HIV Testing Day at Palapye Baptist Church!

Thank you so much for your prayers for our first HIV testing day at Palapye Baptist Church on March 18th. The day was eventful and, of course, nothing like we planned or hoped, but we are positive the Lord is going to do amazing things regardless!

We had roughly 100 people show up to get tested for HIV (not counting our own church members), however, Tebelopele, the organization doing the testing, only sent one counselor. Because of this, unfortunately only 20 people were able to get tested. It was a surprise and a disappointment to all of us, but I was so impressed how our church and team handled the situation. The members of Palapye Baptist that wanted to get tested gave up their spots to allow the visitors to test first. The team kept busy talking to visitors, handing out squash (a kind of drink like Kool-Aid) and chips, and signing people up to have Operation HIV visit them in their homes and share Bible stories there. We were able to explain to those wanting to get tested the problem and most agreed to come back for another day of testing that will hopefully take place sometime in April. Even though the day didn’t go exactly like we desired most people had very positive comments about the church and said they would like to come back and visit sometime.

Here are some pictures from the day!

The lady from Tebelopele gives instructions to the group waiting to be tested.

Gofaone, Crystal, Pere, and Tumisang discuss visiting people from the list of names we received.

This lady was very excited about her results!

Here’s our entire Operation HIV in our fancy Operation HIV t-shirts and badges!