Greetings from Michigan!
I arrived safely last Monday for my visit to the States, and my luggage arrived safely last Tuesday. It was nice on my last flight from Atlanta to Flint, MI my boarding pass said I was in first class. What?! I didn’t argue. I enjoyed spacious seating, ample legroom, chilled juice, and SunChips. When I arrived in Flint, Mom told me that because of all the frequent flyer miles (Africa flights add up!), I have now been upgraded to Sky Priority status or something (aka first class on domestic flights). Sweet!
It was snowing upon arrival and Sunday we had quite the snowfall, maybe 8 inches? Not as much as the blizzard in Minnesota, but still enough for a snow day for local kids yesterday. I came from Botswana’s summer (90s or 100s Fahrenheit every day), so this has been an abrupt reacquaintance with wicked frigid temperatures!! But I like the snow.
Big News!
I have great news from Botswana! It is now confirmed as of this week, that we have a YFC building/center in the capital city, Gaborone!! This is the first time in YFC’s history in Botswana that we have a separate center (not a house that also was some staff’s home) in Gaborone where we can have programs/events. It has been years of praying that this has now come about! It is in a very strategic location, just near the University, a school, and close to downtown. It’s within a 5 minute drive of 3 of the 4 schools I’m working at! We already have our first event scheduled for the 22 of January. I will be heading up most of the programming and activities there. Prayers are appreciated that God would raise up more staff and volunteers to come alongside me and really help the ministry thrive. Also, prayers are appreciated for vision and guidance in how to use the center most effectively and be a good steward of this blessing.
Speaking at a Church Tomorrow Night and Sunday!
Sunday I spoke at a church in my hometown area and tomorrow night, Wednesday, December 15, I will be sharing a longer (45 min-hour) presentation at 6:30 pm at Grace Ministry Center in Port Huron, in the far end of the Outlet Mall off of Range Road. I will share and then we have lots of finger foods, treats, and drinks so afterwards, we can chill and catch up, ask/answer questions, etc. So if you are in the area and available to come, I encourage you to make it out. It’d be great to see you! I will share lots of pictures and videos, as well as many stories from Botswana (some of which I haven’t shared on here). I’ve been reminded yet again while preparing it that God is amazing…some of the things I’ll share certainly show His hand at work!
I will also be sharing the same presentation at 9:00 am at Grace Ministry Center on this coming Sunday the 19th. It will be in a classroom while the first service is happening in the main sanctuary. Then for the second service, the pastor will call me forward for a brief interview. So I know many of you might have church activities of your own tomorrow night, but perhaps Sunday would work instead. Feel free to invite friends along who might be interested.
Blessings!
~Em
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
Thursday, December 9, 2010
Camp! etc
Greetings!
I hope you all had a nice Thanksgiving. We had a lovely turkey dinner with the American family who goes to our church and small group bible study. One interesting thing in Botswana is that the sweet potatoes turn green when cooked. Slightly unappetizing…but tasty nonetheless! It was just a blessing to enjoy a home-cooked turkey dinner when, as one of my friends put it, my family was “so spread out” for the first time (Dad in heaven, Mom & Ryan in Minnesota, and me in Botswana).
Our God is an Awesome God!
I’ve continued hanging out with the student who I’ve been taking to counseling in Gaborone. On the drive to counseling in late November, I let her be the DJ as usual with the music on my mp3 player. I was surprised that she selected a clearly Christian song (“Above All” by Michael W. Smith). She didn’t want to listen to Christian music at all before. I figured it was a mistake and that once she realized what it was, she would change it. Instead, she cranked it up and told me that a Scripture Union volunteer had been coming to the school on weekends to teach a dance to that song to whoever wanted to learn. She listened to it twice, while doing some of the motions.
I smiled inwardly, because a week and a half earlier when that same Scripture Union volunteer had seen us talking at the school, he’d invited her to Scripture Union and urged me to convince her to go. Once he had left, she’d said to me, “Don’t try to convince me…I’m not going.” Another time she told me that when he’d been talking to a group of them about God a few months ago, she couldn’t stand to hear about God, so she’d just left. But now, though the dance for “Above All” was not officially part of Scripture Union club, she had evidently been observing, if not participating, in it. As we drove, she went on to select more clearly Christian songs, such as “Amazing Grace” and “Our God is an Awesome God”! It’s encouraging to see her heart softening towards God bit by bit!
Unexpected Opportunities—to speak, and to camp!
When I dropped her off for counseling that day, I decided to stop by the Junior Secondary School in Gaborone where I’ve been getting involved with the Scripture Union club. I was just planning on dropping off some bible studies for the students (the club is normally a different day and it’d been cancelled that week due to sports day). However, the guidance/counseling teachers called up a student leader of SU and he came to the office. They told me about a Scripture Union camp a few days later and invited me to it. Then the boy took me to where most of the club members happened to be meeting, waiting for the permission slips for the camp. Then he said, “Ok, and now Emily will share with us.” Ok!? So I stood and shared some of my testimony with them and encouraged them to fully surrender their lives to God and let Him lead them down the path He dreamed for their lives. Another application of that verse to always be ready to give an account of the hope that is in you (1 Peter 3:15)! Then we sang heartfelt worship songs together there in an outdoor amphitheatre of the school.
Afterward, I found out that the student leader of the club was recently promoted to be the one and only Head Boy in the school. Thus, the teachers call upon him to speak to misbehaving kids, encourage good behavior and be a good example. He told me he feels called to encourage every student to know more about Christ!
And it actually worked out for me to go to the Scripture Union camp for a few days! After calling and re-checking over the weekend to make sure they had accommodation for me on such short notice (they said yes), I decided on Monday morning to text message one of the contacts to tell her I was on my way from Mochudi. After I’d already been driving for an hour, I got a text back from her telling me there was no accommodation at the camp! I was all packed and ready to spend the next 3 days at the camp, so this was a bit frustrating and discouraging.
God Will Make a Way…
But then I remembered that I know an American missionary family who live near where the camp would be. So I called them up and explained the situation, and they were eager to offer their hospitality so I could still attend the camp during the days and stay at their place at night. This was such a blessing. I actually met this family in 2004 when they were missionaries up in Maun, in the north of Botswana. I spent many hours then helping to paint their wooden house with wood sealer! We reunited at the Joining Hands missionary conference in April this year, and again when they visited our church a few weeks ago. They’d also invited us for Thanksgiving dinner at their house, but it was just a really far drive and easier to celebrate with the American family living in Mochudi. It was great to catch up with these missionaries and enjoy their house – no mosquitos there!?! And thus no need for mosquito nets! (I wonder if I’m not called to work there…haha).
Scripture Union Camp!
The camp was in a remote place on the outskirts of a tiny village called Digawana. It was at a Junior Secondary School that is a boarding school so the campers slept in the hostels. When I arrived, I met a kind young woman who is the Scripture Union advisor at the school where she teaches. She took me into the main hall where there were hundreds of students and teachers just ending an organized debate session, debating theological topics. She introduced me to everyone (I’m not good at estimating numbers but she thought perhaps 600 people were there…someone else thought 300…it was a lot either way!).
I realized that I was the only non-Batswana in the whole camp, or at least the only lekgoa (white person). This was actually my first experience of being the only foreigner for an extended period of time. I liked the experience, though challenging at times if they switched into only speaking Setswana. But it served as another motivational kick in the pants to keep studying my Setswana!
After the debate, it was recreation time, where I got to know that teacher better (and shared lots of my testimony with her) and hung out at the sports field. I also hung out in the girls’ hostel with the girls from the club in Gaborone I started working with in October. Dinner consisted of two “fatcakes” (an amazing confection consisting of basically a ball of fried dough, similar to a donut but bigger and more bread-like) and some vegetable-beef soup. Fatcakes are greatly loved by the Batswana…and by me. Though, perhaps because of the name and thanks to the grace of God, I’ve steered pretty clear of them (had less than 10 this whole year even though they are sold by women right outside the YFC office).
After dinner it was time for the evening session of worship and preaching by a visiting pastor. The worship was awesome. True Batswana worship – with kids just dancing, jumping, and clapping with joy. A bunch of teens went to the back where there was open space and proceeded to do a synchronized dance with the song (it reminded me of how everyone joins in the "Electric Slide" at American dances and weddings), but this was cooler. At parts of it, they would do mirror-image footwork and turn around from each other, then meet and high-five each other with both hands in rhythm with the song. The joy in the room was infectious. I wish I could have taken video or pictures, but being the only foreigner, I didn’t want to look like a tourist! Some of the boys from the school in Gaborone where I work urged me to join in and dance alongside them, so they taught me the fun footwork (a simple dance, not the intricate one). It was a cool experience!
Learning New Testament Style – in the countryside
I also enjoyed feeling so “in the bush” and the amazing star-scape it provided each night. Those were the best starry nights I’ve seen this year because there was so little light pollution in such a remote area. The next day, all of us walked out of the school into the “bush” near the school and sat down in an open field next to a little pond with cows and donkeys grazing nearby. There the staff/teachers gave their prepared answers to the questions that teens had put in the Question Box all week, anything they were wondering about faith and life. We sat outside in the cool breeze as they read the questions (i.e. what is fasting and why do it? When is the right age to start dating? Are snakes evil? etc.) and shared insight from the Scriptures. It was like a bit of teaching & discipleship, and reminded me of how Jesus would teach in the outdoors.
Before it began though, someone spontaneously starting singing a Setswana worship song and then teens and teachers hopped up and began to join together in a dancing march in a huge train of people through the field with the backdrop of grazing cows! Maybe someday I’ll know those dances and can join in, but for now it was just cool to watch. All in all, we were there in the field about 3 hours until the sunset, the youth still interested in learning more!
Promoting Abstinence and Faithfulness
Earlier that day for a few hours all the teens were taught the True Love Waits abstinence/HIV-prevention curriculum, which happened to be the exact curriculum I taught in northern Botswana in 2004. Interestingly, the American missionary family I was staying with near the camp had been the ones to teach it to me in 2004 and at that time, they said it was the first time the curriculum would be taught in Botswana. They had been developing and teaching it in Uganda since the ‘90s and it was hugely successful in helping Uganda’s AIDS rate plummet from the highest in the world to less than 5% in one decade. This family had just moved from Uganda to Botswana in 2004, and we were the first ones they trained to teach the curriculum in Botswana. It was good to see the message of abstinence being promoted so heavily at this camp, and to see that hundreds of teens committed to abstain until marriage and to be faithful in marriage.
Working Alongside a Key Student – Another Cool Connection!
At the camp, the guy who is one of the student leaders of the SU club at the school in Gaborone (the Head Boy who I’ve been working with to give out the bible studies and who invited me to speak to the club) told me he needed to leave the camp to go to an important meeting in Gaborone on Tuesday to stand up for children’s rights. He had permission to leave so I drove him to the bus station in the nearest city so he could ride to Gabs. Turns out he is on the National Children’s Consultative Forum coordinated by Unicef and the University of Botswana, a committee of roughly 150 youth nationwide. I came to find out that he is not just on the committee/forum, but is the national chairperson of it! Of all the youth in Botswana, it turns out that I’ve been working with the one who has been chosen to chair this nationwide forum to help children in Botswana!
As chair, they want him to visit children/youth nationwide (in schools, prisons, hospitals, orphanages, etc.) and help them understand their rights (namely in the recently passed Child Act). He’s told me he’s hoping that perhaps we can work together somehow to share Christ with the kids too! He said he wants kids to know about Christ and to encourage them to get involved in Scripture Union. At the end of our car ride back to camp, he asked me if I could help him with his desire to write a book so that he can stand up for children and share things he’s learned. He said he wants people to know “how marvelous it is once you know Christ!” Oh, and this guy is just 16 years old!
Odds and Ends from the Camp
Other cool things at the camp were some of the conversations I had with the teens. Another one of the student leaders of the club I’m working alongside shared with me at dinner the first night how she is the only Christian in her family. When her dad was diagnosed with cancer in early November, she fasted and prayed for 5 days and his latest tests last Tuesday showed huge improvement (he didn’t need any more chemo)! Another guy came up to me and asked some deep questions about faith. We ended up talking for several minutes (all the way out on the walk to the bush for the Question Box time), and it’s clear that this guy is solid in his faith and desire to serve the Lord. He just graduated from senior secondary school and is praying that he’ll have the opportunity to go to the University of Botswana next August. He is just hungering to serve the Lord so I told him about volunteer opportunities in Gaborone with YFC and he seems quite interested. I got his contact info to call him in January when we start up programs there.
Finally, the last night there was the talent show and they invited me to join in, so I played one of the piano songs that God gave me when I was 17. At that point, I hadn’t had a piano lesson since I was 9 years old, and I only could play 5 songs. But one night I just started composing a song out of nowhere (hadn’t planned on composing anything)! I played it the next day for my youth pastor, and she got chills and tears in her eyes and remarked, “This is a gift from God!” So I gave that little introduction at the camp and then played the song to the largest audience ever I think. They started clapping and cheering during it (hopefully not for me but for the real Composer of the song). It was just a cool way to round out my time with them and I got to say goodbye on the microphone to them all and thank them for a great couple days.
Back in the States!
I safely arrived Monday in Michigan! My luggage safely arrived Tuesday. The schedule for when I’ll be sharing at different churches is in my last post (starts this Sunday!). I'll head back to Botswana on January 5.
~Em
I hope you all had a nice Thanksgiving. We had a lovely turkey dinner with the American family who goes to our church and small group bible study. One interesting thing in Botswana is that the sweet potatoes turn green when cooked. Slightly unappetizing…but tasty nonetheless! It was just a blessing to enjoy a home-cooked turkey dinner when, as one of my friends put it, my family was “so spread out” for the first time (Dad in heaven, Mom & Ryan in Minnesota, and me in Botswana).
Our God is an Awesome God!
I’ve continued hanging out with the student who I’ve been taking to counseling in Gaborone. On the drive to counseling in late November, I let her be the DJ as usual with the music on my mp3 player. I was surprised that she selected a clearly Christian song (“Above All” by Michael W. Smith). She didn’t want to listen to Christian music at all before. I figured it was a mistake and that once she realized what it was, she would change it. Instead, she cranked it up and told me that a Scripture Union volunteer had been coming to the school on weekends to teach a dance to that song to whoever wanted to learn. She listened to it twice, while doing some of the motions.
I smiled inwardly, because a week and a half earlier when that same Scripture Union volunteer had seen us talking at the school, he’d invited her to Scripture Union and urged me to convince her to go. Once he had left, she’d said to me, “Don’t try to convince me…I’m not going.” Another time she told me that when he’d been talking to a group of them about God a few months ago, she couldn’t stand to hear about God, so she’d just left. But now, though the dance for “Above All” was not officially part of Scripture Union club, she had evidently been observing, if not participating, in it. As we drove, she went on to select more clearly Christian songs, such as “Amazing Grace” and “Our God is an Awesome God”! It’s encouraging to see her heart softening towards God bit by bit!
Unexpected Opportunities—to speak, and to camp!
When I dropped her off for counseling that day, I decided to stop by the Junior Secondary School in Gaborone where I’ve been getting involved with the Scripture Union club. I was just planning on dropping off some bible studies for the students (the club is normally a different day and it’d been cancelled that week due to sports day). However, the guidance/counseling teachers called up a student leader of SU and he came to the office. They told me about a Scripture Union camp a few days later and invited me to it. Then the boy took me to where most of the club members happened to be meeting, waiting for the permission slips for the camp. Then he said, “Ok, and now Emily will share with us.” Ok!? So I stood and shared some of my testimony with them and encouraged them to fully surrender their lives to God and let Him lead them down the path He dreamed for their lives. Another application of that verse to always be ready to give an account of the hope that is in you (1 Peter 3:15)! Then we sang heartfelt worship songs together there in an outdoor amphitheatre of the school.
Afterward, I found out that the student leader of the club was recently promoted to be the one and only Head Boy in the school. Thus, the teachers call upon him to speak to misbehaving kids, encourage good behavior and be a good example. He told me he feels called to encourage every student to know more about Christ!
And it actually worked out for me to go to the Scripture Union camp for a few days! After calling and re-checking over the weekend to make sure they had accommodation for me on such short notice (they said yes), I decided on Monday morning to text message one of the contacts to tell her I was on my way from Mochudi. After I’d already been driving for an hour, I got a text back from her telling me there was no accommodation at the camp! I was all packed and ready to spend the next 3 days at the camp, so this was a bit frustrating and discouraging.
God Will Make a Way…
But then I remembered that I know an American missionary family who live near where the camp would be. So I called them up and explained the situation, and they were eager to offer their hospitality so I could still attend the camp during the days and stay at their place at night. This was such a blessing. I actually met this family in 2004 when they were missionaries up in Maun, in the north of Botswana. I spent many hours then helping to paint their wooden house with wood sealer! We reunited at the Joining Hands missionary conference in April this year, and again when they visited our church a few weeks ago. They’d also invited us for Thanksgiving dinner at their house, but it was just a really far drive and easier to celebrate with the American family living in Mochudi. It was great to catch up with these missionaries and enjoy their house – no mosquitos there!?! And thus no need for mosquito nets! (I wonder if I’m not called to work there…haha).
Scripture Union Camp!
The camp was in a remote place on the outskirts of a tiny village called Digawana. It was at a Junior Secondary School that is a boarding school so the campers slept in the hostels. When I arrived, I met a kind young woman who is the Scripture Union advisor at the school where she teaches. She took me into the main hall where there were hundreds of students and teachers just ending an organized debate session, debating theological topics. She introduced me to everyone (I’m not good at estimating numbers but she thought perhaps 600 people were there…someone else thought 300…it was a lot either way!).
I realized that I was the only non-Batswana in the whole camp, or at least the only lekgoa (white person). This was actually my first experience of being the only foreigner for an extended period of time. I liked the experience, though challenging at times if they switched into only speaking Setswana. But it served as another motivational kick in the pants to keep studying my Setswana!
After the debate, it was recreation time, where I got to know that teacher better (and shared lots of my testimony with her) and hung out at the sports field. I also hung out in the girls’ hostel with the girls from the club in Gaborone I started working with in October. Dinner consisted of two “fatcakes” (an amazing confection consisting of basically a ball of fried dough, similar to a donut but bigger and more bread-like) and some vegetable-beef soup. Fatcakes are greatly loved by the Batswana…and by me. Though, perhaps because of the name and thanks to the grace of God, I’ve steered pretty clear of them (had less than 10 this whole year even though they are sold by women right outside the YFC office).
After dinner it was time for the evening session of worship and preaching by a visiting pastor. The worship was awesome. True Batswana worship – with kids just dancing, jumping, and clapping with joy. A bunch of teens went to the back where there was open space and proceeded to do a synchronized dance with the song (it reminded me of how everyone joins in the "Electric Slide" at American dances and weddings), but this was cooler. At parts of it, they would do mirror-image footwork and turn around from each other, then meet and high-five each other with both hands in rhythm with the song. The joy in the room was infectious. I wish I could have taken video or pictures, but being the only foreigner, I didn’t want to look like a tourist! Some of the boys from the school in Gaborone where I work urged me to join in and dance alongside them, so they taught me the fun footwork (a simple dance, not the intricate one). It was a cool experience!
Learning New Testament Style – in the countryside
I also enjoyed feeling so “in the bush” and the amazing star-scape it provided each night. Those were the best starry nights I’ve seen this year because there was so little light pollution in such a remote area. The next day, all of us walked out of the school into the “bush” near the school and sat down in an open field next to a little pond with cows and donkeys grazing nearby. There the staff/teachers gave their prepared answers to the questions that teens had put in the Question Box all week, anything they were wondering about faith and life. We sat outside in the cool breeze as they read the questions (i.e. what is fasting and why do it? When is the right age to start dating? Are snakes evil? etc.) and shared insight from the Scriptures. It was like a bit of teaching & discipleship, and reminded me of how Jesus would teach in the outdoors.
Before it began though, someone spontaneously starting singing a Setswana worship song and then teens and teachers hopped up and began to join together in a dancing march in a huge train of people through the field with the backdrop of grazing cows! Maybe someday I’ll know those dances and can join in, but for now it was just cool to watch. All in all, we were there in the field about 3 hours until the sunset, the youth still interested in learning more!
Promoting Abstinence and Faithfulness
Earlier that day for a few hours all the teens were taught the True Love Waits abstinence/HIV-prevention curriculum, which happened to be the exact curriculum I taught in northern Botswana in 2004. Interestingly, the American missionary family I was staying with near the camp had been the ones to teach it to me in 2004 and at that time, they said it was the first time the curriculum would be taught in Botswana. They had been developing and teaching it in Uganda since the ‘90s and it was hugely successful in helping Uganda’s AIDS rate plummet from the highest in the world to less than 5% in one decade. This family had just moved from Uganda to Botswana in 2004, and we were the first ones they trained to teach the curriculum in Botswana. It was good to see the message of abstinence being promoted so heavily at this camp, and to see that hundreds of teens committed to abstain until marriage and to be faithful in marriage.
Working Alongside a Key Student – Another Cool Connection!
At the camp, the guy who is one of the student leaders of the SU club at the school in Gaborone (the Head Boy who I’ve been working with to give out the bible studies and who invited me to speak to the club) told me he needed to leave the camp to go to an important meeting in Gaborone on Tuesday to stand up for children’s rights. He had permission to leave so I drove him to the bus station in the nearest city so he could ride to Gabs. Turns out he is on the National Children’s Consultative Forum coordinated by Unicef and the University of Botswana, a committee of roughly 150 youth nationwide. I came to find out that he is not just on the committee/forum, but is the national chairperson of it! Of all the youth in Botswana, it turns out that I’ve been working with the one who has been chosen to chair this nationwide forum to help children in Botswana!
As chair, they want him to visit children/youth nationwide (in schools, prisons, hospitals, orphanages, etc.) and help them understand their rights (namely in the recently passed Child Act). He’s told me he’s hoping that perhaps we can work together somehow to share Christ with the kids too! He said he wants kids to know about Christ and to encourage them to get involved in Scripture Union. At the end of our car ride back to camp, he asked me if I could help him with his desire to write a book so that he can stand up for children and share things he’s learned. He said he wants people to know “how marvelous it is once you know Christ!” Oh, and this guy is just 16 years old!
Odds and Ends from the Camp
Other cool things at the camp were some of the conversations I had with the teens. Another one of the student leaders of the club I’m working alongside shared with me at dinner the first night how she is the only Christian in her family. When her dad was diagnosed with cancer in early November, she fasted and prayed for 5 days and his latest tests last Tuesday showed huge improvement (he didn’t need any more chemo)! Another guy came up to me and asked some deep questions about faith. We ended up talking for several minutes (all the way out on the walk to the bush for the Question Box time), and it’s clear that this guy is solid in his faith and desire to serve the Lord. He just graduated from senior secondary school and is praying that he’ll have the opportunity to go to the University of Botswana next August. He is just hungering to serve the Lord so I told him about volunteer opportunities in Gaborone with YFC and he seems quite interested. I got his contact info to call him in January when we start up programs there.
Finally, the last night there was the talent show and they invited me to join in, so I played one of the piano songs that God gave me when I was 17. At that point, I hadn’t had a piano lesson since I was 9 years old, and I only could play 5 songs. But one night I just started composing a song out of nowhere (hadn’t planned on composing anything)! I played it the next day for my youth pastor, and she got chills and tears in her eyes and remarked, “This is a gift from God!” So I gave that little introduction at the camp and then played the song to the largest audience ever I think. They started clapping and cheering during it (hopefully not for me but for the real Composer of the song). It was just a cool way to round out my time with them and I got to say goodbye on the microphone to them all and thank them for a great couple days.
Back in the States!
I safely arrived Monday in Michigan! My luggage safely arrived Tuesday. The schedule for when I’ll be sharing at different churches is in my last post (starts this Sunday!). I'll head back to Botswana on January 5.
~Em
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