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!