the show, Mr. Tovar.
Seth's photo and bio from the display in the theater lobby.

Faces in Bamboo

Seth's Solo

I know, it's unprecedented for me to post two videos, and so close together, too... but here it is. Seth had a short solo in the middle school choir concert the other night, and as before, we loved hearing his clear, strong voice. His brother, who shall remain anonymous for this post, filmed him.... and let me just suggest that you turn up the sound and then look away from the screen, otherwise you might get dizzy. I'm sure you'll enjoy the sound of the second verse from Elton John's The Circle of Life, Seth style. By the way, Seth created the little graphic with his name at the start of the video.

Rapid Improvement

Says Seth, as he bounces a basketball back and forth between his legs, walking through the living and dining room~

"It feels like my hands just grew. They're huge now. Either that or the ball got smaller."

Obviously impressed by his own skill. :-)

Before Dinner Snack

I've just posted recently about the amount of food boys eat. Here's a little follow up from this afternoon~


Half of a cream filled donut
2 eggs, scrambled with crumbled bacon
A bowl of leftover homemade chicken and rice soup
Pretzels dipped in Nutella
A small chocolate bar


My Word. Surely the boy must be growing. I exclaimed about all that he was consuming and voiced my hope that he would still be able to eat his dinner an hour from now. He reminded me that he had run a mile at school today, and of course he would be able to eat his dinner.


I remember my mom telling me about a friend of hers who'd had to limit her growing son to drinking only one gallon of milk a day. Only one gallon a day.

My Word.

The Mathmagician of Digitopolis

"You know, I get the feeling that everything in Digitopolis is very difficult."

"But on the other hand, you'll find that the only thing you can do easily is be wrong, and that's hardly worth the effort."
Last week, for three performances, Seth was the king of Digitopolis, mathmagician extrordinare, in the Concordia middle school's rendition of The Phantom Tollbooth. Do you see his magic wand (aka, a giant pencil) sticking up above his shoulder from the folds of his robe?

The evening ended with the entire cast dancing on the stage in rotating rows, instead of taking bows. So cool!

It's hard to make a 6th grader look old... scary make-up helps, I guess!

After the performance, we were privileged to speak to to the king of Digitopolis in person!

The mathmagician and Milo, pleased with their performance.

There were 100 students included in the entire production, which included The Phantom Tollbooth, Wonderland High, and a number of funny commericals and news spots between acts. The directors of the middle school drama pulled this off in an amazing way... so neat to see all the students working together. And of course Seth was a star, at least in this mom's opinion!

Seth's Juggling Lessons

One of the afternoons we were at Seeds of Hope, Seth passed out tennis balls and gave an informal juggling demo and lesson to some of the boys. It seemed to be a big hit! Bringing the balls had been Seth's idea... so glad he thought of it. This picture shows the outside space the kids have to play in... Having one's tongue out seems to be key to proper juggling technique!