While I was away on sabbatical (described with lots of pictures in the previous post), it’s great to see that YFC Gaborone ministry continued, thanks to the volunteers. For example, the annual prayer camp took place at Mizpah Farm in Mahalapye. As we had done the years before, it was a week of prayer and fasting, with corporate times of worship and prayer twice a day (9am and 9pm), as well as prayer watches every 3 hours 24/7 (12am, 3am, 6am, etc.) through the week where prayer partners rotate through the different time slots, interceding for the nation.
Each evening after breaking the fast, they worshiped and prayed around the campfire. They decided to do something new and go to watch the sunrise and have worship together as sun rose. As usual, they also led the church service there on the Sunday morning. Kelsey preached in the main church and others, i.e. Thabang and Neo pictured above, helped lead Sunday school for the littler ones.
Youth Week Loading Event
Also, the second annual Youth Week Loading event and leadership training was a success as well in my absence. We invited up one of the speakers at the Youth Week camp in Magaliesburg, Ed Ramsami, who had newly been appointed as the new Youth for Christ South Africa National Director.
Leadership Training
Besides the Friday night event, Ed Ramsami also facilitated a leadership training on Saturday morning for YFC volunteers training to be cabin leaders at Youth Week:
Youth Week Cabin Leader Trainings
There were also bi-weekly cabin leader trainings that took place during October and November. Here are pics of some of the cabin leaders:
Hospital Ministry
Also, the YFC hospital ministry kept going strong while I was on sabbatical, thanks to the volunteers. As the director for YFC in Gaborone, it is my desire to develop local leaders who take ownership of the different ministries, so I am thankful that I have been able to hand over the leadership of hospital ministry to Rosh and Neo, who have served so faithfully the past couple years.
They coordinated the volunteers to go weekly, and sometimes more often if there was a special case where we are called upon to pray for someone urgently. For example, in October, a friend of mine asked if YFC volunteers could go visit her friend in the hospital with meningitis, who’d been unresponsive for 10 days. Rosh, Neo, and others went to visit the next day and prayed for him, and met his pregnant wife. They continued to visit, but sadly, he passed away. Rosh and Neo took the initiative to visit his wife a few days later to comfort her, and started raising money to buy gifts for their baby on the way.
ROAR Camp Planning
Rosh and Neo were also part of the YFC committee that started planning for the ROAR camp while I was still on sabbatical. Also pictured are Godchaser, Tumi, George, Gugu, and Kelsey.
School Ministry
YFC volunteers were invited to share all day in late November with the entire student body at Moselewapula Jr. Secondary School.
Also, several of us took part in teaching hundreds of students on various topics during a Boot Camp for the Form 4 students at Ledumang Senior Secondary School. In both schools, the volunteers were real champs because they had to adjust to longer hours than originally expressed by the schools. They showed great flexibility and commitment to stay way longer than they had planned due to the school schedules changing. I didn't get home till past midnight after dropping off volunteers after the Ledumang Boot Camp!
ROAR Camp 2017!
My sabbatical ended a week or two before ROAR Camp (so that's why I was able to help at Ledumang Boot Camp), so I was able to take part in ROAR, especially in the worship leading again. We had a powerful time together!
Most of the YFC Botswana full-time staff and volunteers were also on sabbatical at the time so it was questioned whether ROAR Camp would even be able to happen in 2017, but it was so great to see the part-time volunteers from Gaborone really step in and serve to make it not only happen, but happen well! With the exception of George and myself, ROAR Camp was organized and run entirely by young, part-time YFC volunteers (organizing team, cabin leaders, worship leaders, cooks, sports coordinators, etc.)!
It was really great to see the volunteers, like GodChaser (pictured with me above), taking more ownership of the ministry. GodChaser served as the ROAR camp director. It’s beautiful to see how the Lord has matured him since he gave his life to Christ at the Up Kgale hike event I helped organize with The Unashamed Movement in 2013.
A volunteer who served as a cabin leader and also preached one session at ROAR is a young man named David, who came to Christ through YFC’s ministry in Mochudi. He was one of the speakers at ROAR 2017:
Soon after I first came to Botswana in 2010, I shared the gospel at the YFC drop-in youth center (called Yarona)
in Mochudi and ended up talking for quite some time with David as he grappled with questions of faith. I got him started on the YFC Bible study course that night so he could investigate more. A few months later, after the continued influence of those bible studies, other YFC staff and volunteers at Yarona, David gave his life to Christ! He has become a faithful volunteer, such that he is now helping to lead that same Yarona program on Saturday nights!
Here are some other pictures from ROAR Camp 2017:
Planting a Cross on Kgale Hill
The day after ROAR Camp ended, we erected the wooden cross on Kgale Hill! I was on the planning committee for that cross planting, which took place in several stages over some years, spearheaded by YFC Board Chairman Callie de Bruyn and in partnership with USA-based Christian Cross Ministries. You can read all about the history of it and see pictures of the different stages on a previous post on this blog from June 2017: https://hope4botswana.blogspot.com/2018/06/
Youth Week 2018 Preparations
The rest of the year, the main ministry focus was preparing to take about 185 youth and leaders from Botswana to Magaliesburg, South Africa for Youth Week 2018 in early January. You can read more about how Youth Week 2018 went in my next post, when I will start to share highlights from 2018!
