Back in Botswana!

Dumelang!!

I am back in the YFC office in Botswana…with wool socks on, a hood over my head, and slightly numb appendages. It is winter here. Last night, even with the down comforter I brought from the States and two other blankets, my feet were quite cold in their wool socks! Ludicrous! Nothing like going from crazy hot weather in Michigan to freezing temperatures in Botswana. Houses here typically don’t have heat, nor insulation…and our house is typical…so it is in the 30s Fahrenheit in our house at night. Going from summer to winter was also a unique experience on the plane—after I slept for close to 10 hours straight (once again, I attribute this skill to all the experience of chair-sleeping after my accident!), I opened up the window shade to see the light of day only to see the sun…setting! Within minutes, the sun had set. So that was the shortest day in recent memory!

On the first flight from Flint, MI to Atlanta, I happened to sit next to a kind woman who was reading about Sudan in order to teach a missions course at her church. So we talked for awhile and I got to share a lot of my testimony with her, and she said she would pray for me daily and wants to keep updated with my newsletters. On the Atlanta – Johannesburg flight, I happened to talk to the man sitting front of me, and found out he lives in Windsor, Ontario but works in Port Huron, where I was just at home with Mom!

Before that in Atlanta during my layover, I reunited with Cindy & Kjel, the mom and step-dad of Jessica, who passed away in the accident. It was great to see them again. I shared in an entry on here (February 12 this year if you want to read the details) that God has really brought us tightly together as we journey through this. For a quick re-cap, when I first visited in October ’08 the stone memorial our fellow missionary friends built up behind Mission Training International (MTI) in the days after the accident, I placed my own stone on top and took some time to say goodbye to each of the three that passed away. When I was ‘talking’ to Jessica, I thought about how her mom Cindy and I have gotten so close through all this, emailing back and forth sometimes a few times a week. So I said to Jess, “I’m helping to take care of your mom,” and immediately after I said that, I pictured Jesus on the cross looking down at his mother Mary and John the beloved disciple, and Jesus saying, “Woman, behold your son” and “Son, behold your mother.”

I had never once thought of that scripture passage in relation to Cindy, Jess, and me and at first was like, ‘Whoa?!...I can never replace Jess!?!” but what came to mind was that Jesus knew that John wouldn’t replace him, and that Mary wouldn’t replace John’s mother, but that they would care for each other in that additional role like a mother-son relationship. And so it just felt like Jess and God were both pleased with how Cindy and I had been helping each other through this.

It turns out that the very same week, that same passage of scripture with Jesus, Mary, and John came to Cindy’s mind for the first time in connection with our relationship, and she had shared that with her counselor and how she feels I am like a daughter to her! And then the week I was just in Minnesota, I was driving in traffic July 4 and saw the bumper sticker on the car in front of me: “Woman, behold your son” ?!!! Who puts that on their car?!!

Then the next day, I received an email from a Bethany student who added a scripture reference at the end of her email – John 19:25-27. I looked it up to see that it is the same Jesus, Mary, and John passage—“Woman, behold your son…Son, behold your mother”!! This friend did not know the significance of those verses to me and Cindy, so I was puzzled why she would put those verses on her email. I emailed and asked her why she chose those verses, and she replied that she had meant to put Job 19:25-27 but somehow had put John instead! After seeing the “Woman, behold your son” bumper sticker the day before and knowing the significance of those verses to Cindy and me, I somehow don’t think that was an accident in God’s eyes. And the message of Job 19:25-27 is a beautiful counterpart:

“I know that my Redeemer lives, and that in the end he will stand upon the earth. And after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God; I myself will see him with my own eyes—I, and not another. How my heart yearns within me!”

The next time I visited the stone memorial at MTI was in May 2009 while I was in CO for a YFC retreat. That time, I saw that there were all these tiny blue and purple wild flowers growing up around the memorial stones. Here is what I journaled that day: “I thought it was just a beautiful picture of what God has been speaking a lot lately, that He is at work to bring beauty from the ashes of our tragedy…to bring something beautiful out of something so painful…to bring triumph out of tragedy.”

I felt led to pick a handful of the wildflowers and press them to send to the family members. So I pressed them and later decided to laminate them into bookmarks and have since sent them to Scott and Andrea, Andrea’s parents, Scott’s parents, and Cindy & Kjel, and Jessica’s father John.

After Cindy got the bookmark in the mail, she told me that Jess used to press flowers and laminate bookmarks of them too!! Cindy wrote:

“For Thanksgiving 2000, Jess pressed these beautiful flowers and put them in a bookmark with the verse from Isaiah 66:13 that says, "I will comfort you as a mother comforts her child," and she wrote, "Thank you for making it so easy for me to see God as a mother." I have treasured that bookmark even more since she went to Heaven and use it to mark my place in whatever current devotional book I am using in the mornings, and now I will have your sweet, special bookmark to use to mark my place in my Bible. I had actually been thinking of buying another bookmark to use to mark my Bible spot, so yours will now be that special bookmark. Taking the time to press the flowers, make the bookmark, and send it to me was one of the sweetest things you could have ever done.”

Wow…after that email I realized that the fact that I felt led to pick, press, laminate, and mail off that bookmark to Cindy and Kjel was just another way that God is comforting her heart (and the other families’). I have never once pressed and laminated flowers, or even thought to do that!

The other day in Atlanta, Cindy got teary-eyed recounting how she still treasures that MTI memorial flower bookmark, and how much that and our friendship has meant to her. When they sent me off from the airport, she gave me a long embrace with tears in her eyes. And so yet again, I was sent off from the U.S. by Cindy & Kjel.

This time I was welcomed and embraced on the other side of the Atlantic by the other parents who lost a daughter in the accident – the parents of Karin. They live just a handful of kilometers from the Johannesburg airport, and I had a 23-hour layover. So I had emailed them to let them know I was passing through again (they had wanted to see me last time but it didn’t work out), and they eagerly offered their hospitality. I had never met them before, and so it was a true blessing. I was able to share pictures with them (they had never seen pictures of Jessica or Scott & Andrea), and to share stories with them about my healing recovery and the statement I read in court to the man who hit us. They have been praying for him as well.

When I showed them pictures of the stone memorial behind MTI, they were really touched to see the wildflowers growing up around it. They asked if they could have that picture with the wildflowers, so I saved it to their computer. Karin’s mother said that they still view that stone memorial (and the service that preceded its creation) as the real memorial, since it was the first one. They were so thankful to have received a DVD of the memorial service.

I was excited because, unbeknownst to them, I had saved one last pressed flower bookmark of those wildflowers to hopefully give to them one day. I didn’t tell them at that point that I had pressed, laminated, and sent those flowers out…I would write it to them in a card I brought along for that purpose and give it to them the next day.

So that night, I wrote out the card, explaining how now everyone who lost a child has one of those special flowers…in Cambodia, California, Georgia, and now South Africa. I shared how I knew now that it was definitely the Lord that led me to do it because I’ve seen how much it has meant to everyone, and since Karin’s parents had been so touched by the picture of the wildflowers, I could anticipate how precious a gift the flower bookmark would be for them as well.

I ended up giving them the card and the flower bookmark yesterday as we parted ways at the airport as I got ready to board the plane for Botswana. When I explained that the bookmark was one of the wildflowers from the stone memorial, Karin’s mother got tears in her eyes and hugged and kissed me, whispering “God bless you” in my ear.

So all in all, it was a beautiful journey back to Botswana. It was such a blessing to get to see both these families and to have more of a sense of closure by being able to finally meet Karin’s parents and give them the flower bookmark. I will also let them know that I put a picture on their computer of the exact purple flower in their bookmark by itself back when it was freshly picked at MTI.

Sometime I hope to share the many ways God has been encouraging me as I begin ministry again in Botswana after losing dad. And I am still working on some entries that share more memories of dad. By the way, if anyone has any particular memories of dad that they would like to share, it’s always fun and comforting to hear. So feel free to write in the guestbook or shoot me an email. They might even feature in my memory-tribute I’ve been working on.

Now I’m off to drive a Canadian to a building supply company. There are 23 Canadians from SW Ontario (neighbors to us in Port Huron) who are here serving on a 2-week mission trip with YFC Project Serve. They are staying here at the office…so it’s kind of a zoo…or a beehive with a hum of activity everywhere. This afternoon, I’ll help lead worship with them in a school in Mochudi. Good times.

Blessings from Botswana again!

~Em