Dumelang!
One cool thing I forgot to mention about the Joining Hands mission conference last week was that when I addressed the whole conference body during the Youth track report, I also took the opportunity to share something quite significant. In the week before I arrived in Botswana, the National AIDS Coordinating Agency (NACA) of Botswana met with a couple local pastors near Mochudi and basically issued a challenge for Christians to prove in 3 years that promoting abstinence is more effective to lower the AIDS infection rate than the approach that relies more heavily on promoting condoms. They are willing to give funding to help abstinence causes the next 3 years.
YFC has already been brainstorming and writing up a proposal on how we can promote abstinence. However, none of these other missionaries I was addressing had apparently heard of that challenge yet, so it was valuable that I was able to share it and encourage the other missionaries/church leaders nationwide to step up their abstinence programs and can apply for NACA funding to do so. I also typed up the Youth track report which will be sent to all the missionaries, and I included this information there as well as a reminder.
Then speaking at the Coffee Bar outreach on Saturday May 1 went well. The youth were really listening (probably the most quiet and attentive we’ve seen them recently) as I shared about how Christ is the living water, the only one who can satisfy the thirsts in our life for love, worth, acceptance, hope, peace, and joy. I will share more details on that in a future post I think.
Wanna hear another cool story?! Before I left the U.S., I was wondering whether or not I could buy a good guitar in Botswana. I needed a new one, so I was debating on whether to buy it in the U.S. or wait and get it in Botswana. My dad found the name of a music teacher from Botswana on the internet and gave me her email. So I emailed her out of the blue, asking if she knew where I could buy a guitar. She emailed back with some places and said that she knows that the YFC director E.J. plays guitar, so I could ask him as well. Then time passed, I arrived here, and soon heard that a music teacher at a private school in Gaborone wants YFC to come there to minister. She goes to the same church as E.J. and Koekoes, the YFC Botswana directors.
It wasn’t until last week that I remembered how I’d emailed with a music teacher in Gaborone who had known of E.J. Could it be the same one?? I searched her name and the name of the school on the internet, and just searched “Music Teacher Gaborone,” as my dad had, but could not find her name or email listed anywhere online, even on the school’s website. I asked my dad if he could remember what school, but he could not recall. E.J. and Koekoes just returned this week from a 2 week ministry trip to Holland, and they confirmed that it was indeed the very same teacher I had emailed from the States!
And I just learned that E.J. still needs to meet with the headmaster of the prestigious private school for YFC to definitely be allowed to work there, but it looks promising. So we are just praying they let us work there, and if so, I will be working with this teacher, who has really served as the gateway into that school! How cool that I already had conversed with the very teacher who is helping to make this breakthrough possible to work in that school with a Christian organization for perhaps the first time. She too had wondered where I found her information online since she does not know of it being listed online. It just seems like this whole thing is a cool confirmation that God is opening up the way and wants us to work in that school!
Then, at church on Sunday, one of the girls who goes to that private school told me that her mom works at another private academy in Gaborone and wants YFC to work in that school! If you recall from last post, it’s much harder here to get into private schools than public with a Christian organization. Her mom works in the guidance/counseling department, which is the precise department we need to go through to get into a school!
On Tuesday, George and I visited a government (public) school to meet with the guidance/counseling staff there. One woman was new and the other is a Muslim, and they were both very excited about YFC coming and helping to start up a P.A.C.T. club (peer-counseling) there! In fact, they actually invited us to do the P.A.C.T. club! They are also helping facilitate the collection and distribution of a correspondence bible study course that we are already doing with interested students there.
Speaking of P.A.C.T. club, yesterday George and I co-led the P.A.C.T. club at another school and several of those students wanted to start the correspondence bible study course too.
Exciting stuff!
Blessings,
Em
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