Back in Action!

Dumelang!


I am back in action! I feel much better and am back at the office again today (and I had a nice morning run!). Please keep the other staff in your prayers though. Two (Kyra from Germany and Simone from Holland) who were sick about half a day earlier than me are still home sick, but after almost going to the hospital last night, we think they’ve finally turned the corner and the worst is over. One more was home sick yesterday but I think she’s back at the daycare today. I only ate dry toast and Jungle Oats for a day and a half, two days, but yesterday for lunch I broke out the Moroccan chicken and chick pea soup in a can that I bought at Woolworths (which is a British store I would frequent when in England). Believe it or not, but that was the first time chicken, that blessed meat, entered my stomach in this country! I think this was the longest chicken fast (inadvertent) I’ve had since I became a chicken consumer as a young lass. There is chicken here…I just haven’t gotten around to buying it. There is a restaurant chain here in the capital called Chicken Licken, with “lip-licken good” chicken. Glory. There is also a restaurant chain called Nando’s that I LOVED on my last trip to Botswana in 2004. So some time I’m in the capital, I’m fixin’ to get me some southern fried chicken y’all! Chicken is good.

Ok, so wow…I have a lot to recap on. Let’s start where I left off. So last Wednesday and Thursday, I went with Kyra (German) and Naomi (Motswana) to YFC Kids Club. What is cool is that there is a kids club Monday through Thursday in four different places in town. And at least the two places I went were both outside under random trees. So Wednesday we walked probably 30-40 minutes to get there -- it was off a dirt road at a big tree that offers shade, and the kids come to the tree. Thursday it was closer in town, also under a tree. They play games, sing songs, and have bible lessons, memory verses, and prayer. The kids are mainly elementary age and…super cute!!! I wish I could have taken pictures, but it’s distracting for them so I didn’t. But believe me…cuteness in abundance!

The church I attended in Gaborone a few days before that, Open Baptist Church, is actually doing a lot to fight AIDS. They started an organization called Face the Nation with dance/drama and school programs that go to every Sr. Secondary School in Botswana for a month during the college break (so college students from the University of Botswana take part in the dance/drama teams and also teach the curriculum for a month at each school). They won the Willow Creek Leadership Summit Courageous Leadership Award last year or the year before, so they get a lot of funding from the U.S. through that. YFC partners with them; some of our staff worked as facilitators of some of their dance/drama teams.

Last Thursday (March 4), the YFC staff joined with a couple of the Face the Nation volunteers and a local Motswana (from Botswana) pastor to do a prayer walk at Molefi Sr. Secondary School, the only Sr. Secondary School in the whole large district (so many students live on site in hostels), which is right by the YFC office. We met with one of the teachers who is a Christian in an audio-visual room of the school library to split into pairs to pray for the prayer concerns they have identified through interviews with teachers/students/administration. I was paired up with the local pastor so we prayed together for about 10-15 minutes and then we spread out in groups of 3-4 to pray outside around the school buildings/hostels. Face the Nation prays at every school in advance of when the Face the Nation team arrives in order to pray for the needs of the school and prepare the way so the Face the Nation curriculum will be more effective.

Saturday March 6, Face the Nation also had a day of prayer and fasting at Open Baptist Church in Gaborone (the capital) to pray for all the Sr. Secondary Schools in the nation. I didn’t have a ride into the Church so I just went for a run around the Molefi school (the school campus is ginormous…like about a 10 minute walk to cover one edge of the square walled-in grounds) to pray again for the needs at Molefi. It was only in doing this that I realized that the walk to the YFC office every day is along the back wall of Molefi! I had just thought it was private property, but it is actually the school property all along! So now I am reminded every day to pray when we walk past.

On Saturday March 6, Face the Nation also launched a 40-day prayer journey with specific prayer points each day about one of those schools or for the local pastors, etc. So I have been joining in that as well. Yesterday (March10) the focus was pastors and community leaders and starting today, we will pray for each of the 27 Sr. Secondary Schools in Botswana.

Saturday night we ran another Coffee Bar for the youth of Mochudi. A former YFC staff member named Ernest still comes to the YFC events and the next morning I walked with him to church (because Sara who usually comes was sick). Ernest, a Motswana, is the chairman of the youth ministry council for the Alliance Church denomination in Botswana, and he said he doesn’t know of any other Coffee Bar type program for youth in all of Botswana (it’s where we just have an open house at the YFC office for 3 hours Saturday nights with games, pool, foosball, football, four-square, ping-pong, and a short Christian message or a Christian movie sometimes). The Alliance Church we attended is where another YFC staff member, Tebatso, goes because her husband is the head pastor.

I really enjoyed the service. It is in a building with a cement floor and corrugated metal roof and walls that reach maybe 10 feet high but not to the roof. Thus, you can see the sky and the tops of the nearby hills all around you as you worship, and feel the breeze. It was a cool experience to worship and see the clouds behind the worship team/altar.

The people were very friendly and receptive…they even set aside time during a song for people to welcome the visitors, and they don’t just come and shake your hand; they hug you. So I got lots of hugs from little old ladies, women, and kids. Tebatso led a teenage girl choir in a song, and then all the little kids got up and sang a beautiful, meaningful song: “I have a Father. I know I’m not alone. I have a Brother. When everyone else departs from me, I know I’m not alone. Jesus is there for me.” In a country with so many orphans and fatherless homes, this was especially poignant.

The walk back from church was memorable. We walked along a skinny little path until we reached the river that runs through Mochudi. Because there hasn’t been rain for almost a week, the river was lower and the rocks set in the river to cross it were exposed. So we crossed the river on rocks, like stepping stones. Before you get alarmed, this “river” was only maybe 15 feet wide at this point and very shallow, so had I lost my balance, the worst scenario would have been a wet skirt. Though I did learn the next day that there are crocodiles in that river (but not where we were!). Once across, Ernest and the few other youth with us walked along a skinny (half foot to a foot wide) path that wound its way through grassland with trees and grazing goats and cattle. It was the most grass I’d seen in Mochudi (it’s usually just red dirt everywhere) so it was very beautiful countryside to me. That night I played guitar/sang worship songs in our yard out under the most amazing starscape I’ve seen this trip to Africa…just stunning.

Monday, I went with the YFC dance/drama team to their presentation at a Jr. secondary school REALLY far away…over 50 km away right on the border with South Africa (but still in this district…so you see why students board at Molefi if they go to Sr. Secondary school). There was actually a student there I know named Doreen, who stays in Mochudi on the weekends. Saturday on my “prayer run” (before I knew her) I invited her to come to Coffee Bar that night and she came (she had been before as well, but I didn’t know that). Then at Coffee Bar, we’d talked a bit while we were putting together a puzzle. So it was cool to see a familiar face at this school really far away. The kids liked the presentation as usual. On the drive back through the countryside, we had to stop or slow down several times for herds of cattle (MASSIVE bulls!!) and goats who don’t like to look both ways before crossing the road. They must have been absent that day in preschool for that lesson.

After we dropped the dance/drama team off, it was now…..my turn to learn to drive!! So the director E.J. hopped in the passenger seat, and I drove on the left side of the road the stick-shift SUV that fits about 10 people. So now I’m getting used to shifting with my left hand. Thankfully, I learned how to drive in the U.S. in a stick-shift mini-van, so at least I’ve got the clutch/shifting thing down already. So E.J. had me drive out the way we just came from, out into the country. So I got up to 80 kilometers an hour on the open road and successfully avoided all animals (and people!). I didn’t ever stall it…I just realized that the indicator/turn signal is on the opposite side as well—I went to indicate a turn and the windshield wipers started going crazy! So, my brain needs to get used to that switch too! I should be getting my own car soon.

Then that night I succumbed to the flu-like virus dealio that’s ravaging our staff house and lots of Botswana. So I went to bed at 8pm and slept 12 hours…felt better throughout the day Tuesday, and by Wednesday was back to work. Today I went for a run, drove us to work in a YFC car, led the daily prayer meeting at the YFC office (we take turns leading it for a week), and I am getting ready for my first solo journey to the capital this afternoon on public transport (bus) to go observe George (from Namibia) give a YFC presentation at a school there. So that will be a fun adventure. Last time I didn’t sit on the bus, so I’m hoping that this time there will be a seat for the hour journey. Maybe I’ll snag some chicken whilst in Gabs (what we affectionately nickname the capital Gaborone). We’ll see, haha.

Have a great day!

~Em