More Ministry Highlights!

Hi again!

Sorry for the long gap in posting, but it’s certainly not due a lack of things to share about! I am now in the US for sabbatical, but I will reflect back to share some of the ministry highlights in Botswana that I haven’t yet shared on this platform to catch you up to speed a bit more!

Youth Week Loading

For the last 50+ years, Youth for Christ has run a camp called Youth Week in South Africa. It draws anywhere from 600-850 youth from across southern Africa. We decided last year, in partnership with Ignite Youth Group of Open Baptist Church, to have a Youth Week Loading event in Gaborone, Botswana, where we invited up one of the keynote speakers from Youth Week, Pastor Ashley Augustine, to give a powerful message. It was an impactful night as about 50 youth responded to give or re-dedicate their lives to Christ and were given bible studies to help them grow!

An awesome testimony was that earlier during the day, Pastor Ashley and one of the Ignite leaders went to the University of Botswana campus and came across a guy who was badly limping from an injured hip. Pastor Ashley asked if he could pray for him, and he agreed. Then he said he felt something change and realized the pain was gone! He could jump up and down off of a nearby bench—something that had been impossible a couple minutes earlier! His buddies were all so amazed! He ended up coming to the Youth Week Loading event that night and shared this testimony of how Jesus healed him!



The next morning, Pastor Ashley led a leadership training for Youth for Christ and Ignite leaders/volunteers. It was a valuable time where he taught and then answered our questions about leadership.

Currently, the next Youth Week Loading event is being planned by the Youth Week committee for just a couple weeks from now in Gaborone with another keynote speaker from the Youth Week camp, Pastor Ed Ramsami! He will also give a leadership training on Saturday the 26th to better equip the volunteer cabin leaders. We are excited to see what God has in store.

Youth Week Cabin Leader Trainings
A month or two after that Youth Week Loading event last year, we began the process of training the cabin leaders for Youth Week camp from Botswana. We met 2-3 times a month during the last few months of the year. We organised facilitators to teach on a variety of subjects (i.e. what is the gospel and how to share it, servant-leadership, basic counseling skills, basic first-aid, etc.) and also did team-building exercises and Discovery Bible Studies together. One thing we tried differently was to split the campers into their groups weeks before camp so that they could meet up with their cabin leaders before camp. It really worked nicely to foster a sense of community and teamwork.



Youth Week 2017

Youth Week itself was awesome! The Botswana contingent was 160-strong this year! We won many of the sports games and team spirit competitions, such that we won the overall championship! Certainly, the point of the camp is to grow closer to God, but it was nice to experience being the champions too!


A Beautiful Confirmation for a “Life-Changing” Message
The theme for Youth Week was Rebuild, and I taught an elective called “Rebuilding after Trials.” It was a great confirmation for my message that one of the camp directors, Davina, told me she had brought along a bunch of gemstones and a glass vase for a demonstration where she would get the gemstones all dirty and give each young person one. Then they would each drop their dirty gemstone in the vase full of water, and it would become clean and shiny again. I marveled because I’d planned to share what God had taught me in 2013 after I had gotten attacked while running— that He sees us as precious jewels, and no matter how dirty we feel because of the sin done against us, or our own sin, our inherent value does not change and Jesus can wash us clean and polish us to shine again!

So once Davina heard what I’d planned to share, she gave me the gemstones and the vase to use in my elective. One girl came up to me after the first day and told me that my talk was “life-changing” for her. She explained how in the morning devotional that day, when we were asked to write down how we view ourselves, followed by how God views us, she had written down that she viewed herself as “Dirty.” She showed me how she had left the other side (how God views her) blank, because in the morning she had not known. But then, after hearing my talk and seeing her dirty jewel get washed clean, she exclaimed that she knew that God sees her as a precious jewel, cleansed by Him!

Youth for Christ Staff Training Conference
A few months earlier at the same Youth for Christ campsite in Magaliesburg, South Africa where Youth Week takes place, we attended a week-long YFC Competency Development Conference for YFC staff and volunteers from the southern region of Africa. Several of the staff and volunteers from Botswana were able to attend, which was awesome.


I helped to lead the praise & worship for the week and also gave a presentation about the types of prayer initiatives we are doing in Botswana (i.e. prayer walks, weekly prayer meetings, 9pm Prayer movement, etc.).



It was also a great time to just learn from other facilitators and be further equipped to be more effective in our ministry in our various contexts. We also had a great time of fellowship and networking with our YFC family from the different nations.



Seeds of Gratitude Award for Youth for Christ Botswana
Soon after that conference, Youth for Christ was honoured with a Seeds of Gratitude Award, recognising YFC for “valuable contribution towards building the Church of Christ in Botswana.”

Pictured is the YFC Botswana National Director, Koekoes van As, with the award. While we aren’t motivated to do our ministry by awards, but rather by the calling of the Lord, it was nevertheless encouraging to receive this unexpected reward.

ROAR Camp 2016!

A week or so after that, YFC led the 5th annual ROAR Camp in Gaborone. The camp was packed to capacity with 90 students and leaders, including a visiting team of young leaders from YFC South Africa. It's rewarding to see some of the cabin leaders are young people who have become Christians through the ministry of YFC or the Unashamed Movement, and/or have been discipled through YFC. It's great to see them grow into leaders who are role models for the younger kids. In fact, the camp director was Tumi, a YFC volunteer who got saved at the YFC Youth Week camp about 10 years ago! As in previous years, I organized and led the praise and worship team, and one of the South Africans and a few veteran campers joined the band and really blessed us with their gifts. One of them really decided to live wholeheartedly for the Lord during the camp, and is now going to help lead the worship again this year!



The campers learned about the theme of being Watchmen from a variety of different speakers, including other YFC staff/volunteers, my pastor, and myself. Small group reflections and bible studies led by the cabin leaders followed every talk. Sports, Bible quiz, swimming, crazy games, and good food rounded out the experience!

More to Come...
I'll leave it here for now. Check back for future posts with more pictures and details of what's been happening! I'll share more about ministry in schools, the hospital, on radio, at the cattle post settlements, and with my church, etc. 'Til next time!

P.S. You can also click on Older Posts to see more highlights from 2016 if you didn't see the previous posts yet.