Outreach to a Remote Village!!

Dumelang!

The big news I’ll focus on this time is that this weekend I’m going on an outreach with 8 Batswana staff/volunteers from YFC to a remote village called Oliphants Drift. I hear it’s a 5 hour drive along a dirt road to reach the village, which happens to be on the famous Limpopo River! I am the driver for our team, and due to heavy rains lately, the road may be somewhat precarious or even water-covered at points. Please pray that the rains hold off the next few days so the road is passable and safe.

I am quite excited to go because since late August, I’ve felt like the Lord has been leading us to go there. Here’s how that story began…I was sitting in my bedroom in late August, looking at the map of Botswana on my wall. I noticed Oliphants Drift, a village I’d never noticed or heard of before, and for some reason was really drawn to it. I had a desire to go there sometime. Then later that same day or the next day, at the weekly prayer meeting, Maruping brought up as a prayer item the village of Oliphants Drift! He said that there is not a single Christian church there, and that a local church in Mochudi has a desire to help plant a church there. So we began praying for Oliphants Drift, and my desire to go there was strengthened.

The very next day, while a man was presenting during a collaborative meeting of NGOs who are fighting AIDS, I was thinking how Oliphants Drift and other outlying areas may not have as good access to the HIV drugs. As the same presenter continued, my eyes happened to glance down at the day planner of a woman sitting two seats away from me (her planner was in my field of vision as I looked at the presenter). My eyes glanced down at one point to see that her day planner was open to the day where she’d written in large letters across the page: Oliphants Drift! I nudged Twila next to me to point it out—I had already told her about how it had come up the day before and how I feel like perhaps I should go there sometime. We both smiled in amazement.

In the month or so after that, E.J., the YFC National Director, shared with us at a staff meeting that he really felt the Lord putting a burden on his heart that we need to go on an outreach somewhere—to share the gospel in other places in Botswana. He asked us to pray and make plans. I immediately thought of Oliphants Drift, and talked to Maruping about it. He agreed that we could go on an outreach there to precede the work of the church from Mochudi who would be trying to plant a church. So we set the date for mid-November for the outreach. However, accommodation fell through so we had to cancel the trip until after the new year.

But meanwhile, the same week in which we would have been on the outreach there, Franzi and I went on a little exploratory journey on the drive home from church, ending up driving past the turn-off toward Oliphants Drift, designated with a sign. That was when I first saw that the road leading there is dirt!

In March, we planned to go there with a visiting South African dance & drama team to do an abstinence rally, but then the team was unable to come up from South Africa, so that never materialized. Instead, we held the abstinence rally in Mochudi, and interestingly, right afterward, as I was about to drive Slim home from the rally, she told me that her family was all camping in Oliphants Drift right then! Slim had never mentioned Oliphants Drift to me, nor did she know we were hoping to minister there. It seemed that we weren’t supposed to forget about Oliphants Drift, but keep seeking the opportunity to go there. And finally, now is the time!

Once I heard of this outreach opportunity in Oliphants Drift, I knew I wanted to be a part of the team to go. They actually needed one of us foreigners to drive since none of the Batswana staff/volunteers have their driver’s license. So I will be driving, as well as helping with music and going house to house (or hut to hut) to share with people about Christ if they are interested, and inviting them to the new church that is forming. Apparently a body of Christian believers in Oliphants Drift has banded together since the new year and has been meeting in a school, though they have no pastor. So we hope to strengthen, encourage and support their fellowship, as well as invite others to join them, especially children and youth. Church leaders from Mochudi and Gaborone are also coming on the outreach to help the ongoing church to grow. We leave Mochudi tomorrow (Friday) around 11 am for the 5ish hour drive. Saturday we will visit people at their homes and hold an outreach for children. We will leave Oliphants Drift after the church service on Sunday.

I am excited to see what God has in store, and I covet your prayers—for protection, that the Holy Spirit would guide our words and ministry, that the people’s hearts would be open to receive the gospel and embrace Christ, and that the Body of Christ would be built up in that village.

I know I am already a missionary…but this feels like I’m really a missionary, if that makes sense! It reminds me of my first 2-month mission trip to Botswana in 2004 where we reached out in similar ways in 2 remote villages in northern Botswana. We helped plant a church in each of those villages, which, to my latest knowledge, are still meeting to this day. In fact, I found out while mentoring one of the students at Bethany College of Missions that she had actually gone back to one of the villages two years after I had been there, and her team had helped to build the actual church building for the church we’d planted 2 years earlier!

Thanks for your interest and prayers. It does make a difference!

Oliphants Drift-Bound!

~Em

Leading Worship...Awesome Camp...Teaching in Schools!

Greetings all!

Transformer Camp!

The camp last weekend went really well. It was a one-day evangelistic camp that we put on three days in a row. We had a full worship band, dramas, dances, games, rap, “magic” show, and speakers. Last Friday, April 8, it was for the whole student body at the school. Then Saturday and Sunday it was opened up for youth from outside the school, mainly from Gaborone. There were about 550 youth from outside who came, and then 365 secondary students from the school.

So all told, about 900 youth experienced the camp that was run by the visiting mission team from the Philippines, with help from local Batswana, the school staff and me. About 200 of the youth decided to give their lives to Christ. A group of counselors (which included me) then followed-up those students who prayed to trust in Christ as their Lord and Savior by counseling them and explaining the gospel clearly again, answering their questions, etc. It’s cool that one of the Filipino guys who did the “magic” and ventriloquism used to be a pickpocket and steal cell phones in the Philippines, but he attended one of the same camps in 2007 there and came to faith in Christ. Now the Lord is using him around the world to bring joy and to be a living testimony of Christ’s power to transform lives. One of the students who rapped about Jesus came to faith in Christ through the camp last year.

Girls Club Field Trip to the Camp

In Mochudi, we recently started up a Girls Club at the YFC office on Saturdays. I am not officially part of the planning team for that because often on Saturdays I have volunteer trainings and events in Gaborone (and also the abstinence club at 2:30pm). However, I like to go when I can just to interact with the teen girls and build friendships. I invited the Girls Club to come to the camp in Gaborone last Sunday. The girls were so excited when they heard about it, they screamed and jumped up and down! It’s not often that young teens from Mochudi can go to Gaborone at all, let alone for a free camp! So I drove a handful of them in our YFC SUV so they could attend the camp. Five of them went forward to pray to receive Christ! Praise God! They really loved it.

I also invited Tumelo, the girl I’ve been taking to counseling. At that point she had been living at a friend’s house all week due to a disagreement with her mother. She wanted to come along, so she came to the camp as well! Though she did not pray to trust in Christ, it was a positive sign that she wanted to come to a clearly Christian camp. A few days after the camp, she moved back home with her mother, but she could really use prayer. I won’t go into all the details, but just pray that she makes wise decisions and that her relationship with her mom can be reconciled. And let’s continue to pray that all the seeds that have been planted regarding Christ can take deep root in her and that the flower of faith (tumelo in Setswana) will come forth.

More Opportunities in Schools

We already had it worked out that we would be teaching in two different schools—one in Mochudi, and one in a nearby town called Borwa—last week and this week. Last Monday at noon, the school in Mochudi asked if we would be willing to come and teach 4 separate classes the next morning at 7:55 am on a different Lifeskills topic. So we rose to the challenge of the last-minute opportunity and four of us prepared to teach on goal-setting – helping them to discern their vision/dreams in life and how to set goals to achieve their vision. Then on Wednesday, I taught at the school in Borwa on self-esteem and their value and worth. So last week, I had the opportunity at these schools to teach youth that they are not a mistake, but rather they are of extreme value to the God who created them and has a purpose and a dream for their lives. Those are lessons I love to teach!

Begging for more teaching!

At Borwa, I finished my lesson as the class period ended, but the students were still sitting there as if class wasn’t over listening attentively and waiting for me to continue. I asked what time the class ended and they said, “Oh, don’t worry, keep going!” I looked at my watch and confirmed that class was over. I found out that their next class was there in that same classroom and their teacher would come to teach them. “Do you want me to keep teaching until your next teacher comes?” I asked. “YES!!!” they yelled back enthusiastically! So I kept teaching, sharing the dangers of premarital sex, even with condoms, in this country where the HIV rate is so high, and that if they know their value, they can stand against the peer pressure to engage in risky behaviors like that. Then once the next teacher arrived, I concluded and left, as they waved and yelled “Bye!! Wow…that was an encouragement that my lesson was not too boring, or even just bearable for them, but actually enjoyable. It’s times like those that I remember why I like to teach. I am scheduled to teach that same lesson today, tomorrow, and Wednesday at that school in Borwa to different classes.

Volunteer Training in Gaborone

Last Saturday morning, I led another volunteer training in our centre in Gaborone. It was cool to see this week on facebook, that one of the volunteers had put a quote from the training as her facebook status:

“One of the greatest joys of life is knowing that a teenager or person in whom you have invested has grown up to be a mighty man or woman of God.”

All-Night Praise & Worship Event at YFC!

This Saturday, I didn’t lead a volunteer training because I was up all night Friday night…literally. We held an All-Night Praise & Worship event at the YFC office in Mochudi. Despite the rains, people showed up in large number. We didn’t actually count how many were there, but we had 90 chairs and they were pretty much all filled! At one point, everyone started dancing what seems to be Botswana version of the Electric Slide. It was cool!

I helped lead the worship for that, and also spoke in the beginning to encourage the youth from different churches to join together to pray regularly. I shared how God had really been putting it on my heart, and also Maruping’s, to restart up the prayer movement at our Mochudi office. So we will start it again on Tuesdays at 5:30pm.

Saturday (after sleeping til 1 pm after the All-Night Praise & Worship), we led the Real Life Revolution club at the Senior Secondary School in Mochudi. It went well—I think the students enjoy it and will find it a place where they can be ‘real’ –discuss real life issues that affect them and find positive peer pressure to encourage them to do what’s right. Pictured below are some of the members--

So, all in all, God is at work here! E.J., the YFC director, said recently that right now is the most ministry that YFC Botswana has ever been doing at once in its history. We just gained two three new Batswana staff to help us, which is a huge answer to prayer. Thanks for all of your prayers and encouragement. It is making a difference!

I hope you have a most blessed Easter, recalling the loving sacrifice Christ made for us to enable us to have life to the full…and then life eternal. He has triumphed over the grave, and so shall those who are connected to Him!

Blessings, Em

P.S. Here is an intriguing reflection on the Triumphal Entry celebrated yesterday on Palm Sunday when Jesus rode into Jerusalem and all the people were shouting “Hosanna!” and laying down their palms on the ground before him:

From The Pursuit of God by A.W. Tozer --

“It’s ludicrous for any Christian to believe that he or she is the worthy object of public worship; it would be like the donkey carrying Jesus into Jerusalem believing the crowds were cheering and laying down their garments for him.” –Charles Colson, p167

“Rise, O Lord, into Thy proper place of honor, above my ambitions, above my likes and dislikes, above my family, my health and even my life itself. Let me sink that Thou mayest rise above. Ride forth upon me as Thou didst ride into Jerusalem mounted upon the humble little beast, a colt, the foal of an ass, and let me hear the children cry to Thee, ‘Hosanna in the highest.’”

Namibia trip, Worship band!

Greetings all!

Today is a most stellar day!! It’s my 28th birthday…and also the first time I played in a praise and worship band in Botswana! I’m helping to lead worship for a camp this weekend at a Christian school here in Gaborone. It’s the private school where I spoke to the whole student body (K-12) last September about my accident/recovery story.

A visiting team from the Phillippines is putting the camp on this Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, and the school leadership asked if I’d like to help. I was planning to help last year, but I got sick that weekend. There were over 800 kids from Gaborone that came last year though! So a similar turnout is expected this year, many of whom are unchurched kids. Yesterday I stopped by to meet the Filipinos and see how I could help out. They told me the different departments I could volunteer in, and when they mentioned the praise and worship band, I knew that’s where I would fit! After meeting the Filipinos (who are AWESOME people, by the way…I love working with them!), I watched several of their dramas that will be performed during the camp—powerful. In the afternoons, the Filipinos are teaching the dramas to students from the school who want to learn them…so the dramas will be performed by those Batswana youth. How cool that people from a former/current missionary destination (the Phillippines) are now going on mission trips to other places around the world? That’s how it should be. And it’s cool to partner with them, and to see their love for Jesus and the ways they can reach youth worldwide.

This morning, we had praise and worship band practice. They asked me to bring along songs I have, so I ended up providing all the music. For those who are familiar with the songs, we are singing “Trading my Sorrows,” “Every Move I Make,” “Taste and See,” “We Want to See Jesus Lifted High,” and “Go gona ya Tshwanang le Jesus” (There’s no one like Jesus). It turns out the other two band members that were recruited to help besides me and J.R. (Filipino) are Batswana guys I know from church who are also new YFC volunteers that I’m training! So that was cool to see them walk in and then we jammed together. So I play acoustic guitar and sing, J.R. plays keys or acoustic guitar depending on the song, Moses plays drums, and J.B. plays bass. It was truly an amazing birthday gift to be able to play/sing in a full praise/worship band again – as I said, it’s the first time since being in Botswana (and for that matter, the first time since December 2009 when I left Bethany College of Missions and my church in Minnesota). So yeah, a true blessing! And they have a really nice Yamaha keyboard, so I was able to play that for awhile too…and Moses played along with the drums which added a sweet effect. Students from the school were there with us, singing along and listening. They were making up worshipful lyrics to my original piano compositions while Moses added the beat. It was epic, haha. I’ve really been “itching” to use my music gifts more here in Botswana, and even on Sunday I was thinking how much I miss leading worship in a full band (not just myself playing guitar)…and then this opportunity came! God is so good.

I enjoyed some KFC and an ice cream in Gabs before I headed back to Mochudi for a run in the bush during a gorgeous sunset—one of the most beautiful I’ve seen in my time in Botswana, where the clouds across the sky turned a soft pink/orange contrasted with deep blue around it. And now the stars are amazing. My American housemate Katie baked me a chocolate cake and found Pillsbury chocolate frosting with which to ice it. A blessed birthday indeed.

Namibia!

My weeklong trip to Namibia was amazing! Five of us international YFC staff/volunteers (2 Americans, 2 Canadians, 1 Dutch) left our house at the lovely time of 5 am to catch the bus in Gaborone, whereupon we rode “cramped-style” for 12 hours to Windhoek, the capital city. We spent one night there in a hostel, then caught a combi (van) for another 4 hours through the Namib desert to the coastal town of Swakopmund. This experience altered my definition of desert. Botswana is largely the Kalahari Desert, but here you find shrubs and thorn bushes and some trees. This was sand. Purely sand. What came to mind as we drove through what seemed very desolate sand – no green anywhere – was, “It’s easier to endure the desert when you know the ocean is on the other side.” Fits with hard times in life too.

We did arrive at the other side of the desert, greeted by the Atlantic Ocean. Swakopmund is an old German colonial town, so there is ample German influence and architecture. It was a very beautiful, quaint town with a nice boardwalk pier out into the Atlantic, a lighthouse, markets, huge sandy beaches, and many nice restaurants. One is on the pier and another just next to it in a converted old ship. We spent most of the time relaxing on the beach, swimming (the first time I’ve swam in what is officially the Atlantic Ocean—the English Channel is, well, the English Channel and not technically the Atlantic), reading, journaling, praying, watching sunsets over the Atlantic, etc.

One morning we went “sandboarding” with a local company. It’s like snowboarding or sledding on sand, reaching speeds of 70 km/hr. I was not stupid enough to do that with my somewhat more delicate neck. But I went along to watch the others and to see the scenery. So they drove us out of town where it is the Atlantic on your right and endless sand dunes to your left. We hiked up into the dunes and the view was just amazing. It was like mountains of sand as far as the eye could see one direction and the ocean the other—a stunning juxtaposition.

I posted more pictures on facebook if you are on there in “Namibia trip” folder. The instructor invited me to go down with him both sitting on a board on a very safe, slower dune. So I enjoyed that one trip down, a free unexpected gift.

The next day I “enjoyed” a one-day flu or food poisoning experience (3 of us felt gross but I was the worst), so I stayed at the hostel that day. Besides the couple times I was really sick and felt gross, it actually was a really relaxing time where I spent a lot of time with God, listened to sermons on my iPod, and journaled. The others went 4-wheeling on the sand dunes that day, but said it probably would’ve been too rough for my neck anyway.

The next day I was feeling fine again—went swimming in the Atlantic again. I swam in part next to a break wall, so I could just float in the ocean. Never done that before because the ocean is usually too wavy—and I love to just float and relax. But I also like to wave crash, so Twila and I went further down the beach to where the waves were crashing and enjoyed jumping over/into the waves for a bit.

That morning, I also got my hair cut for the first time in Africa at a salon we found. Really great quality for a very reasonable price. That’s what I’m talking about! I saw a massage therapist’s office near the salon, and my neck and back told me to inquire within. I signed up for a half-hour neck/back massage (also reasonably priced). Amen. I used to get massage treatment twice a week for my neck/back until I left Minnesota, so this half-hour of course did not iron out all the knots and tightness I’ve accumulated, but it felt great and loosened me up a bit.

The last morning in Swakopmund, I walked/jogged out to the edge of the desert, where the sand dunes start at the edge of town, to see the sunrise and the river. The locals told us that there hasn’t been a river running there for 30 years because it’s been so dry, but this year the river is flowing due to abnormally high levels of rain. People were marveling and taking pictures of it earlier in the week, like the others saw a busload of people stop and get out to take pictures or something. So I figured I’d go take a gander too. Reminds me of all those scriptures about how God makes rivers in the desert, or streams in the desert (i.e. Isaiah 35, 43, etc).

Then it was another lovely 4 hour combi ride to Windhoek. I realize that sometimes I use the word “lovely” in all sincerity and other times I am being facetious. This would be an occasion of the latter. It wasn’t horrible, but “comfortable” isn’t a word I would associate with our drive. We stayed at a different backpackers’ hostel that night in Windhoek and got up wicked early again—a taxi picked us up at 5 am to be taken to the bus stop for the 12-hour journey back to Gaborone. All told, it was worth the long travel excursions for the beauty and respite we enjoyed in Namibia. After some really busy weeks of ministry lately, it was a welcome break for us all. Growing up on Lake Huron, I miss large bodies of water…so it was refreshing to be at the ocean.

Hope you are doing well!

Blessings,

Em