Winter's coming!

So we have been back in Palapye teaching for the past few weeks. Our 2^nd term began and we are focusing on relationships—relationships with family, friends, and boyfriends/girlfriends. This semester has started actually started out rather slowly. I still feel like I’m getting back into the routine of classes since I was away for the majority of April. We are busy trying to get things in line for a volunteer group from Georgia that is coming for two weeks in July and then my family coming the day after the volunteer team leaves! We’re really excited about the upcoming ministry opportunities in the next couple months.

While you are all enjoying the beginning of summer weather, we are beginning our winter season. It’s much colder than I anticipated! I only have a little space heater that doesn’t work so well all the time. I am learning the joys of sleeping with a hot water bottle and about 6 blankets! Some of my classrooms are outdoors and I’ll be standing up teaching in my heavy coat while the kids huddle together, sitting on their books so their bottoms don’t touch the cold cinderblock benches. It’s pitiful! Sometimes it will be warm during the day, but once the sun goes down…brrrrr! And it’s always colder inside than outside.

Anyways, enjoy some pictures and stories from May!

A couple of weeks ago we were traveling from Palapye to our team meeting in Gaborone. About 30km outside of Palapye we got stuck in stand still traffic (which rarely happens here!) As we inched along for about 30 minutes, not knowing what the hold up was, people began to get out of their vehicles and walk along road. Finally we called someone over to the car to ask what was going on. He told us that there was an outbreak of foot and mouth disease and all cars were being stopped and checked for “cloven hooved animals and their products” (aka beef and dairy). Plus every car had to drive through a special pit filled with some chemical that prevents the spread of this deadly disease and every person had to step onto this mat soaked in the chemical. Palapye didn’t have milk for a few weeks. We took this picture at our grocery store.

Last weekend we had a party with some of the youth girls from our church. We cooked all kinds of “American” appetizers and played games and watched a movie. FYI Batswana are not very good at games like charades. We had settled down to watch The Wedding Planner and suddenly all the power went out! We looked out the window and could see that my electricity in my house next door was still on. But Kelly and Crystal’s house had run out of power! (We buy power from the gas station. You pay at the counter and they give you a code. You enter the code into this box on the wall of the kitchen and magically you have electricity!) We had to run to the gas station to buy power so we could finish the movie! While we were rather embarrassed that we had run out of power, the girls didn’t care at all. Most of them don’t even have electricity!

This is a picture from Sunday morning worship the first day that we were in our brand new church building! It’s still missing half a roof, half the children’s room, and the electrical fixtures, but we’re able to meet inside now!

In some of my more recent blog updates I had asked for prayer for the transition time for our church as some of the Brazilian missionaries go back to Brazil. They left Palapye on Friday, May 26. Last week we had a huge Farewell Brai (Cookout). We were really impressed with these guys pictured (from right to left: Shadrach, Koko, T-Boy, Bebeto, and Otsetswe)—they had all bathed and put on their best clothes for this fancy occasion. They were so proud to be a part of the party.

One of our littlest boys Denies, is always really dirty and wearing clothes with holes, but even he put on his school uniform to come the party. Here he was given a special role helping Crystal and I with braiing the meat. I wish that you all could see these kids. They are so precious. We may not always understand each other, but they can see how much we love them. So many of them just need someone to love them!

Please pray for these kids as it is getting cold and many of them are still running around barefoot and in shorts.

Please continue to pray for this transition time at our church.

Pray for the church building to be finished quickly.

Pray for the students at Mmaphula CJSS, especially the ones that have shown interest in learning more about God. I have my first Bible study with these girls this week! Pray that the girls would actually show up and that they would be open to hearing and receiving the Gospel.

Pray for my teaching partner Tshepiso who feels called to be a pastor. He has some decisions to make soon about his schooling and needs wisdom and discernment to make them.

Pray that we’ll get a phone line in our house quickly, as we’ve been living there for 5 months and still have yet to get one.

Thanks as always for checking up on me!