Goodbye, Crystal!

Crystal is leaving Africa on September 3! The church had a goodbye party for her this past weekend. We are going to miss her here!

Crystal says goodbye to some of the kids.
Lebo and I make ourselves sick by eating too many Brazilian style hotdogs!

Chobe!

The American volunteer team that helped out with the youth rally invited us to visit Chobe with them for free! It was our last chance to go on safari before we leave Botswana. We got to see tons of lions (in the early morning so we couldn't get any good pictures) and tons of elephant! Here are some of my favorite pictures from the trip.

Shawna, me, Kelly, and Crystal pose in Chobe National Park.
Elephants bathing in the river.
This elephant showed us who was boss! He looked straight at us and flapped his ears!
This giraffe is bending over to get some water!
The buffalo is dangerous because it's actions are unpredictable. This trip was the closest I had ever been to the Cape Buffalo.

National Youth Rally!

The national youth rally was this month. Twenty-nine youth from our church attended that rally! (This was the largest number from any church in all of Botswana.) We rented a bus to travel up to Francistown. On the way up a part fell out of the bus and we had to stop on the side of the road for a little while for the driver to "fix" the problem. It's always an adventure in Botswana. Check out some pictures from the rally!

Here Neo, me, and Onalenna enjoy our bus ride.


The younger youth get ready for the recreation competition! The blue t-shirt that two of the girls are wearing is the t-shirt for the retreat. It says O tsogile! (or He is risen!)
Check out Neo's team spirit! She won an award for most spirit during the recreational competition!
Here our youth present a musical item at the youth rally.
Here is a picture of Kelly and Shawna and me on the hill overlooking Francistown.

Somerset Baptist!

At the beginning of August we had an American volunteer team from Kelly's home church, Somerset Baptist. They did some leadership training with the youth and taught the youth how to hold no-cost youth outreach events. They also put on a VBS for the kids with the help of our youth. Here's some pictures from their time in Botswana.

By the third day there were about 150 kids at the VBS. Here they are watching a skit.
This is our Pastor Alceir.

Here is a picture of the American team and some of the youth that helped with the events of the week!
This is me and Bebeto's younger brother Kago. Isn't he cute?

Prayer Requests!

Pray for Crystal as she in Johannesburg dealing with medical stuff. Her e.coli has come back! Pray that the doctors she sees would be able to figure out how to best treat her! Pray that she would be able to return to Botswana soon so she can spend her last month in Palapye instead of the hospital!

Pray for the American team from Somerset Baptist Church that is going to be ministering in Palapye this week!

Pray for the youth as they work out final arrangements (funds and transport) for attending the national youth rally next week. Pray that God would speak to each of them during the rally.

Random Pictures...

Botswana is famous for their baskets! Here is Shawna posing in the basket shop.


On the way home we stopped at missionary Brian Beadle's house for lunch. We got to pose with his infamous hand chair.

Upon arrival home I found this large cow leg just chilling in our yard.

Maun and the Okavango Delta!

Last week we visited missionaries Jeff and Staci Powers in Maun, Botswana. We we able to talk with the church in Maun about Operation HIV and how they can start an HIV/AIDS outreach ministry in their church. Afterwards, we went camping with the Powers atMoremi in the Okavango Delta. Here's some pictures from our trip!

We get ready to speak at Maun Baptist.

After arriving in Moremi and setting up camp, we are ready to head out on our first game drive.

Here's the Delta.

Check out these animals...
This is a group of male impalas that were having fun fighting each other. We saw one get a nice poke in the butt from another one's antler.


This zebra has obviously been in a fight with something that left it's butt scarred.
Jeff chased down this young male lion. He was in a hurry somewhere and we tried to follow. They just don't make enough roads in the game park!
I can't remember what kind of bird this is (Sufjan would be disappointed), but I thought it looked cool.
This crocodile was just sitting and sunning. These hippos were also lazy and enjoying the sun.

Here we are on a game drive.

To enter the park from the North you have to drive over the water on this rickety log bridge!

We had a lot of fun camping and seeing animals (probably for the last time) and hanging out with the Powers!

Providence Volunteer Team!

In July we were blessed with opportunity to have an American team from Providence Baptist Church in Raleigh, North Carolina come and serve in Palapye. This was probably the largest group of white people Palapye has ever seen! The team did a variety of different things while they were here... Check out some of the highlights.

The team held VBS at 2 different locations in Palapye. Over 500 kids came and heard the message of Jesus Christ.

The team also got to work with some of the kids from our church. Bebeto took a special liking to David.

They were able to speak to youth about abstinence. Several team members participated in an assembly at a private school and they were also able to do an abstinence presentation at the church. Here the girls at the church participate in discussion groups.

The youth are raising money to go the annual youth rally, so they held a talent show fund raiser while the team was here. For the last several months my friends Gofaone and Neo have been writing their own songs and we've been recording them on my computer so the girls can make a CD. They sang on of their songs in public for the first time at the talent show! I was so proud!

The team also did some service projects like picking up trash and cutting firewood and they prayerwalked and visited families in their homes. We kept everyone busy that week!

The Palapye youth had so much fun helping out with the team! To thank them for all their hard work the team took the guys out for ice cream and had a spa time with the girls. It was fun to watch these girls get pampered like they never have been before...(some of them were a little wary of the massages...haha)

Also that week we had the unique opportunity to learn how to traditional dance. Our friends Refilwe and Tshepiso tried to teach us how to drop it like it's hot, traditional style. Most of you know that I can't dance at all...but check out me trying.

After ministry in Palapye, we were fortunate to be able to join the team in South Africa for some vacation time... I got to go on a water slide for the first time in years!

We had a lot of fun with Providence! Thanks for all your help, guys!

Baby!

A couple of months ago a girl from our church, Dineo, had a baby boy. Here I am holding the baby Tumelo.