Friends of Street Children of the World 2017

Considering the extreme poverty and need for education for the poor and disenfranchised children and youth of Freetown, Sierra Leone, it was clear and urgent that we should extend a helping hand at the beginning of this school year to those in the greatest need. Over the past year we searched for someone who might help us fulfill the vision of the ministry we had started six years ago in Ethiopia, Friends of Street Children of the World. We found a competent and trusted person who would interview and select the most appropriate and needy children or youth between the ages of 6 and 20. Two weeks before the beginning of this school year many children were interviewed who had no financial ability to attend school because of extreme poverty.  Thirty-seven children were selected and began school.

It was a very busy and challenging time as this project had been added to our usual time spent in cell ministry. We had many children and their caregivers requesting interviews at our home, which continues to be very time consuming. Besides the children and youth receiving an education in school, we require that they attend a New Creation Cell function held weekly in our house. They are growing in spiritual knowledge and are becoming successful in all aspects of their lives including school.  Many of these children had missed major learning blocks such as reading and consequently were failing in the past in most aspects of their education.  Because of the powerful work of God’s Spirit in their lives, their education has turned around and they are becoming successful often for the first time.  Two of them have been appointed leaders of the Scripture Unions at their schools, where they lead interested students in beginning their day with prayer and hearing scripture. Others are developing into leaders in our cell and are winning and building souls.  They truly are becoming New Creations according to 2Cor 5:17!

We are also continuing with Claire’s WIG, Women’s Income Generation, program and are placing a few mothers of these indigent children into a catering and tailoring program. As time goes on we will develop more adequate assessment strategies to determine who can best benefit from our assistance, but so far we haven’t noticed any problems. During the school year we will put our efforts on evaluating each student’s progress, determining what they need to improve, and providing remedial assistance where needed.

We want to continue to give you, our friends, an opportunity to assist these kids in their education which makes their futures much brighter and more promising. One dollar goes a long way as it equals 7,600 Leones which easily feeds a family of four two meals for one day.  Hard to believe poverty like this, but our dollars go farther than I ever imagined or thought possible.  We are paying an average of 600,000 Le or $78.00 for one student in middle school for one year which includes books, notebooks, pens, pencils, shoes, uniforms, athletic clothes, and cost of special events.  At this time of year many are thinking tax deductions, so please consider Friends of Street Children of the World and radically change a child’s life. Below is the contact information:

Friends of Street Children of the World. Matanuska Federal Credit Union, 1020 S. Bailey St., Palmer, Ak 99645. Acct. #990000146780. Routing #325272335. Phone:907-745-4891, fax#907-694-4891.

E-mail: friendsofstreetchildren777@gmail.com; clairecraig77@gmail.com

Paypal Account: friendsofstreetchildren777@gmail.com;

EIN Tax ID #47-1223856 for this 501(c)(3) nonprofit corporation;

Karen Crandall, my sister, is the President and manages the account. Her contact information is 907-354-3331, 14041 W. Big Lake Rd., Wasilla, Alaska 99623-4858.

We all thank you so very much for considering assisting one of these children with school fees and supplies.

 

 

Our 25th Anniversary and Surprise Engagement

Chuck gave me the honor of writing about the special time we had with our daughter and our soon to be son-in-law, Ranson Evans. Also I get to share that it was our 25th wedding anniversary which I’m sure some of you appreciate cause I read your comments about the love of your life on Facebook, and although Chuck is definitely the love of my life and I can’t imagine living without him, he doesn’t replace our single most important love, Jesus.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I’m sure most of you will agree with me that the opportunity to get to know our children’s soon-to-be life partner is an honor and moment not to be missed.  Ranson actually showed me the engagement ring, asked me to take care of it for him, and asked Chuck for his daughter’s hand in marriage.  Hard to get much better than that. Now we are waiting for the big date to be announced.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Malaga and Velencia, Spain, are nice, with epicurean delights and historical beauty, but by far our time spent with each other outweighed the magnificence of a new, delightful environment.  Look at the joy our daughter is experiencing immediately after Ranson proposes. How romantic!

 

 

Outreach at Casablanca Field

Again, we have gained great favor in our community! While Charles was evangelizing with one of our New Creation cell members, he later found out, that the person to whom he preached the gospel and had received Jesus as Lord and Savior, was the manager of the Community Football field. Outreach arrangements were made  through him and we got free use of the covered area of the field. Many members of our cell helped in distributing over 700 invitations to our event named, “The  Healing Power of Jesus Within You”.

 

 

 

 

 

 

During the distribution many of the invitees were saved and of the 70 that attended, we are following up on 30 of them. Two have already heeded the challenge to become disciples and have joined our leadership team. The enemy tried hard to derail our program agenda when one of our members provoked a fight with the newly born again manager of the field, setting the start of the program back 1 hour. 6 people were saved at the program and 15 people wanted prayer for healing. Although our cell membership is still vacillating in consistent attendance, we have now 7 leaders who appear committed to the work of Kingdom expansion.

Casablanca Field is ideally situated next to the community market and all of the areas, in which we have been preaching and teaching, border the area of the field. We are planning to use the same field for our outreach in mid June before our anniversary but with a different outreach strategy. Claire and I are teaming up with each of our 7 leaders and visiting many of those on our 700 name database and either preaching the gospel or teaching from the Rhapsody of Realities devotional. The members of our cell have been taught this approach in one of our cell meetings and we are praying that the 7 leaders will be more influential with other members in encouraging them to preach and teach the gospel. Our challenge to each member is to pray and heed the Holy Spirit’s direction to engage in a spiritual conversation  with 3 to 5 friends or neighbors and invite them to the outreach. We believe this strategy will be much more effective in the growth of our members.

 

Our Cell’s Resurrection Monday Outreach

 

In Sierra Leone the Monday after Easter is a public holiday so Christ Embassy Church celebrates this day world-wide so our New Creation Cell decided to reach out into 3 adjacent communities in our catchment area

Because of the high population density, the communities of Mefengbeh, Kolastic and Carlton Carew were targeted to present an “Easter Fiesta” and we were planning to serve 500 children.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We planned to have four different “station” activities with four different “crews” of 60 children in each crew rotating for 1 hour and thereafter invite the remaining children into a second shift.We boldly began marking each child’s hand to identify any child who might attempt to pass through twice but as the number of children approached 800, we had to quickly redesign our strategy in mid stream to accommodate all.

The activities were making beaded bracelets, running relay races, hearing a story about the resurrection coupled with an opportunity to receive Jesus as their Lord and the last, a sit on the ground lunch of rice and chicken.

 

Fortunately, the Lord of the Harvest faithfully added to our small team from other members of our church and the program finished 4 hours later peaceably and productively with 100s of children proclaiming Jesus as their Lord and Savior. Now as our cell members visit in any of those communities, we are greeted with smiles from the children and thanks from the family members who are caring for them.

 

A Long Walk Home

This is the first time in a long time that I, Claire, have expressed my views or opinions about our missionary ventures.  I’ve titled it “A Long Walk Home” because in my opinion we are in the country God intended to bring us to when we started this venture back in 2011. Every step of the way has been profitable to build and prepare us for what we are currently embarking on: evangelism, cell/church ministry and helping street kids.  I call it home because finally I’m ready to role up my sleeves and dig into the work.  It’s not the kind of home I would have imagined or even selected, but it’s growing on me and I’m feeling more relaxed each day. The people are friendly, laid back, chatty; it’s easy to evangelize here even to the Muslims.  The challenges for me after living here for 6 months is the enormously high level of debris almost everywhere we look, and, of course, the oppressive heat which is not nearly as intolerable as we expected and even provides natural air conditioning occasionally. 

I like the Krio language that dey speak although I have a lot of catching on to do.  Their relaxed manner is kinda like walking into someone’s living room and finding them with a towel wrapped around their nakedness, and most every woman is either preparing food or plating hair.  Very relaxed and friendly.  The people are mostly Muslim but the Christians are attracting and drawing many of them into their faith.  Becoming “born again” is less common but is easy to explain to people of both religions. The challenge is discipleship.  The laid back Sierra Leonese tends to not be too interested in exerting the self-discipline necessary to study the Word of God. So the attraction or payoff from their study must compel them to continue.

Our cell is growing weekly by 5 or more people and we have a pretty good retention of those folks.  At this rate we may be starting a church in the next 6 months.  We are showing teaching videos on Biblical truths every Tuesday and Thursday afternoon which is good for the illiterate and motivated Bible student.

 

Street kids run rampant downtown and on the far western side of Freetown, so we are exploring what we need to do to help those kids. Poverty is common among the majority of the people, so selecting families that can’t afford to send their children to school is easy.

 

Since I returned from visiting my family in the U.S. over Christmas, I’ve been much more enthusiastic and committed to the work here in Sierra Leone.  It seems that after traveling around Tanzania, Uganda and Sierra Leone for 13 months, I felt like a displaced person. Returning to my roots both reminded me and established me back in the work I committed myself to doing: serving the Lord.  Certainly I could  serve the Lord in the U.S. which I did heartily for 25 years, but the Lord sent us to Africa and more specifically Sierra Leone to accomplish a work that we’ve been prepared and designed perfectly to do.  So Lord, we have reported for duty.  We’ve got our marching orders and we shall carry them out to the best of our ability.  Thank you Jesus for establishing us here and for protecting us from injury and sickness, and giving us favor in our community and church.

Permanently Moved to Sierra Leone!

In July 2016, we left Jinja, Uganda after gifting our one entanglement, our chariot (the 1996 Toyota Land Cruiser), to 4 beloved pastors that so greatly helped us in our journey from Hawassa, Ethiopia through Tanzania, Uganda and Rwanda. We have been so appreciated, trained and loved by all in every church at which we stayed and worked. Special thanks to Pastor John Devine in Mwanza for closing the deal in our absence and distributing the proceeds to the pastors that have blessed us with their counsel, direction and help in our evangelical efforts. Oh, how beautiful and powerful is the body of Christ in this world.

Christ Embassy Convocation Arena in Lagos, Nigeria where we attended the ICLC.

After flying from the Entebbe, Uganda in July, we landed in Lagos, Nigeria where we attended the Christ Embassy International Cell Leaders Conference (ICLC). It was an inspiring week where we were taught by Pastor Christ and instructed by many other anointed leaders of this global church. The culmination of the event was the awards presentation on Saturday evening, in which the most successful cell leaders and bible study class teachers from all over the world were awarded trophies for their efforts. Over the past four years from our local church in Hawassa, Ethiopia, we had seen the event, which is live streamed throughout the world but, being taught in the arena itself, has inspired us to do greater things in the Kingdom. We attended the global church service on Sunday and in the evening we attended the music concert where many of the CEC praise and worship leaders (i.e. Sinach, Eben, Israel Strong, Rap Nation, etc.) led us into higher levels of glory in our worship of Jesus and the Father. Their songs are CEC expressions of the scriptural doctrine we have all learned, preached and live in; please check them out on YouTube to get a taste of the passion of it all!!!

We also met Pastor Cynthia, our present overseer in Sierra Leone and made arrangements to unite with her upon our arrival in Freetown, the capital city. At the Freetown airport, we were greeted by a brother at the airport, escorted to a charter speedboat in Tulun and then crossed a stretch of ocean to dock in Aberdeen, the northern part of the Freetown Peninsula.  We were warmly welcomed by many of the brethren at our present Congo Cross church. We were driven to the YMCA where we stayed for 3 weeks until we found our present residence at 20 A Barracks Rd., Murraytown, Sierra Leone.

Prayerfully, we searched various catchment areas of the suburbs of Freetown, immediately rejecting some of the more affluent, westernized communities before finding our present three bedroom furnished second story flat pictured here.In the process, we have had various challenges ranging from frightening to irritating but now have overcome them all, so we can say now say this is home.

 

We started two CEC church cells in Murraytown but have combined them into one, which is called New Creation Cell named after the spiritual reality found in 2 Corinthians 5:17.

 

 

We are quickly developing inspired cell members, who are helping us expand the Kingdom in Murraytown by preaching and teaching God’s Word and even training other disciples to do the same.

 

 

 

 

Also, in only 3 months, we have become legal permanent residents of Sierra Leone with drivers licenses and without being encumbered by any of the regulations of NGOs!

 

 

 

 

 

The Father has truly blessed us in achieving the vision He has set us upon!

 

 

Buwolero Impacted by The Holy Spirit

We have been in jinja, Uganda for 4 1/2 months and enjoyed our stay here immensely. It’s been a time of unprecedented growth and learning for both Claire and I. Claire has been focused on building a Youth Cell at Christ Embassy Church (CEC), Jinja and she will describe her challenges and victories forthwith. The Holy Spirit had directed me to merely be a member of Diplomat I Cell and focus on soul winning, which He started after I had returned to the States from Ethiopia. The strategy He had started giving me in New Song Church in Medford, Oregon had to be greatly modified according to the obstacles peculiar to the deceptions of the kingdom of darkness in the United States. I thank Pastor Dan for his evangelical emphasis placed before his congregation and value those times when he would take us out to nearby shopping centers to witness.  There the Holy Spirit gave me a unique strategy to minister to those who are swayed by the deceptive securities offered by life in the developed nations of the world. I still use this strategy with the more successful members of African life on this Continent. If you choose, you may request this strategy in the comment section of this entry and I’ll email it to you.

When I first arrived in Jinja, I began walking the streets relying on the Holy Spirit to lead me to those of whom He was already working in their souls. I would stop at a place that would interest me, begin reading my bible and wait for a conversation to unfold either through an interest in the activities I was observing or what they might be observing of me. Often work places were the most rewarding, as many Ugandans work for shops owned by Indians or Muslims where activity is sporadically booming when shipments of goods would arrive but interspersed with long periods of waiting for the arrival of subsequent trucks. They were often surprised that this Musungu (foreigner) would spend hours sitting with them and be so interested in the Word of God. Always my conversation would be directed in sharing the Gospel, the gift of Righteousness and a New Life in Christ Jesus. They would be surprised that God wanted His very nature to reside in them and they could grow and live a divine life of faith in His grace and providence. Both seemed to be stuck in a life burdened by sin consciousness and struggling with the challenges of this world. The Muslims and Protestants, while resting together, would get into lengthy discussions about issues of the Law (i.e. circumcision, baptism, fasting, etc.) and would refocus them on the topic of receiving a new life and consciousness the Holy Spirit desires for them. The simple message of the Gospel is the power their souls desire and many would receive and enter into Christ’s kingdom. After befriending a few Muslims, I saw the necessity to help them discover who Jesus Christ is in their own Quran. I started searching the many Suras describing the divine qualities of Christ and knew the Holy Spirit could speak to them through their own traditions as He does in the old testament to Jews. I discovered that many Muslims do not know what the Quran says about Christ and they merely replicate the sounds of the Arabic script without knowing their meaning. I began passing out Suras with the Arabic script and the English translations to both Muslims and Protestants to help them understand that the Gospel is spelled out clearly in the New Testament and the Quran. This direction was well received by both groups and I believe will help greatly as we begin living in Sierra Leone, a predominantly Muslim, Catholic and animistic nation.

We met some youth who have a compulsion to preach the gospel! Accompanied by Fred or Azallias, Claire and I went to primary and secondary schools where the head teachers/principals had no qualms about outsiders preaching to their students. Through these outreaches in the schools Claire began to be inspired to build a Youth Cell at Christ Embassy and I began to try other ways to impact the city of Jinja. The African continent has been frequented by many evangelical crusades revolving around a certain common strategy of promoting events of interest to the community, large promotional advertising campaigns, renting venues, sound systems and chairs to attract possible converts. I supported such a strategy once in Jinja where 60 people showed up to hear live music and see the Son of God movie but when the altar call was made only 2 youths received Jesus as their Lord and Savior. The most rewarding outcome was they joined Claire’s Youth Cell at CEC to be trained in evangelism and I was provoked to seek a more fruitful strategy which will be described as follows.

While teaching Nelson Kato, a friend and cell member, about  the description of  outreaches in the CEC foundation cell manual, the Holy Spirit showed me that Jesus’s ministry was effective because it was based in the training of those to whom He spoke the Gospel message.  His evangelism was not directed toward the masses but to individuals with whom He engaged in divine and intimate conversation.  Nelson described an evangelistic outreach he and some of his friends had done several months previously in the community of Buwolero, 40 km. north of Jinja. They had  a great response but had no further contact with any of those who responded to the altar call. We decided to preach the gospel with those converts, going out two by two, one from Jinja team and one from Buwolero. Nelson made contact with the few people who had been converted previously and we decided to focus on winning souls and discipling them in a fellowship group rather than promoting the event showing the movie, Son of God. If in our witnessing, we noted that the person whom we approached to already be born again or belonged to a church, we would only invite them to the movie.  Then we would continue witnessing until we found some one who only desired to receive Jesus as their Lord and Savior. We started the 3 day consecutive outreach with a small group of enthusiastic evangelists from Jinja and at the end of the first day, the 7 teams (16 born agains) that went into the community and won more souls. At the end of the first day of evangelism 27 people became born-again.  Pictured below are 3 of the teams.

            The 27 Born Again converts were invited to foundational training the next morning but when their shepherds had gone to their homes to accompany them to the training center, we found that they had left earlier to work in their agricultural plots. So the 7 teams went out again with the intent to just switch our training schedule to the afternoon. Many of the previous converts from Buwolero who had witnessed with the Jinja members were not there also! We were learning of our cultural misconceptions but the Holy Spirit was not to be denied!!  Our teams composed mostly of Jinja members continued to witness and bring more converts into the Kingdom.

             Pictured here are Nelson and I witnessing and praying with 7 men who later became the community’s strongest converts! When all groups again returned to the Training Center in the afternoon, the second day converts appeared with the first day converts who had returned from tending their crops. We had a time of worship and teaching, preparing for the following day’s  community outreach. Also pictured  are some of the fellowship groups of the first and second day converts meeting with those who had witnessed to them and led them into the Kingdom.

           On the final day of evangelism and discipleship, we arrived late from Jinja because of car problems. This day more of the Buwolero converts were involved in evangelism than the first two days and at 4 pm when the worship music began, all of those who had received Jesus as Lord were seated in the front rows. They participated in many different ways. Four men stood on the platform and gave their testimonies of how their lives had changed after putting their trust in Jesus Christ. The Jinja worship team, who had spent 3 days in witnessing to Buwolero residents led all the participants in a combination of Christ Embassy and local songs. People were dancing and singing out loud joyfully. At 7 pm we started the movie Son of God, finished with an altar call and an invitation was given to all the new believers to come to a gathering on Sunday morning for teaching, fellowship and sharing in the breaking of bread as pictured in the movie.

               Nelson and several others of the Jinja team stayed to lead the Sunday service and they reported that over 30 people had come. Nelson and some of his team have continued to travel to Buwolero every Saturday to teach CEC foundational doctrine and witness in the afternoons, They are continuing to have a Sunday Fellowship service and the Fellowship is continuing to grow through the fervor of these new believers.

Buy and Support Great Art and Missions

We have made some great friends and mission partners, who support their ministries by their own artwork. Here’s an example that sells for $70; Black and White paintings are at $50. We are leaving in 3 weeks and would like to save on shipping costs, so make your orders quickly. You can also commission work. Describe what you would like them to paint in this style and of what colors and after its completed, they will take a picture of the completed work and, if you like it, it will be sent to you. Love the Craigs.

We are deleting this entry to support our mission partners as the logistics in buying and shipping paintings has become expensive and problematic. We choose not to explain the details and difficulties but assure the few buyers awaiting the arrival of their purchases that upon returning to the United States in 12/16, any costs incurred by them will be remunerated by us. Sorry for the inconveniences and dashed hopes. The Lord is in control and all things work out for the best for those who love Him. Love Chuck and Claire

 

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Established in Jinja, Uganda

We have now settled at Christ Embassy Church in Jinja, Uganda on the shores of Lake Victoria in an apartment on the opposite side of the Victoria Nile River. Every day we cross the dam of the Victoria Nile which  generates electricity to the surrounding region to generate our own supernatural power to evangelize the area around our church, bringing others to the knowledge of Our Lord Jesus Christ and giving them an opportunity to grow in His Word. I was placed in a cell named Diplomat I and Claire decided to start her own cell to reach out to the youth of Jinja. As soon as we arrived Diplomat I cell had planned to reach out to a nearby community, Mpumudde, and we spent 2 weeks going house to house inviting all to the Saturday Night showing of a Pastor Chris teaching on “An Atmosphere for Miracles”. Many people were healed and some gave their lives to Christ. I have included a picture of our team below. Every day after a few hours of visiting, we would meet in the house behind and share stories of how people responded to the gospel message and each day our passion and anointing to preach and teach grew.

Many Ugandans consider themselves to be Born Agains but as we would share what this means, they would be surprised at what the scriptures say regarding, who they are in Our Father’s eyes. You are forever righteous before your Father in heaven (Ro. 5:17) and you’ve been given a brand new life in His Anointing (2 Co. 3:5 and 5:17) shining with the fruit of the Holy Spirit. His love, patience, kindness,… and self-control (Gal. 5:22) is growing in your souls and temples from one stage of glory to another. Our pastor has mandated that all members of the Jinja church complete the Foundation Training in the next 2 months and the call has resulted in 40 commitments to set aside the time in their work schedules. We expect all the cells in the church to flourish and  are planning to change the venue soon to accommodate the growth. We are settling into our new family here in Jinja and learning how to work effectively together to impact the city of Jinja. For us, the most important goal for each day is to preach the gospel until another soul receives the love of Christ in their hearts and recognizes their is nothing that surpasses the love of God and joy that comes from being adopted into His family.

Moving Forward and Upward to and from Arusha

          We had a wonderful time in Moshi communicating the Good News to many residents about their inheritance in Christ Jesus. The CEC church there was in the process of rebuilding and advancing to a higher level after many of the leaders had spread to other areas of Tanzania. So we were thanking the Father for giving us an opportunity to help in the rebuilding process! We handed out many Rhapsody of Realities to those who were interested in understanding their inheritance in Christ and submitted those names to the leaders who would follow up on encouraging them in their spiritual growth. The youth pictured here helped us evangelize their neighborhood before they left for school and we left to our next duty station in Arusha.

 

                We moved to Arusha on the suggestion of our country and zonal pastor, Pastor Ken and were housed in the same residence as Pastor Edewor, who 2 months earlier had helped us find our room in Dar. We were so happy to see him again and he poured into us many teachings that added to our understanding of the Spiritual Power of Prayer and anointing promised by the First Fruits and Seed Offerings in the scriptures. We continued to spend hours in Arusha’s streets encouraging many people to come to services and be taught the Word of God. While attending the services in Arusha, we saw many people come to services, give their lives to the Lord and commit to continued attendance so their faith could grow in the grace of Christ. Claire is pictured here with Haji, a muslim to whom she ministered the gospel and he chose to receive the new life offered to him by Christ.

           After our fruitful work in Arusha, we continued to move forward towards Uganda, the English-speaking nation in which the Spirit had directed us to minister. Although we had established loving relationships in the places where the Spirit had led us and we are missing all the pastors, brothers and sisters, our spirits were excited to settle in a place where we could begin disciplining those who were experiencing their new life in Christ. There were two paths to enter Uganda from Arusha. The easiest was through Nairobi but, despite our natural fears of passing through the Serengeti over rough roads and doubtful accommodations, we wanted to see one of the great wonders of the Lord’s creation. We managed to do it in 2 days and it was glorious. If we didn’t have our vehicle we could have never made it! Thanks Baraka!

          Here’s some of the tough characters we met on the trip. According to one of the Tanzanian Rangers that we gave a ride to in carrying out his work in catching poachers, the water buffalo is the most dangerous of the Big 5 as they often are hidden in the bush and attack when surprised.  The government is seriously trying to cut down on poaching as the rhino and elephant populations have been decimated over the past 10 years for the value of their horns and tusks. Sometimes we would get lost trying to orient ourselves with a tourist map but God built our confidence and faith. The paid guides in their safari vehicles were very helpful and often would direct our paths when we got lost; all the glory to Jesus. This is a trip that everyone should have on their bucket list of vacations!!! When we went into the Ngorogoro Crater, the herds of wildebeests, water buffalo, zebra, giraffe and 2500 lions were amazing!

 

         

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The concentration of animals was less dramatic when we left the Crater and traveled into the Serengeti but seeing the Maasai people and the resourcefulness of their way of life in such harsh circumstances was encouraging that God is truly our source and will provide for all the needs of His children ( 1 Co. 10:13).

Before we left the Serengeti on the second day, we visited this Hippo pool and it was amazing to see the piles of them scattered about the rivers flowing from the surrounding mountains. Although the hippos have a naturally generated ointment produced by their skins, they still need the water to moisten their skins during the day or their skin would crack and bleeding would result in a very bad case of psoriasis. As we lunched at the pool, another helpful guide informed us that the hippos come out in large herds in the coolness of the night air and forage on land for food.