A couple of prayer requests...

Pray for the women of the CESA region as we travel on Tuesday to a women’s conference in Kenya . I will be in Kenya for almost 2 weeks! Pray that this would be a time of spiritual refreshment and fun fellowship with the women in the region.

Pray for the Operation HIV team as we are gone. Pray that they would continue/start the Bible studies with some of the people that were tested for HIV. Pray also that the True Love Waits Clubs at the schools would start okay without us. (The students begin their 2nd term next week while we’re away.)

I got bumped…well, I did the bumping…

They don’t call them car crashes in Palapye. When you are in an accident you say, “We bumped.” That’s what happened to me last Saturday. I was in my first car accident ever. I was driving down the tar road and at an intersection another truck ran the stop sign and I crashed into the side of his vehicle. It was quite scary but God protected me! I was not hurt, but just sore for a few days afterwards. The family of three in the other vehicle all sustained minor injuries and were released from the hospital shortly afterwards.

The accident itself proved to be quite a cultural experience. Immediately people showed up to help the other family get to hospital. Figuring the police would need to see what happened, I left the car in the middle of the road while I and about 50 onlookers (that came out of nowhere) waited at least a half hour for them to show up. The first thing the police officer said to me was, “Why is your car still in the road? Move it!” However, we still had to wait for a tow truck to show up so the car could actually be moved because the front half was smooshed in and it couldn’t be driven. Then I had to go to the police station and give a statement (which really was me just signing a paper because the police officer never really asked me what happened). On Monday, I had to go to the Ministry of Road Transport where the car had been towed. Some people inspected both vehicles and then the officer sat me and the driver of the other vehicle down to charge one of us with the guilt. Luckily during his “investigation” the police officer discovered that the other driver was at fault and fined him 200 pula. (Typing it out, it sounds like a rather simple process, but we were at Transport for several hours waiting for things to happen.) And still I can’t pick up the accident report so they can begin to get the car fixed until the guy pays the fine…and who knows when that will happen? I just have to keep physically going and checking at Transport because I’m told there’s no where for me to call to find out. Fun times. Dealing with the police is not my favorite thing to do…

Regardless, I’m so thankful for how wonderful my missionary family and church family in Palapye was after the accident! It was such a comfort to know that I was being prayed for and checked on (the Batswana always visit the homes of people that are sick or hurt, so I had quite a few guests coming and checking on me).

So…here’s the damage to the vehicle!

AMTM 2007

This past week we had our annual mission team meeting in Rustenburg, South Africa. Missionaries from our Zimtswana Cluster, which includes missionaries from Zimbabwe, Botswana, and South Africa, and the Angola Cluster met together to be trained in a fairly new evangelism and discipleship tool called T4T or Training for Trainers. The idea is to start groups and train members to start their own groups to train members to start their own groups, etc. We practiced several stories and learned how to develop our own version of “Creation to Christ” (a 10-15 minute gospel presentation using stories from creation to Christ) incorporating stories that will speak to the issues our specific people groups deals with. I can’t wait to try some of this T4T stuff with a group of my former students!

We were given the opportunity to go out into the squatter camp called Freedom Park in Rustenburg and witness to the people there. I will try to get a picture of the squatter camp to post eventually, but it’s amazing how many people in tin shacks you can fit into one area! These are people coming from all over southern Africa to work mainly in the mines. My partner and I were able to talk with men from Mozambique and a Xhosa woman, but the language barrier proved to be a difficult thing for me. After about 2 minutes I run out of all the phrases I know how to speak in Setswana! But what an amazing opportunity for ministry the missionaries from Rustenburg have in these camps. There are already a few T4T groups going! Please pray for missionaries John and Jennifer Putman and Journeyman Stacy Carter and Kristy Burgess as they work in Rustenburg.

We also had some time for cutthroat mission competition! All the missionaries were divided into tribes to participate in games in order to win a big box of American food, CDs, DVDs, and more! Unfortunately my team Bluzungu didn’t win, but it was still fun to see crazy things like this! Missionaries Tim Cearley and Dennis Janz try to pass a cheerio on a toothpick to each other.


The annual Journeymen picture! (top row from left to right: Stacy, Kristy, Lyndee, Carmel, Me; bottom row: Shawna, Crystal, Kelly)


This was the best AMTM ever! (Never mind, that I’ve only been to one other…) It was an amazing time of spiritual refreshment, training, and fellowship with other missionaries. I am going to miss my mission family so much when I leave Botswana later this year!

Lion Park

Before our annual missions meeting we went to Johannesburg to relax a little. While there we decided to go to the Lion Park. The lions are not tame, but they are in cages in which you can drive your car around. The lions will come right up to the car! Check out these close-ups!


We also got to pet baby lions! Aren’t they adorable?


Check me out feeding this giraffe!


The ostrich was a little trickier to feed. He comes at you so quickly with the open beak! He bit both Kelly and Crystal!

Easter Baptism!

On Easter Sunday we had a baptism service! It’s beginning to get cold here and the water had been sitting overnight in the baptismal pool; the conditions made for one of the most amusing baptism services that I’ve ever been to. Almost everyone cried out in shock as they entered the cold water and there were plenty of humorous faces made while in the water. Nonetheless, we rejoiced with eight new believers!

Here’s T-Boy as he comes up out of the water.

Happy Birthday Kelly!

Following in our tradition of themed dinner parties to celebrate birthdays in Palapye, on April 6 we had a “fashion-forward” dinner party for Kelly’s 30th birthday! Shawna was able to join us from Lobatse. Here’s some pictures from the party.

Kelly gets ready to blow out the candles on cake #2. That morning I had baked an American FUNFETTI cake and left it on the counter. During the day our dog Jabu somehow got into the house and ate the entire thing! I was so angry!!!! It was FUNFETTI!

We all pose in our “fashion-forward” outfits.

Trip to the Big City!

The last weekend in March we took a trip to Gaborone with our friends Pere and Gofaone. These girls had been asked to train members of three churches in prayerwalking then the members were going to prayerwalk an area of Gaborone called Broadhurst. They were extremely nervous about teaching people from the city but were excited about the opportunity to share some of the information that we’ve been learning in our Operation HIV training sessions.

We went down to Gabs a day early and took the girls to see/do some of our favorite things in the city. We ate at Debonairs (a pizza place) and went to see a movie (Dreamgirls). This was the first time the girls had ever been to a movie in the theater, so we had to take a picture!


This was also the first time the girls rode an escalator! It was quite amusing!

The next day Pere and Gofaone trained about 30 people in prayerwalking and then we participated in prayerwalking Broadhurst. The girls did an amazing job! We were so proud of them!

Purity Weekend!

A couple weekends ago we were asked to help out at a youth retreat in Gabs for missionary kids and other international students. Crystal and I rode the bus down to Gabs and met up with the youth at Mokolodi Game Reserve. The theme of the weekend was purity; we watched several video segments by Pam Stencil (a Christian speaker on abstinence) and then had breakout sessions. The youth had also put together a praise band! It was a lot of fun to get to spend some time with the MKs and their friends. (I had forgotten how late American teens like to stay up…and how loud they are! Haha)

Here’s some pictures from the game drive we went on…

MK Kayla and I enjoy our game drive!


I saw my first cheetah! So you can’t tell, but he’s actually in a cage…maybe one day I’ll see one in the wild.