Hi all,
The talk to the whole student body at the private school in Gaborone went well. Thanks for any and all prayers. Afterwards the principal told me he could tell the students enjoyed it and were impacted. He invited me to come whenever I want and speak to the whole student body...and the principal is also a pastor and wants me to speak to his whole congregation on some Sunday! Praise God.
And a teenage guy came up to me afterwards and asked if a Christian has fallen into some sins whether they can still be accepted by God? He said he has fallen into some sins but wants to stop doing them and follow God's way again. He asked if, once he stops doing those sins, will God accept him back? I told him he doesn't need to fix everything and stop sinning in order to come to God. No, he can come as-is. He can just confess and agree with God that what he's been doing is wrong...and want to turn from those things (repent) and ask God to help him stop those bad habits. He doesn't need to "fix" himself all up first and try to be perfect before coming to God...but if his heart's desire is to change, he can come back right away. "You come to Him just as you are." I told him if he is a Christian, Jesus has provided the forgiveness through the cross, and the Holy Spirit lives inside of him and can help him to change and turn from those things. If/when he may slip up and fall back here and there, he can confess and repent and come to God again for a fresh start.
As I was speaking to him, his eyes were lighting up and a genuine smile was breaking across his face. Here is a kid who had evidently been thinking God won't accept him back until he quits sinning and gets everything perfect...who was grasping the God of grace. I could see the truth just impacting his heart.
I continued by asking him if he knows the story of the Prodigal Son? He nodded. I asked, "Did the son clean himself all up and fix everything and become perfect before he came back?" No...he came as he was. And was the Father mad and looking forward to when he could punish his son? No...he was waiting in hope that his son would come home...and when he saw him, he didn't get mad...No, he ran out to meet him, embraced him, kissed him, threw him a huge celebration, killed the best calf because he loved and rejoiced that his son had come back to him. I told him God isn't hoping to punish him...He is waiting to embrace him and help him walk with Him again. He was smiling as what I was saying was 'clicking' and resonating in his heart... It was like this verse was happening before my eyes: “You will know the truth and the truth will set you free” (John 8:32). I just felt like those few moments set him free to now run back to his Father. He thanked me and headed off to class.
A couple other girls thanked me for coming and sharing the really moving story, and a boy in a wheelchair came up to me and opened his bible to a verse I had shared in my talk and read it aloud again excitedly. All in all, it was such a beautiful opportunity. I love sharing how awesome God is, and then watching Him work in other people's hearts. It's such a privilege. God is so good.
Fighting AIDS with…Harvard!
Yesterday, I attended another collaborative meeting with leaders from different sectors and organizations who are all interested in fighting AIDS. We heard a presentation detailing the Mochudi Prevention Project that has just started by the Botswana Harvard Partnership (BHP). The 5-year project’s goal is “To reduce the number of new HIV infections in Mochudi by promoting all proven prevention tools and investigating, in addition, the use of a new prevention strategy.” The same BHP representative met with Youth for Christ leadership earlier this month and will be presenting to all the staff in October, as our promotion of abstinence is one of those prevention tools. The new aspects are a community approach with home-based testing; and working with drugs to reduce the viral load (a higher viral load spreads HIV more easily). This is the first time in the whole world this has been done, and Mochudi could be a model for HIV prevention in Botswana and worldwide. It is quite exciting that Harvard for some reason has chosen our village of all places on earth to join in this fight.
Hungry for the Word of God
This is something I forgot to ever share, but will now. Schools resumed Tuesday, September 7 after about a month of holiday. Several students are working on the follow-up discipleship bible study course YFC does, so we collect their finished studies and give them the next few at the Scripture Union clubs. One of the girls in the Scripture Union club didn’t want to wait until school resumed to turn hers in (and apparently didn’t want to, or couldn’t afford to mail them in either), so she and her little sister walked an hour and a half each way to come to the YFC office during the school holiday to turn in her follow-up studies! Once I learned how long they had walked, we corrected them right then and gave her the next studies. But wow…walking 3 hours in the heat of the day just to get some bible studies to work on. That made me think, How hungry are the rest of us for the Word of God? How hungry are we to grow in our faith?
Inconveniences sometimes work out for the best!
Last week I was waiting in my car for what seemed like an eternity to get the change and receipt for my gasoline purchase. As I sat there in my car, a taxi swung around and I heard, “Emily!” It was Kagiso, the taxi driver I had met with in February and had talked with about God for several minutes. We hadn’t seen each other in all the months since, and yet he recognized me and remembered my name and our conversation. He said he should stop by the YFC office sometime and maybe I could tell him more about God, like last time? Yeah dude! See, sometimes inconvenient delays work out for the best!
Off to Cape Town!!!!
I need to go home and pack now…we are leaving at 5 am to drive for two whole days (1700 kilometers) to go to a Youth for Christ Southern Region [of Africa] staff conference for a week. Please pray for our safe travel. Really. The vehicles have been breaking down even this week…and were both taken in to be fixed. Please pray they work smoothly and that we drivers (I’m the back-up driver for one of the main drivers) stay alert through the 20 hours of driving. It’s a public holiday weekend in South Africa, so the roads will be busy as well. The retreat center is apparently beautiful…on the ocean!!
Blessings,
Em
Friday, September 24, 2010
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
Sharing Testimony to Whole Student Body!
Dumelang!
Sharing my Testimony with the Whole Student Body!
Tomorrow I will be sharing my testimony about the accident/recovery with the whole student body (ages 6-18 years!) at a private school in Gaborone. I have a full 30 minutes to share! The YFC Botswana director E.J. has been invited to share there in the past, and when he was recently invited, he felt I should share my testimony. Prayers are appreciated that it goes well and the students are impacted and drawn closer to the Lord.
Visiting those in the Hospital -- Being Christ’s Hands and Feet
[I wrote this awhile back and will now include it]: Friday, one of the national YFC workers, Modise, and I went to the local hospital in Mochudi, both with a burden to visit and pray for the sick. Wow…It was the first time I’ve seen in person people ravaged by AIDS. I know HIV positive people, but there is a definite difference when it progresses over into full-blown AIDS. If that wasn’t motivation for speaking these unpopular messages of abstinence and behavior change to youth and doing whatever God directs to help keep them from getting AIDS, I don’t know what is. I was thankful for the ability we had to go and pray for/with each patient. The night before I had written this prayer in my journal:
“Lord, may You just love through me. Help these patients feel Your love and care for them through us. Bring them hope in the face of despair…Shine through us, love through us, heal through us in Jesus’ name. Help me see with Your eyes, feel with Your heart, and love with Your love…Jesus You touched the lepers, reaching out to the outcasts of society. Lord touch today’s lepers (AIDS victims) through me. Let love flow through me so they will know that You are real, that You are love.”
I only now re-read that prayer for the first time since I wrote it…and I’m amazed at how beautifully the Lord answered it. When I was in one of the wards with several beds in an open room, praying over a man for healing and praying that God would help him know that He sees him there and He cares, I thought, Where are You, God? You do see him and you do care and your heart breaks for him. So where are You? How can people suffering here in these wards know that You really love and care for them? And I felt the Lord whisper in my heart there in the hospital ward, “I am here…I sent you. I’m in you; I’m loving them through you.” Wow...it just struck me afresh and in a deeper way that God has chosen to use frail, weak people like you and me to be His hands and feet in the world today. He uses vessels, 'jars of clay', like us to pour out His love.
My time in the hospital was one of those times where I just felt like God’s love was flowing through me as I took the time to learn their names, talk a bit if they could, and lay my hand on them to pray for healing and that they would know that God sees them there, He cares, and He loves them. The times I felt God loving though me most was when I would just feel like I was able to communicate loving care through my eyes as I looked into theirs…like He was giving me His eyes of compassion and loving them through me. I know that my own human love and compassion would be exhausted quickly in such an environment, but His love is enduring, His love is unwavering, His love can reach out through my yielded hands.
That reminded me of a quote I’d read that essentially says that God chooses to use our hands and feet in the world today to reach out to the broken and hurting. Philip Yancey wrote,
"It occurred to me as I read the Gospels that if all of us in his Body would spend our lives as he did—ministering to the sick, feeding the hungry, resisting the powers of evil, comforting those who mourn, and bringing the Good News of love and forgiveness—then perhaps the question 'Is God unfair?' would not be asked with such urgency today."
Obviously since I found that quote in my journal I have heard and thought about it before…even the prayer in my journal before I went to the hospital talks about letting God love through me, but I guess the reality of it never struck me so poignantly as it did through that experience. And as I’m typing this, this song came on my random shuffle: “Give me Your Eyes” by Brandon Heath—
Give me your eyes for just one second
Give me your eyes so I can see
Everything that I keep missing
Give me your love for humanity
Give me your arms for the broken-hearted
The ones that are far beyond my reach
Give me your heart for the ones forgotten
Give me your eyes so I can see
So this is me typing currently on 21 September again. I typed up all of the above last week, and soon afterward, I picked up a book I bought but haven’t read yet, The AIDS Crisis: What We Can Do by Deborah Dortzbach and W. Meredith Long. Here is an excerpt I read under the heading “The Hope of Christ”—
“So it is that Christians confront AIDS—in painful ministry. If people are to respond to the compassion and love of Christ, that compassion and love must become incarnate in the men, women and youth who compose his church. Christ’s eyes are the crying eyes of the women who came to bury a woman who died of AIDS because no one else would. Christ’s feet are those of the church volunteers who carry firewood to an impoverished widow in rural Malawi. Christ’s anger is the anger of a lawyer who prepares a case for orphans who have had their land taken from them. Christ is present in the millions of Christians who quietly and with little recognition carry the burden of AIDS in their communities and churches around the world…In an era of AIDS, Christ is found where he has always been found. He is with the poor, the marginalized, the sinful, the sick and the oppressed.”
I went back to the hospital last Wednesday with two other YFC colleagues, Modise and Maruping, and talked/prayed with some more patients. One was an elderly woman named Susan who was suffering a bad bout of food poisoning. She was already a Christian and she had been praying that someone would bring her a Bible. We gave her some little booklets with scriptures inside, and she was so grateful. She said we were an answer to her prayers. Another family had an old grandmother in the hospital joined that day by a granddaughter in the opposite hospital bed. The granddaughter had collapsed and was almost in a coma when the father found her that morning. The father and mother were there visiting as well, and when I asked the father how he was doing, he told me they aren’t doing the best spiritually. But he told me he knows that God spared his daughter for a reason and he is thankful to God. He asked if we might come and meet with his whole family at their house to share more about God. Yet another cool opportunity.
Also, just today as I was trying to find that quote in the book on AIDS, I came across this, which strangely fits perfectly with what I had shared last post about the marriage bed being moved out of place [that sex outside of marriage is a roadblock to the Vision 2016 goal of no new HIV infections by 2016]:
“Many people are moving marriage beds. Vows taken to love and support one another for life are frequently broken…The consequences of unfaithfulness are far reaching, bringing the potential for death not only to the one committing adultery but also to the spouse and their born and unborn children…What can we do when our marriage beds are moved? Broken covenants need reconciliation. Pastors need training in counseling couples wrestling with broken trust and relationships.”
Crazy how perfectly that fits huh? And earlier today before I read that, I saw a worker with a jacket that read “Safe Roads to 2016” and it reminded me of my dream with the bed in the middle of the road as a major roadblock on the road to Vision 2016. Interesting…
Ministry at the Sr. Secondary School in Mochudi
Well…due to the scheduling changes and uncertainty going on at the school, the school advised me not to make plans for the Real Life Revolution club (promoting abstinence) until after this week. So the club has been postponed until we return from Cape Town…so hopefully the first week in October. Also adding to the confusion was a fire that broke out this week at the boys’ dorm (thankfully no one was injured because it was during class hours), which required the school to send home all of the boy boarders for the time being.
Unofficial ministry has continued, however. I met with the student on Saturday whom I mentioned last post. We talked for about an hour. We have plans in place for her to receive professional counseling. Prayers for her are still very much appreciated.
Random Tidbits
And finally, for some random tidbits: A German volunteer, Kathrin flew in yesterday and is a new addition to our staff-house family. We now have two Canadians (Twila, 23, and Marge, 17), two Americans (Katie, 24, and me, 27), and two Europeans (Corine, 32 from Holland, and Kathrin, 19). The only one who was here when I came in February was Corine! The other 5 Europeans have since returned home for further studies. It’s kind of a revolving door of a house!
The other day I was walking along the road and a teenage boy I don’t recognize said, “Hello, woman of God!” and then repeated it. I just smiled and laughed to myself. He must know somehow I live in the “Makgoa [white person] house” and we are missionaries. Though, I’ve noticed more often now groups of guys will greet me by name and I don’t recognize them off-hand. And lastly, I saw a white-tailed deer-like animal and a monkey on a run in Mochudi last week…Also saw a monkey in the hospital ward climbing out the window!
Blessings,
Em
Sharing my Testimony with the Whole Student Body!
Tomorrow I will be sharing my testimony about the accident/recovery with the whole student body (ages 6-18 years!) at a private school in Gaborone. I have a full 30 minutes to share! The YFC Botswana director E.J. has been invited to share there in the past, and when he was recently invited, he felt I should share my testimony. Prayers are appreciated that it goes well and the students are impacted and drawn closer to the Lord.
Visiting those in the Hospital -- Being Christ’s Hands and Feet
[I wrote this awhile back and will now include it]: Friday, one of the national YFC workers, Modise, and I went to the local hospital in Mochudi, both with a burden to visit and pray for the sick. Wow…It was the first time I’ve seen in person people ravaged by AIDS. I know HIV positive people, but there is a definite difference when it progresses over into full-blown AIDS. If that wasn’t motivation for speaking these unpopular messages of abstinence and behavior change to youth and doing whatever God directs to help keep them from getting AIDS, I don’t know what is. I was thankful for the ability we had to go and pray for/with each patient. The night before I had written this prayer in my journal:
“Lord, may You just love through me. Help these patients feel Your love and care for them through us. Bring them hope in the face of despair…Shine through us, love through us, heal through us in Jesus’ name. Help me see with Your eyes, feel with Your heart, and love with Your love…Jesus You touched the lepers, reaching out to the outcasts of society. Lord touch today’s lepers (AIDS victims) through me. Let love flow through me so they will know that You are real, that You are love.”
I only now re-read that prayer for the first time since I wrote it…and I’m amazed at how beautifully the Lord answered it. When I was in one of the wards with several beds in an open room, praying over a man for healing and praying that God would help him know that He sees him there and He cares, I thought, Where are You, God? You do see him and you do care and your heart breaks for him. So where are You? How can people suffering here in these wards know that You really love and care for them? And I felt the Lord whisper in my heart there in the hospital ward, “I am here…I sent you. I’m in you; I’m loving them through you.” Wow...it just struck me afresh and in a deeper way that God has chosen to use frail, weak people like you and me to be His hands and feet in the world today. He uses vessels, 'jars of clay', like us to pour out His love.
My time in the hospital was one of those times where I just felt like God’s love was flowing through me as I took the time to learn their names, talk a bit if they could, and lay my hand on them to pray for healing and that they would know that God sees them there, He cares, and He loves them. The times I felt God loving though me most was when I would just feel like I was able to communicate loving care through my eyes as I looked into theirs…like He was giving me His eyes of compassion and loving them through me. I know that my own human love and compassion would be exhausted quickly in such an environment, but His love is enduring, His love is unwavering, His love can reach out through my yielded hands.
That reminded me of a quote I’d read that essentially says that God chooses to use our hands and feet in the world today to reach out to the broken and hurting. Philip Yancey wrote,
"It occurred to me as I read the Gospels that if all of us in his Body would spend our lives as he did—ministering to the sick, feeding the hungry, resisting the powers of evil, comforting those who mourn, and bringing the Good News of love and forgiveness—then perhaps the question 'Is God unfair?' would not be asked with such urgency today."
Obviously since I found that quote in my journal I have heard and thought about it before…even the prayer in my journal before I went to the hospital talks about letting God love through me, but I guess the reality of it never struck me so poignantly as it did through that experience. And as I’m typing this, this song came on my random shuffle: “Give me Your Eyes” by Brandon Heath—
Give me your eyes for just one second
Give me your eyes so I can see
Everything that I keep missing
Give me your love for humanity
Give me your arms for the broken-hearted
The ones that are far beyond my reach
Give me your heart for the ones forgotten
Give me your eyes so I can see
So this is me typing currently on 21 September again. I typed up all of the above last week, and soon afterward, I picked up a book I bought but haven’t read yet, The AIDS Crisis: What We Can Do by Deborah Dortzbach and W. Meredith Long. Here is an excerpt I read under the heading “The Hope of Christ”—
“So it is that Christians confront AIDS—in painful ministry. If people are to respond to the compassion and love of Christ, that compassion and love must become incarnate in the men, women and youth who compose his church. Christ’s eyes are the crying eyes of the women who came to bury a woman who died of AIDS because no one else would. Christ’s feet are those of the church volunteers who carry firewood to an impoverished widow in rural Malawi. Christ’s anger is the anger of a lawyer who prepares a case for orphans who have had their land taken from them. Christ is present in the millions of Christians who quietly and with little recognition carry the burden of AIDS in their communities and churches around the world…In an era of AIDS, Christ is found where he has always been found. He is with the poor, the marginalized, the sinful, the sick and the oppressed.”
I went back to the hospital last Wednesday with two other YFC colleagues, Modise and Maruping, and talked/prayed with some more patients. One was an elderly woman named Susan who was suffering a bad bout of food poisoning. She was already a Christian and she had been praying that someone would bring her a Bible. We gave her some little booklets with scriptures inside, and she was so grateful. She said we were an answer to her prayers. Another family had an old grandmother in the hospital joined that day by a granddaughter in the opposite hospital bed. The granddaughter had collapsed and was almost in a coma when the father found her that morning. The father and mother were there visiting as well, and when I asked the father how he was doing, he told me they aren’t doing the best spiritually. But he told me he knows that God spared his daughter for a reason and he is thankful to God. He asked if we might come and meet with his whole family at their house to share more about God. Yet another cool opportunity.
Also, just today as I was trying to find that quote in the book on AIDS, I came across this, which strangely fits perfectly with what I had shared last post about the marriage bed being moved out of place [that sex outside of marriage is a roadblock to the Vision 2016 goal of no new HIV infections by 2016]:
“Many people are moving marriage beds. Vows taken to love and support one another for life are frequently broken…The consequences of unfaithfulness are far reaching, bringing the potential for death not only to the one committing adultery but also to the spouse and their born and unborn children…What can we do when our marriage beds are moved? Broken covenants need reconciliation. Pastors need training in counseling couples wrestling with broken trust and relationships.”
Crazy how perfectly that fits huh? And earlier today before I read that, I saw a worker with a jacket that read “Safe Roads to 2016” and it reminded me of my dream with the bed in the middle of the road as a major roadblock on the road to Vision 2016. Interesting…
Ministry at the Sr. Secondary School in Mochudi
Well…due to the scheduling changes and uncertainty going on at the school, the school advised me not to make plans for the Real Life Revolution club (promoting abstinence) until after this week. So the club has been postponed until we return from Cape Town…so hopefully the first week in October. Also adding to the confusion was a fire that broke out this week at the boys’ dorm (thankfully no one was injured because it was during class hours), which required the school to send home all of the boy boarders for the time being.
Unofficial ministry has continued, however. I met with the student on Saturday whom I mentioned last post. We talked for about an hour. We have plans in place for her to receive professional counseling. Prayers for her are still very much appreciated.
Random Tidbits
And finally, for some random tidbits: A German volunteer, Kathrin flew in yesterday and is a new addition to our staff-house family. We now have two Canadians (Twila, 23, and Marge, 17), two Americans (Katie, 24, and me, 27), and two Europeans (Corine, 32 from Holland, and Kathrin, 19). The only one who was here when I came in February was Corine! The other 5 Europeans have since returned home for further studies. It’s kind of a revolving door of a house!
The other day I was walking along the road and a teenage boy I don’t recognize said, “Hello, woman of God!” and then repeated it. I just smiled and laughed to myself. He must know somehow I live in the “Makgoa [white person] house” and we are missionaries. Though, I’ve noticed more often now groups of guys will greet me by name and I don’t recognize them off-hand. And lastly, I saw a white-tailed deer-like animal and a monkey on a run in Mochudi last week…Also saw a monkey in the hospital ward climbing out the window!
Blessings,
Em
Wednesday, September 15, 2010
Exciting and Challenging Times
Hello all!
Real Life Revolution!
Well, yesterday was the day we’d scheduled to start the abstinence club at the Senior Secondary School in Mochudi. However, that of all days is when the entire school system in Botswana switched to a new schedule that runs right through the club time! We just found this out yesterday that it affects all the schools, not just the one we were at Monday. Now students will be in classes until 4:30 pm (the club was going to run from 3:45-4:30). I’ve been unable to talk with the guidance/counseling teacher who coordinates the clubs because she’s locked up in meetings discussing these changes. So…we postponed the start of the club until, hopefully,next week.
This might be for the better because, though we put up posters at the school, the school-wide announcement about the club was not made on Monday as planned because the teacher who was to give the announcement was late. This way, we can have the announcement made Friday at General Assembly and then more students will know about the club for the first meeting. We’re not sure how clubs will work in this new schedule. It sounds like clubs might be kind of cut out of the curriculum perhaps. It used to be that classes were done at 3:30 and then the students were supposed to go to a club of their choosing. But now that classes extend to 4:30, they may not urge, encourage, or require students to attend a club. And honestly, if you’ve been in school from 7:30 am until 4:30 pm, would you want to stay at school longer if you didn’t have to? So just pray for a good solution to the situation we now face.
Back to the club itself, we decided to name it Real Life Revolution, because the youth will discuss real life issues that affect them and because choosing abstinence will help them have real, abundant life. The need is great – in the last 3-month term, there were 9 known pregnancies at that school! It is sobering to ponder how many teens are contracting HIV in such an environment. We are praying that this club will help decrease the rate of both HIV transmission and teen pregnancy. If you feel led, please pray for the youth to be drawn to come to the club and be impacted in their lifestyles. We will be reporting the progress/effectiveness of the club to Face the Nation (since it is a follow-up club to their AIDS-prevention program in the schools last term), who in turn will report it to the Ministry of Education of the Botswana government.
Another Divine Appointment??
Perhaps I’ll share more details about this later, but please pray for one of the students there with whom I met on Sunday. She is going through an extremely hard time. The student had called one of the Face the Nation volunteers Sunday just in tears…the volunteer (for whom I was a prayer partner) was far away in Gaborone, so she asked the student if it would be ok for me to come to talk with her. The student agreed, so the Face the Nation volunteer told me to call her. As it turns out, I had called this student for the first time the day before to set up a time to give her Philip Yancey’s book Disappointment with God, because we think it would be good for her situation and she had agreed to read it. I’d been having a hard time finding the book in Botswana, so Philip Yancey was willing to mail it from the US, but we’d just found a copy here. So I had already planned to meet the student Sunday evening for the first time to give her the book.
When I called her Sunday afternoon and she couldn’t even talk through the tears, I asked if I should just come right away instead of waiting the hour and a half until our scheduled meeting (yes). I was at the YFC office for our interdenominational prayer meeting, so that meant I was literally just a 2-minute drive from the school. So I hopped in my car and was able to meet her. She totally opened up to me (which surprised me for having just met her) and shared the heartbreaking story of the past couple years, and especially the last weeks and days.
Please pray that God speaks to her through that book and that she can come to see God as loving and good despite the bad things that have happened in her life. And I’m grateful for any prayers for wisdom in what I to say to her as we work through her serious issues. I called and checked in with her Sunday and Monday nights briefly, and we plan to meet again on Saturday to talk, though she knows she can call me before that if she wants /needs to do so. She has agreed to more professional counseling and now have options set up for her.
Yarona FC!
For awhile we at YFC have felt led to change and improve our Coffee Bar drop-in center on Saturday nights at the YFC office. We decided on a new name Yarona FC (Yarona means “us”/ “we together” in Setswana) and FC is “For Christ” so it’s still YFC. However, in this soccer (football) saturated culture, people will see FC and think “Football Club” like Barcelona FC or Liverpool FC, etc. So it’s meant to appeal to the youth and be a place that together with them is ours…where they can feel like it is their club, a place where they belong. We took each of their pictures and will create nametags so they feel more like they belong to the club. Three weeks ago, we had the launch of Yarona, introducing the new name and giving them each candy, chips, and pop as a special treat. We also unveiled the new ping-pong table and other games that the Canadian short-term team had donated. A bunch of us had a great game of basketball (netball) outside in the dark with the spotlight from the office on the court.
Last week it was my turn to share the message at Yarona FC. The Botswana government has declared September to be the Month of Prayer Against AIDS, so I was planning on speaking about AIDS and abstinence to the youth. That morning, as I was falling asleep in my daily 20 minute nap to heat my jaw with a heating pad, I was thinking about Vision 2016 for some reason. [Vision 2016 is the national vision of Botswana drafted in 1996 of what they want the country to look like in various sectors by 2016. Regarding AIDS it states, “By the year 2016, the spread of the HIV virus that causes AIDS will have stopped, so that there will be no new infections by the virus in that year.”] Then I fell asleep in this nap and had a dream where there was a big double/queen bed with a headboard (like for a married couple) in the middle of the road (the dirt road by the YFC office). In my dream I thought, A bed is definitely not supposed to be in the middle of the road. It’s in the wrong place…it should be in a bedroom. That’s a big, dangerous roadblock! I awoke from my dream, remembering it vividly and thinking, What is that supposed to mean?! (if anything).
And then I remembered how I’d just been thinking of Vision 2016, “toward an AIDS-free generation with no new infections by 2016”…and I realized that is the destination we are headed toward, the road we are traveling down, but people having sex outside of marriage is a major roadblock on that road. God designed sex to be within marriage, not outside...just like the bed should be in the bedroom, not outside in the road. If people are having sex before or outside of marriage, it is in the wrong place…like that marriage bed out in the middle of the road…and that is one of the main roadblocks hindering this country on this road to Vision 2016, an AIDS-free generation.
I felt like I was supposed to add that dream and insight into my talk at Yarona FC that night. Popular message to share, eh? Not so much. But I knew I had to share it and encourage them to keep sex within marriage. I asked if they are sick of hearing about AIDS? I think they were a bit surprised that I would say that, but seemingly they agreed. They know about AIDS. They know their ABC’s (Abstain, Be Faithful, Condomize if you choose to have sex). But I told them it’s not enough to know that stuff or pray against AIDS if our behavior is still possibly spreading it (if we’re sleeping around). We all need to “be the change” and make choices to help HIV from spreading. I shared that it’s because we care about them and don’t want to see them dying of AIDS someday and orphaning their children that we share this with them and encourage them to change their behavior.
Change is possible…in their individual lives and for this nation! I told them that a relationship with Christ can really help them as the Holy Spirit comes to live inside them and empower them. I shared how Uganda saw their HIV rate plummet as so many people came to Christ and practiced abstinence and/or faithfulness in marriage. I also told them about the Real Life Revolution club that we’re starting to support and encourage them in this (in essence to create positive peer pressure to choose abstinence). I left them with this point to ponder: “I want you to think to yourself—Is my behavior part of the problem or part of the solution of AIDS? Is my behavior helping spread HIV or stop its spread?”
Cape Town, here we come!
An exciting announcement is that there is an upcoming staff conference for Southern Africa YFC (10 countries that the Botswana director E.J. oversees as Regional Director). There hasn’t been one since 2005 I think, and they are usually at the same YFC conference center where we just had the youth leader conference in northern South Africa. However, this year, that venue is unavailable and so the conference has been moved to near Cape Town. So, though it is much more expensive to travel there, we are trusting God to provide the funds for all of the YFC Botswana national and international staff/volunteers to go down there. Flying is way too expensive, and the trains are not running right now for some reason. So driving it is! It’s about a 20 hour drive each way. We are staying overnight half-way at either a church or a retirement home. This past Saturday, the YFC Botswana staff did a sponsored walk fundraiser where we all hiked to the top of Kgale Hill, the highest “mountain” in Gaborone. It was fun to hike again and to see the view of the dam and surrounding hills.
I’ll have to share later about my experience Friday at the hospital in Mochudi, visiting and praying for the sick. I’ll be heading back to the hospital tomorrow and/or Friday as well.
Thanks for your continued interest, encouragement, and prayers.
Love, Em
Real Life Revolution!
Well, yesterday was the day we’d scheduled to start the abstinence club at the Senior Secondary School in Mochudi. However, that of all days is when the entire school system in Botswana switched to a new schedule that runs right through the club time! We just found this out yesterday that it affects all the schools, not just the one we were at Monday. Now students will be in classes until 4:30 pm (the club was going to run from 3:45-4:30). I’ve been unable to talk with the guidance/counseling teacher who coordinates the clubs because she’s locked up in meetings discussing these changes. So…we postponed the start of the club until, hopefully,next week.
This might be for the better because, though we put up posters at the school, the school-wide announcement about the club was not made on Monday as planned because the teacher who was to give the announcement was late. This way, we can have the announcement made Friday at General Assembly and then more students will know about the club for the first meeting. We’re not sure how clubs will work in this new schedule. It sounds like clubs might be kind of cut out of the curriculum perhaps. It used to be that classes were done at 3:30 and then the students were supposed to go to a club of their choosing. But now that classes extend to 4:30, they may not urge, encourage, or require students to attend a club. And honestly, if you’ve been in school from 7:30 am until 4:30 pm, would you want to stay at school longer if you didn’t have to? So just pray for a good solution to the situation we now face.
Back to the club itself, we decided to name it Real Life Revolution, because the youth will discuss real life issues that affect them and because choosing abstinence will help them have real, abundant life. The need is great – in the last 3-month term, there were 9 known pregnancies at that school! It is sobering to ponder how many teens are contracting HIV in such an environment. We are praying that this club will help decrease the rate of both HIV transmission and teen pregnancy. If you feel led, please pray for the youth to be drawn to come to the club and be impacted in their lifestyles. We will be reporting the progress/effectiveness of the club to Face the Nation (since it is a follow-up club to their AIDS-prevention program in the schools last term), who in turn will report it to the Ministry of Education of the Botswana government.
Another Divine Appointment??
Perhaps I’ll share more details about this later, but please pray for one of the students there with whom I met on Sunday. She is going through an extremely hard time. The student had called one of the Face the Nation volunteers Sunday just in tears…the volunteer (for whom I was a prayer partner) was far away in Gaborone, so she asked the student if it would be ok for me to come to talk with her. The student agreed, so the Face the Nation volunteer told me to call her. As it turns out, I had called this student for the first time the day before to set up a time to give her Philip Yancey’s book Disappointment with God, because we think it would be good for her situation and she had agreed to read it. I’d been having a hard time finding the book in Botswana, so Philip Yancey was willing to mail it from the US, but we’d just found a copy here. So I had already planned to meet the student Sunday evening for the first time to give her the book.
When I called her Sunday afternoon and she couldn’t even talk through the tears, I asked if I should just come right away instead of waiting the hour and a half until our scheduled meeting (yes). I was at the YFC office for our interdenominational prayer meeting, so that meant I was literally just a 2-minute drive from the school. So I hopped in my car and was able to meet her. She totally opened up to me (which surprised me for having just met her) and shared the heartbreaking story of the past couple years, and especially the last weeks and days.
Please pray that God speaks to her through that book and that she can come to see God as loving and good despite the bad things that have happened in her life. And I’m grateful for any prayers for wisdom in what I to say to her as we work through her serious issues. I called and checked in with her Sunday and Monday nights briefly, and we plan to meet again on Saturday to talk, though she knows she can call me before that if she wants /needs to do so. She has agreed to more professional counseling and now have options set up for her.
Yarona FC!
For awhile we at YFC have felt led to change and improve our Coffee Bar drop-in center on Saturday nights at the YFC office. We decided on a new name Yarona FC (Yarona means “us”/ “we together” in Setswana) and FC is “For Christ” so it’s still YFC. However, in this soccer (football) saturated culture, people will see FC and think “Football Club” like Barcelona FC or Liverpool FC, etc. So it’s meant to appeal to the youth and be a place that together with them is ours…where they can feel like it is their club, a place where they belong. We took each of their pictures and will create nametags so they feel more like they belong to the club. Three weeks ago, we had the launch of Yarona, introducing the new name and giving them each candy, chips, and pop as a special treat. We also unveiled the new ping-pong table and other games that the Canadian short-term team had donated. A bunch of us had a great game of basketball (netball) outside in the dark with the spotlight from the office on the court.
Last week it was my turn to share the message at Yarona FC. The Botswana government has declared September to be the Month of Prayer Against AIDS, so I was planning on speaking about AIDS and abstinence to the youth. That morning, as I was falling asleep in my daily 20 minute nap to heat my jaw with a heating pad, I was thinking about Vision 2016 for some reason. [Vision 2016 is the national vision of Botswana drafted in 1996 of what they want the country to look like in various sectors by 2016. Regarding AIDS it states, “By the year 2016, the spread of the HIV virus that causes AIDS will have stopped, so that there will be no new infections by the virus in that year.”] Then I fell asleep in this nap and had a dream where there was a big double/queen bed with a headboard (like for a married couple) in the middle of the road (the dirt road by the YFC office). In my dream I thought, A bed is definitely not supposed to be in the middle of the road. It’s in the wrong place…it should be in a bedroom. That’s a big, dangerous roadblock! I awoke from my dream, remembering it vividly and thinking, What is that supposed to mean?! (if anything).
And then I remembered how I’d just been thinking of Vision 2016, “toward an AIDS-free generation with no new infections by 2016”…and I realized that is the destination we are headed toward, the road we are traveling down, but people having sex outside of marriage is a major roadblock on that road. God designed sex to be within marriage, not outside...just like the bed should be in the bedroom, not outside in the road. If people are having sex before or outside of marriage, it is in the wrong place…like that marriage bed out in the middle of the road…and that is one of the main roadblocks hindering this country on this road to Vision 2016, an AIDS-free generation.
I felt like I was supposed to add that dream and insight into my talk at Yarona FC that night. Popular message to share, eh? Not so much. But I knew I had to share it and encourage them to keep sex within marriage. I asked if they are sick of hearing about AIDS? I think they were a bit surprised that I would say that, but seemingly they agreed. They know about AIDS. They know their ABC’s (Abstain, Be Faithful, Condomize if you choose to have sex). But I told them it’s not enough to know that stuff or pray against AIDS if our behavior is still possibly spreading it (if we’re sleeping around). We all need to “be the change” and make choices to help HIV from spreading. I shared that it’s because we care about them and don’t want to see them dying of AIDS someday and orphaning their children that we share this with them and encourage them to change their behavior.
Change is possible…in their individual lives and for this nation! I told them that a relationship with Christ can really help them as the Holy Spirit comes to live inside them and empower them. I shared how Uganda saw their HIV rate plummet as so many people came to Christ and practiced abstinence and/or faithfulness in marriage. I also told them about the Real Life Revolution club that we’re starting to support and encourage them in this (in essence to create positive peer pressure to choose abstinence). I left them with this point to ponder: “I want you to think to yourself—Is my behavior part of the problem or part of the solution of AIDS? Is my behavior helping spread HIV or stop its spread?”
Cape Town, here we come!
An exciting announcement is that there is an upcoming staff conference for Southern Africa YFC (10 countries that the Botswana director E.J. oversees as Regional Director). There hasn’t been one since 2005 I think, and they are usually at the same YFC conference center where we just had the youth leader conference in northern South Africa. However, this year, that venue is unavailable and so the conference has been moved to near Cape Town. So, though it is much more expensive to travel there, we are trusting God to provide the funds for all of the YFC Botswana national and international staff/volunteers to go down there. Flying is way too expensive, and the trains are not running right now for some reason. So driving it is! It’s about a 20 hour drive each way. We are staying overnight half-way at either a church or a retirement home. This past Saturday, the YFC Botswana staff did a sponsored walk fundraiser where we all hiked to the top of Kgale Hill, the highest “mountain” in Gaborone. It was fun to hike again and to see the view of the dam and surrounding hills.
I’ll have to share later about my experience Friday at the hospital in Mochudi, visiting and praying for the sick. I’ll be heading back to the hospital tomorrow and/or Friday as well.
Thanks for your continued interest, encouragement, and prayers.
Love, Em
Monday, September 6, 2010
Another Divine Appointment...and some adventures!
Dumelang!
Greetings all! Well, remember last time how I said I have no official ministry these couple weeks? Well, God apparently likes setting up “unofficial ministry” opportunities. Just five days after God opened up the door to share the gospel with the boys who overheard me worshipping atop the highest hill in Mochudi, the Lord set up another divine appointment in the capital city, Gaborone…
Another Divine Appointment!
I was waiting to get my Botswana Driver’s License for hours and decided to leave the busy waiting room and sit in the lobby area of the high rise office building. A few minutes later while I was reading a book, a businessman came up to me out of the blue and asked if I might possibly have something to say that could encourage him during a hard time. He went on to explain the problem he was facing, and asked if there was anything I could share with him to help him focus on God and realize that God can bring good out of difficult things. I thought, Um…yeah, it’s kind of the story of my life lately! I pulled out my mp3 player which has a photo album on it entitled “Triumph out of Tragedy,” with photos detailing my accident/recovery. Over the course of the next half hour, I was able to share all about the accident, recovery, extending mercy in court, etc and how God can bring beauty from the ashes. Later, I shared about losing my dad and how God’s grace has proven sufficient even after that.
I gave him a little booklet YFC makes that explains more about the gospel and has a form he can fill out to receive the discipleship bible study course. He said he wants to get focused on God, to buy a bible and read it, to pray, to go to a Christian church (he’d been going to a Baha’i Faith center off and on lately), to be a man of God. He wants to really know right from wrong, and do what is right. If that wasn’t a divine appointment, I don’t know what is!
It’s cool to realize that even that conversation was another way God was bringing beauty from the ashes of our accident. Jessica’s mom Cindy thanked me for sharing the story of talking with this businessman, saying, “I was telling Kjel just this afternoon that I still struggle with making any sense out of Jess not being here. It helps SO much to read that God is using what sometimes feels like too much pain in my own life to bring glory to Himself and to bring people into a closer walk with Him.”
Since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses…
Going back a bit, there’s still more from the youth leader conference in South Africa that I wanted to share. When I got back from the conference, I read an email from my aunt Roni (Dad’s sister) in England in response to my previous blog post. I had mentioned in that post how I had written a letter to one of the Canadian short-term volunteers encouraging her with Hebrews 12:1-2 [“Since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses…let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the Author and Perfector of our faith”] and to have a marathon mentality in this race of faith…and amazingly, she had written me a letter that same night also quoting Hebrews 12:1-2 and telling me that my work here is a marathon! Well, turns out my aunt Roni had just been preparing a lesson for family church on Hebrews 11-12, but focusing on Hebrews 12:1-2!
When I read Roni’s email telling me that, I recalled how at the conference, they had shown us a short film based on Hebrews 12:1-2 and how the “great cloud of witnesses” cheering us on as we run our race is made up of those heroes of the faith listed in Hebrews 11, but also the great heroes of the faith in our own lives who have gone on to heaven ahead of us. They are cheering for us, “Come on! Don’t quit! It’s worth every effort you make! You can do this by the grace of God! Keep running!”
Then after we watched that short film as part of a silent reflective journey where we went to several rooms/stations to reflect on things, journal, read quotes, I went into a room where there was a paper about 30 feet long where they had drawn circles for faces where we could write in some of the “great cloud of witnesses” and share a bit about them. Many people were writing in loved ones who had died. Here is what I wrote, through tears that came as I wrote:
My Dad – he just joined the great cloud of witnesses in heaven 2 months ago. I know he’s proud and cheering loud, as God provides the grace for me to keep running the race He set before me. My dad supported my calling to missions in Botswana. The last time I saw him was when he “gave me away” on Valentine’s Day to leave home and follow the call of my Beloved to Botswana. He always supported my following God’s call, even if it meant saying goodbye…for now.
So yeah, that is something I had just realized that week—I don’t know if I’ll ever get married where Dad would’ve given me away to the bridegroom, but I’d realized that Dad seeing me off to Botswana was, in essence, his “giving me away” to my Beloved [Christ] and entrusting me to His care here. On Valentine’s Day, no less. When my former youth pastor had written on my facebook, “so the Father is flying out his girl on Valentine’s Day, huh? How perfectly poetic!”, Dad had written to me that her comment made him teary eyed as reality was dawning that I’d be leaving.
Obviously, Dad had known for years I would be leaving and he had “given me away” to the Lord in his heart. I can still remember vividly a very meaningful conversation with Dad when I was 19, after I had just told my parents how I felt called to be a long-term missionary in Botswana. He said, “I hope you weren’t afraid to tell us what you feel God is calling you to do. As we see it, you were a gift from God, and we’re just giving you back.” So in his heart, he had already entrusted me to Christ’s care, but the day that he actually finally had to say goodbye and see me off to Botswana was Valentine’s Day. So, in a way, Dad did “give me away” to my true Bridegroom on Valentine’s Day...and now we know it was truly saying goodbye until we meet again in the Kingdom of Heaven. But for being the last time I saw him, it is pretty poetic, isn’t it? And my Beloved is indeed caring for me here in Botswana. Always faithful. In good times and bad. In sickness and in health. Until death …brings us closer—for death will NOT part us. Nothing can. Amen.
My first day back at the internet after the conference in South Africa, I got the email from my aunt about Hebrews 12:1-2 and emailed her back to tell her how Hebrews 12:1-2 had come up at the conference too. Right after that email, I drove home and one of my housemates Katie (not knowing I had just been writing/thinking about Heb. 12:1-2) showed me the craft poster that the kids at the daycare holiday program made that day—they had made footprints with paint and painted Hebrews 12:1 on it! It’s cool to see the ways that God is encouraging us to keep running with perseverance the race that is set before us.
An Epic Journey…brass bands and baboons!
Speaking of running with perseverance, Saturday I set out on a long run. I ran to one of my favorite spots along the river, where I can sit on a low-lying branch and pray/reflect. Then I walked a bit further along the footpaths to another spot I like to sit, where I saw my four-foot lizard friend again. I have learned that it is a monitor lizard, meaning a mix between a massive iguana, snake, and crocodile. Seeing as how he has been there by that same spot in the river the three times I’ve been there, I think it’s safe to say it is the same lizard. This means I should give him a name. Any suggestions?
Then after exploring other trails, I made it back to the juncture where I could go back home. I had been gone over 45 minutes at this point and was about 15 minutes from home. But I heard the sounds of a marching band in the distance…and it beckoned me to discover more trails by ‘following the music’. So I set off on little footpaths in the direction of the brass sounds and drums. This part of the village is just nature/bush with little footpaths (no roads, no houses). I kept going, encountering goats and cows along the way. The music was getting louder. Then I made it to the river again…and found a safe place to cross on some huge pipes that had been piled up to form a bridge. I could hear I was very close at this point…Sure enough, I discovered the band playing outside at a church. I walked by, and they invited me to come in and sit next to the band to listen.
It was a band made up of all ages…of about 20 brass instruments (tubas, baritones, trumpets, trombone), a bass drum, a snare drum, and a healthy contingent of tambourine tappers. I was impressed to see that most of them did not have music in front of them…and those that did, only had solfege letters written [ie. S D RM …= So Dol Re Mi]. The director was instructing the tubas on their part and he sang it in solfege for them. In my music major opinion, that takes way more musical insight and aptitude to play by solfege…having to always think in the particular key what note is which solfege symbol…instead of just seeing notes in front of them. I guess I wasn’t expecting to encounter something like this in a village in Africa.
On my journey back home, I wasn’t able to retrace my steps because I forget all the twists and turns, but I knew the general direction to head through the bush section…and in so doing, I saw 3 baboons! Those were the first baboons I have seen in the wild here in Mochudi. I’ve seen some monkeys, but these were bigger. Sweetness! Soon afterwards, I recognized where I was, and headed home the way I usually take. This involved responding to the “Emily!” shouts from my little friends who I say hi to each time as I pass their house. I usually stop and high-five them, but they were at the neighbors’ yard and yelled and waved from there. Their names are Rose, Lame (pronounced Lah-may, not Lame!!), Tumisang, and Botho. Then as I kept running, a little while further down the road the kids, as usual, yelled “Emily!” and came running out to the road to meet me smiling and excited, and so we ran together for a few minutes as is their joyous custom (they giggle and laugh most of the time, which makes me smile too). Yesterday was just 3 kids, but some days it is six barefoot kids ranging from 5-10 years old.
One day whilst running with my barefoot “posse” of 6, we passed an older man smoking. He smiled, noting my excellent posse, and said, “Shapo, Mama” which means “It’s all good, Mama!”. That made me smile as well. Who knew when I came to Botswana I would become a mama? That’s what they call you if you are female, even without children. And that my name is now Lekgoa [white person]. Every time I go running, I hear from the yards little voices excitingly yelling, “Lekgoa!! Lekgoa!! How are you?” One time, another YFC volunteer was told by a little child, “Your name…is Lekgoa.” Awesome. One day I was walking in town along the sidewalk in Mochudi, when a young man in his 20s coming towards me started doing a jive dance and chanting “Lekgoa! Lekgoa!” If only I could re-enact his jive for you…it was amazing. Now that the kids are getting to know my name, more often I’m hearing “Emily!! Emily!!” instead of “Lekgoa! Lekgoa!” when I go running. Earlier this week while running with about 5 kids a few minutes from their house, another kid came running down an adjoining path towards us, yelling “Emily!” and joining the posse.
After the adventurous run, I spoke at our Coffee Bar drop-in center Saturday night about AIDS and abstinence. I will share more about that in a future post, including how we’ve given Coffee Bar a new name.
Blessings until next time!
~Em
Greetings all! Well, remember last time how I said I have no official ministry these couple weeks? Well, God apparently likes setting up “unofficial ministry” opportunities. Just five days after God opened up the door to share the gospel with the boys who overheard me worshipping atop the highest hill in Mochudi, the Lord set up another divine appointment in the capital city, Gaborone…
Another Divine Appointment!
I was waiting to get my Botswana Driver’s License for hours and decided to leave the busy waiting room and sit in the lobby area of the high rise office building. A few minutes later while I was reading a book, a businessman came up to me out of the blue and asked if I might possibly have something to say that could encourage him during a hard time. He went on to explain the problem he was facing, and asked if there was anything I could share with him to help him focus on God and realize that God can bring good out of difficult things. I thought, Um…yeah, it’s kind of the story of my life lately! I pulled out my mp3 player which has a photo album on it entitled “Triumph out of Tragedy,” with photos detailing my accident/recovery. Over the course of the next half hour, I was able to share all about the accident, recovery, extending mercy in court, etc and how God can bring beauty from the ashes. Later, I shared about losing my dad and how God’s grace has proven sufficient even after that.
I gave him a little booklet YFC makes that explains more about the gospel and has a form he can fill out to receive the discipleship bible study course. He said he wants to get focused on God, to buy a bible and read it, to pray, to go to a Christian church (he’d been going to a Baha’i Faith center off and on lately), to be a man of God. He wants to really know right from wrong, and do what is right. If that wasn’t a divine appointment, I don’t know what is!
It’s cool to realize that even that conversation was another way God was bringing beauty from the ashes of our accident. Jessica’s mom Cindy thanked me for sharing the story of talking with this businessman, saying, “I was telling Kjel just this afternoon that I still struggle with making any sense out of Jess not being here. It helps SO much to read that God is using what sometimes feels like too much pain in my own life to bring glory to Himself and to bring people into a closer walk with Him.”
Since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses…
Going back a bit, there’s still more from the youth leader conference in South Africa that I wanted to share. When I got back from the conference, I read an email from my aunt Roni (Dad’s sister) in England in response to my previous blog post. I had mentioned in that post how I had written a letter to one of the Canadian short-term volunteers encouraging her with Hebrews 12:1-2 [“Since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses…let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the Author and Perfector of our faith”] and to have a marathon mentality in this race of faith…and amazingly, she had written me a letter that same night also quoting Hebrews 12:1-2 and telling me that my work here is a marathon! Well, turns out my aunt Roni had just been preparing a lesson for family church on Hebrews 11-12, but focusing on Hebrews 12:1-2!
When I read Roni’s email telling me that, I recalled how at the conference, they had shown us a short film based on Hebrews 12:1-2 and how the “great cloud of witnesses” cheering us on as we run our race is made up of those heroes of the faith listed in Hebrews 11, but also the great heroes of the faith in our own lives who have gone on to heaven ahead of us. They are cheering for us, “Come on! Don’t quit! It’s worth every effort you make! You can do this by the grace of God! Keep running!”
Then after we watched that short film as part of a silent reflective journey where we went to several rooms/stations to reflect on things, journal, read quotes, I went into a room where there was a paper about 30 feet long where they had drawn circles for faces where we could write in some of the “great cloud of witnesses” and share a bit about them. Many people were writing in loved ones who had died. Here is what I wrote, through tears that came as I wrote:
My Dad – he just joined the great cloud of witnesses in heaven 2 months ago. I know he’s proud and cheering loud, as God provides the grace for me to keep running the race He set before me. My dad supported my calling to missions in Botswana. The last time I saw him was when he “gave me away” on Valentine’s Day to leave home and follow the call of my Beloved to Botswana. He always supported my following God’s call, even if it meant saying goodbye…for now.
So yeah, that is something I had just realized that week—I don’t know if I’ll ever get married where Dad would’ve given me away to the bridegroom, but I’d realized that Dad seeing me off to Botswana was, in essence, his “giving me away” to my Beloved [Christ] and entrusting me to His care here. On Valentine’s Day, no less. When my former youth pastor had written on my facebook, “so the Father is flying out his girl on Valentine’s Day, huh? How perfectly poetic!”, Dad had written to me that her comment made him teary eyed as reality was dawning that I’d be leaving.
Obviously, Dad had known for years I would be leaving and he had “given me away” to the Lord in his heart. I can still remember vividly a very meaningful conversation with Dad when I was 19, after I had just told my parents how I felt called to be a long-term missionary in Botswana. He said, “I hope you weren’t afraid to tell us what you feel God is calling you to do. As we see it, you were a gift from God, and we’re just giving you back.” So in his heart, he had already entrusted me to Christ’s care, but the day that he actually finally had to say goodbye and see me off to Botswana was Valentine’s Day. So, in a way, Dad did “give me away” to my true Bridegroom on Valentine’s Day...and now we know it was truly saying goodbye until we meet again in the Kingdom of Heaven. But for being the last time I saw him, it is pretty poetic, isn’t it? And my Beloved is indeed caring for me here in Botswana. Always faithful. In good times and bad. In sickness and in health. Until death …brings us closer—for death will NOT part us. Nothing can. Amen.
My first day back at the internet after the conference in South Africa, I got the email from my aunt about Hebrews 12:1-2 and emailed her back to tell her how Hebrews 12:1-2 had come up at the conference too. Right after that email, I drove home and one of my housemates Katie (not knowing I had just been writing/thinking about Heb. 12:1-2) showed me the craft poster that the kids at the daycare holiday program made that day—they had made footprints with paint and painted Hebrews 12:1 on it! It’s cool to see the ways that God is encouraging us to keep running with perseverance the race that is set before us.
An Epic Journey…brass bands and baboons!
Speaking of running with perseverance, Saturday I set out on a long run. I ran to one of my favorite spots along the river, where I can sit on a low-lying branch and pray/reflect. Then I walked a bit further along the footpaths to another spot I like to sit, where I saw my four-foot lizard friend again. I have learned that it is a monitor lizard, meaning a mix between a massive iguana, snake, and crocodile. Seeing as how he has been there by that same spot in the river the three times I’ve been there, I think it’s safe to say it is the same lizard. This means I should give him a name. Any suggestions?
Then after exploring other trails, I made it back to the juncture where I could go back home. I had been gone over 45 minutes at this point and was about 15 minutes from home. But I heard the sounds of a marching band in the distance…and it beckoned me to discover more trails by ‘following the music’. So I set off on little footpaths in the direction of the brass sounds and drums. This part of the village is just nature/bush with little footpaths (no roads, no houses). I kept going, encountering goats and cows along the way. The music was getting louder. Then I made it to the river again…and found a safe place to cross on some huge pipes that had been piled up to form a bridge. I could hear I was very close at this point…Sure enough, I discovered the band playing outside at a church. I walked by, and they invited me to come in and sit next to the band to listen.
It was a band made up of all ages…of about 20 brass instruments (tubas, baritones, trumpets, trombone), a bass drum, a snare drum, and a healthy contingent of tambourine tappers. I was impressed to see that most of them did not have music in front of them…and those that did, only had solfege letters written [ie. S D RM …= So Dol Re Mi]. The director was instructing the tubas on their part and he sang it in solfege for them. In my music major opinion, that takes way more musical insight and aptitude to play by solfege…having to always think in the particular key what note is which solfege symbol…instead of just seeing notes in front of them. I guess I wasn’t expecting to encounter something like this in a village in Africa.
On my journey back home, I wasn’t able to retrace my steps because I forget all the twists and turns, but I knew the general direction to head through the bush section…and in so doing, I saw 3 baboons! Those were the first baboons I have seen in the wild here in Mochudi. I’ve seen some monkeys, but these were bigger. Sweetness! Soon afterwards, I recognized where I was, and headed home the way I usually take. This involved responding to the “Emily!” shouts from my little friends who I say hi to each time as I pass their house. I usually stop and high-five them, but they were at the neighbors’ yard and yelled and waved from there. Their names are Rose, Lame (pronounced Lah-may, not Lame!!), Tumisang, and Botho. Then as I kept running, a little while further down the road the kids, as usual, yelled “Emily!” and came running out to the road to meet me smiling and excited, and so we ran together for a few minutes as is their joyous custom (they giggle and laugh most of the time, which makes me smile too). Yesterday was just 3 kids, but some days it is six barefoot kids ranging from 5-10 years old.
One day whilst running with my barefoot “posse” of 6, we passed an older man smoking. He smiled, noting my excellent posse, and said, “Shapo, Mama” which means “It’s all good, Mama!”. That made me smile as well. Who knew when I came to Botswana I would become a mama? That’s what they call you if you are female, even without children. And that my name is now Lekgoa [white person]. Every time I go running, I hear from the yards little voices excitingly yelling, “Lekgoa!! Lekgoa!! How are you?” One time, another YFC volunteer was told by a little child, “Your name…is Lekgoa.” Awesome. One day I was walking in town along the sidewalk in Mochudi, when a young man in his 20s coming towards me started doing a jive dance and chanting “Lekgoa! Lekgoa!” If only I could re-enact his jive for you…it was amazing. Now that the kids are getting to know my name, more often I’m hearing “Emily!! Emily!!” instead of “Lekgoa! Lekgoa!” when I go running. Earlier this week while running with about 5 kids a few minutes from their house, another kid came running down an adjoining path towards us, yelling “Emily!” and joining the posse.
After the adventurous run, I spoke at our Coffee Bar drop-in center Saturday night about AIDS and abstinence. I will share more about that in a future post, including how we’ve given Coffee Bar a new name.
Blessings until next time!
~Em
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