"God Will Make a Way!"

Dumelang!

How’s it? (that’s a common greeting here…instead of “how are you?”). I was hoping to share more about things I learned at the staff conference down near Cape Town, but I think for this post, I’ll just catch you all up on life here in Botswana...

Challenges back in Botswana

Well, when we got back to Botswana, not only was it a crazy heat wave, but the first part of that week it seemed like everything was getting canceled and not working out. I called the guidance/counseling teacher at the Senior Secondary School in Mochudi to see if there was any change in the school schedule so we could start the abstinence club. She told me that nothing had changed, so that the school day looks like it will stay from 7:30-4:30. There have been meetings and possible strikes by teacher unions but it seems like it’s staying like this for now. The guidance/counseling teacher told me that clubs are not possible after school because it is getting late and dark for the kids who have to walk home. She said we can just hope that things change. [Though I just learned today that it seems like other schools in the country are operating with the old normal schedule and other mission agencies are still able to have clubs there…so that it is perhaps just our district that is changed? And thus, it seems more likely it could go back to the old schedule].

Tuesday morning I found out on my way out the door to drive to Gaborone to lead a club at Maru a Pula private school that the club needed to be cancelled for that day because of a teacher conference. Then Wednesday, I had planned to visit another school in Gaborone to observe their Scripture Union club, which for some reason is still running despite the school schedule changes. But when I called to confirm that, the guidance teacher told me that the club was cancelled for that week for some reason I forget.

Meanwhile, I was trying to get a permission letter to the mother of the student who has recently been suicidal, giving permission for her to travel with me to and from Gaborone to get free professional counseling through Face the Nation. However, I didn’t know the mother’s name or contact info to send her the permission letter. The school didn’t have the info, and the student wasn’t answering her phone. When I tried to call her, it would go straight to a message from the service provider saying that the subscriber was unavailable. The student still was unaware that the school had approved her leaving class early to go with me to counseling. After a couple days of not getting through, I asked if the school counselor could find her during the school day and tell her that, and get her mother’s name and address so we could mail the permission letter. She found the student (who, as it turns out, had lost her cell phone) and texted me the info within a few minutes, so I mailed the permission letter that day to the mother. Finally, something that worked out!

“God Will Make a Way”

That night I found a decoration I’ve pasted on my wall or by my desk for several years that says, “God Will Make a Way.” I hadn’t posted it in my newer bedroom here (I moved in there in early August), but that night I posted it on my wall. The next day, I stopped by the school to drop off the letter officially informing the school about how I’ll be transporting the student to and from counseling in Gaborone (as requested by the school counselor who had already given permission). As I pulled up to park, the very same student happened to be just feet from where I parked—she recognized me before I parked. I looked up to see her bounding toward the car with a smile on her face! She told me where I should drop the letter off, and she said she’d be waiting to talk afterwards.

After I delivered the letter, I just hung out with her and one of her friends for over an hour in the school-yard. She asked how the Cape Town trip went, so I showed them my pictures that were on my camera. One of the old pictures on my camera is of the newspaper article after my accident, so they saw that, and her friend asked what happened. Thus, I was able to share some of the accident/recovery testimony with them. For the last half hour or so, it was just me and the student, and she was able to fill me in on how she’s doing. She then asked if I was going to come again that weekend to talk/hang-out with her? So we set up that I’d return the next morning. It was just encouraging after all the things not working out, to be able to meet up with her and have the opportunity to really befriend and build relationships with her and her hilarious, comedian-aspiring friend. “God will make a way!”

So last Saturday I met the student at school (like I had the Saturday before Cape Town). I brought ice cream to eat as we talked about all different things for an hour and 45 minutes! She seems much more upbeat— she joined a girls’ basketball team and has taken the initiative to start a writing club at the school during the lunch period! She still doesn’t want to talk about God and hasn’t read the Philip Yancey book I got for her, but she said the kids she’s leant it out to have really liked it! I keep praying that she will one day read it herself. When I was getting ready to go, she asked if I could come back the next Saturday…so again, we plan to meet again tomorrow, and she is going to let me read some of her writing/poetry.

The student also told me that her mother only checks the mail once a week, so I should call her to tell her to check it to send back the permission slip. She gave me her number, so I called her this week. The mother gave permission verbally on that first phone call, but the school still needed the permission slip. She asked if we could fax it, so we faxed it to her. But then both the school’s fax machine and ours at YFC weren’t receiving her fax back. So we worked it out for her to fax it to my church in Gaborone (that runs Face the Nation), and they scanned and emailed it to me so I could print it out and hand-deliver it to the school.

So by Wednesday morning, it was finally ready for me to deliver to the school, and the counselor in Gaborone was ready to see her in the afternoon. However, when I called the school counselor Wednesday morning, she couldn’t find the student to tell her (they apparently had switched classes and meeting places around that day due to exams). She had searched for her but couldn’t find her. She asked if we could just go the next day? The school counselor was at home on lunch break and wouldn’t be back to try to find the student until after we’d have to leave to make it to counseling in time, so she said we’ll just have to reschedule it.

I got off the phone with her, and was thinking how ridiculous it seemed that after all the effort (phone calls, faxes, emails, etc with the school, her mother, Face the Nation, the counselor) to make it possible for the student to go that day, we couldn’t go just because we couldn’t find her?! I know the school is over a thousand students, but I remembered how last week, I had driven up to the school and she happened to be right there. So I just prayed that God would help me find her again. I was like, “God, You can find her…this is not hard for You at all…I’m just going to drive in there and You’ll help me find her.”

So I got in my car, drove to the school (was allowed in the gate because I was dropping off the permission slip), and started looking. It was lunch time, but I didn’t see her in the cafeteria when I glanced around it. I had looked for about one or two minutes total when I saw these four students sitting on a bench up by the office and felt like I should ask them if by chance they knew who she is and where she is. It turns out, they said she had JUST been sitting there with them like 2 minutes earlier! One of them said, “I’ll go find her. Sit here; I’ll bring her.” A couple minutes later, there she was! I told her we could leave for counseling right then if she didn’t have any tests (nope), so once she got the permit from the office, off we went! “God will make a way!”
Perfect timing for visiting a Scripture Union Club!

Another reason it worked out better to take her on Wednesday was that I had planned it so that I would drop her off at about 3 pm for counseling and I’d drive less than a mile down the road to go to the Junior Secondary School I had tried to visit last week. This week they were having their Scripture Union club so I went to that from about 3:15-4:00pm, getting to meet the students and talk afterwards with the student leaders. They gave me an opportunity to speak (which I wasn’t expecting!), so I shared a bit about where I’m from and I told them about the follow-up bible study course we have already been doing with about 80 students there. I figured most of the SU club members were doing the follow-up, but hardly any were…so the ones already doing the studies are other students who were reached at outreaches YFC and Face the Nation did earlier this year. But now most all of the SU kids really want to start it as well. One of the officers of the club stood up and said how she has wanted to grow in her faith and know where bible verses are, and now she is so excited to find out about this. She thanked me so much for coming. It was cute.

After the club, I dropped off the follow-up bible studies for the 80 some students doing them to the guidance/counseling teacher, and she asked when I’ll be coming back. Next week? Sounds good. Especially good since we haven’t been able to have any Scripture Union clubs at any schools in Mochudi this whole term! “God will make a way!”

After talking with the guidance/counseling teacher, I hopped in the vehicle, drove a couple minutes down the road and picked up the student from counseling. Perfect timing…and I got her back in time for dinner at the school. She still is excited for me to come on Saturday to hang-out and read some of her writing. As I’ve mentioned before, I love speaking to large groups (I found out the student body I spoke to in late September was about 500), but I really love working one-on-one with youth.

Sharing at YaRona FC with everyone…then the one or two

At Yarona FC (formerly Coffee Bar), it was my turn to speak and I felt I should share the story of how God led me to be a “messenger of mercy” to extend mercy in court to the man who hit us to cause the accident. I hadn’t shared that part of my testimony with the YaRona youth yet, and I realized that it was exactly 2 years to the day since I had called the District Attorney to tell him I would speak in court. I ended the talk at YaRona by saying that the only way I was able to extend that mercy was because I had received the mercy from God through Christ and Christ-in-me empowered me to do it. I asked them to think about whether they have received that mercy, and that they would know if they have. I said they could talk to me or any of the YfC staff if they wanted to learn more.
So a few minutes after I finished, a teen guy I’d never seen before came up to me and said, “So…Christianity…??” I was like, “Oh! Do you want to learn more?” He nodded…so he and another guy who wanted to hear sat outside on the front steps with me, and I was able to share with them for over an hour, show them scriptures, answer questions, etc. They have not come from a churched background at all. We talked all the way up ‘til closing time. I used the analogy of marriage…the wedding is not the end but just the beginning of a journey of life together where you grow closer and love the person. It is similar with God…yes, you may pray a prayer to begin a relationship with Christ, but that is not the end; it is just the beginning of a journey of life together where you grow closer to God, experience His love, and love Him more. By closing time, both of them said they wanted to pray to accept Christ, repent and follow Him...to start that journey together with God. I told them they can pray to God to do that on their own anytime, or if they want me to lead them in a prayer next week I could (it was closing time so too late to do it then…and plus, I think the extra time to really think about it and decide with true conviction can’t hurt). I told them that they can do it just as well on their own though sometime before next YaRona FC. They said they will come this week, and they want to start going to church. They really want to start the follow-up bible study course too. All in all, it was another situation where I love speaking to the “masses,” but really love focusing on the one or two.

Odds and Ends

Speaking of the follow-up bible studies, we’ve also been providing them for prisoners at 4 different prisons, so this week I met with the Prison Fellowship volunteer we’ve been working with to drop off 150 more studies. We worked it out with her to visit the women’s prison in Gaborone last Sunday, but she had to cancel because one of the main wardens passed away. So I think we are on for this Sunday instead.

In other news, my colleague Maruping asked me to lead the interdenominational prayer meeting on Sunday at the YFC office. It was kinda cool…at one point we were praying for more men to rise up as intercessors and pray in these meetings because at that point there were just two (Maruping and another YFC volunteer). As we kept praying about other things (i.e. church unity, for our leaders), men kept trickling in and joining the prayer meeting, even though it was nearly over, so that by the time we’d finished that group time of prayer, the number of men had more than tripled! I welcomed them and told them they were an answer to prayer!

Aerobics! A new fitness center called Lifetime Wellness just opened a few kilometers from our house, and I stopped by to check it out one day. The owner said that all of us from the staff house should come to aerobics class one night for free to see what it’s like. So Monday night, all 7 of us (we got another German, Franci, last week) rolled up to the gym to sweat it out with probably 30+ local Batswana. It was an hour non-stop of aerobics and weights. Even for someone who was in collegiate Varsity athletics, it was a challenge for me (though I guess I did have some time off with breaking my neck and all…). Feel the burn yo! We were all sore…still sore when we went back for another time on Wednesday night. But not as bad after that night. The owner, a local woman who happened to study at Central Michigan University and squeeled when she saw my Michigan driver’s license and proceeded to hug my sweaty self, has given us a great discount. Our plan is to go twice a week. That will complement nicely my runs in the bush.

Tuesday I also led the club at Maru a Pula private school in Gabs. We had a good discussion, but we are still praying for more students to come. They took more questionnaires to give their peers asking their views on Jesus and Christianity. Pray that these are a springboard for spiritual conversations on campus.

Blessings from Botswana!
~Em