Botswana Bulletin – Fourth Edition

Botswana Bulletin – Fourth Edition

“Ho, ho, ho, where’d the snow go?”

January 3, 2005

Greetings again from Gaborone, Botswana!  Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!  I hope you all enjoyed the holidays and were reminded of the gift of Jesus Christ.  I’m sure many of you also enjoyed time with family as Christmas is always a great time to bring the whole family together.  Unfortunately, I am not able to be with my family this year but I have been blessed this year by having a wonderful Christmas with the “Flying Mission family”. 

December 3^rd marked the day of the annual Flying Mission Christmas Party.  It was a great time had by all.  Our hosts, the Workman’s, have a lovely home (swimming pool included) and did an excellent job at making it “feel” like Christmas with all the decorations.  I will admit though, being told to bring your bathing suit to a Christmas party quickly brought me back to the reality that things are a lot different over here.

One really cool opportunity I had during the month of December was to play the drums at a worship service at our sister OBC (Open Baptist Church) church here in Gaborone.  The pastor was wanting to have a “worldwide worship service”.  Basically what he did was include people from all over the world into one big worship band.  We had people from Botswana, Zimbabwe, Canada, USA, England, and others all together to worship God.  It was a really great evening and I had a chance to learn some new African songs written in some of the different African languages (Zulu being one).  It’s beautiful to see people from different nations get together to worship God like that.  One of the people in the group made a profound statement by saying “This is what heavens going to be like.” 

The last week before Christmas was a busy one as many of us were trying to finish up  some of our bigger projects before the holidays.  The Flying Mission office closed on Christmas Eve and will be closed until tomorrow (January 4^th) so we’re getting some time off to relax and enjoy the holidays.  One of the things that we wanted to have done before the office closed was the inserts for our annual bible distribution.  The Flying Mission has every year, without fail, passed out bibles at the local hospital here in Gaborone.  We had over 500 bibles donated this year and in each bible we glued a page in that explains what the bible is, where a good place is to start reading and how to become a Christian.  Well, guess who was nominated to help glue inserts into bibles?  Yep, me!  As tedious as the task was it was actually really fun.  Me and 3 other short termers were given the task to do and we had a lot of fun talking about our first bibles and our experiences giving bibles to others.  I was really looking forward to handing the bibles out at the hospital (we did it on December 27^th).  It just seemed like a great thing to do for the people who are suffering there.  We had bibles translated into Setswana (the local language here in Botswana), Setswana children’s bibles as well as English bibles so we were very blessed to be able to give a bible specifically suited for each individual person.  It was great seeing the reactions of the patients when they received the bibles.  Unfortunately, there was one thing that disappointed me.  People from off the street were noticing that we were handing out bibles for free and came to beg for a bible.  Now to some this may sound like a good thing but it’s always tough to judge a persons motives.  Some would just want the bible so that they can sell it for money.  Others just love the idea of receiving something for free.  It was like they felt that we owed them a bible.  If someone else is getting a bible why can’t I get one?  It was a very selfish attitude to witness considering we were giving bibles to people who may not live long enough to read it.  I was even surprised by the way people asked for bibles.  It wasn’t with an attitude of kindness, it was just, “Give me a bible.”  We did give some bibles to some of the nurses and some of the other “hospital guests” after we had finished with the patients and I hope that these people will read them and use them.  I’ve never had that feeling before where I didn’t want to give a person a bible!  It was very strange.

On Christmas Eve I was able to do something I haven’t done in a long time….go carolling!  It was kind of strange carolling with the bright sun beating down on you (we started at around 5:30PM, way before sunset) but we had a great time.  It was cool to see how excited the Batswana would get when you started singing.  We went to sing for one of the families that are a part of the Flying Mission and while we were singing their neighbours came over to listen to us.  It was great the response we got from people.

On Christmas day I was invited to Rod & Tiffany Macleod’s house.  Rod is our Senior Aviation manager and Tiffany is our finance manager so I had to be on my best behaviour!  We had a great dinner and socialized into the evening.  Once again we had an unusual additive to Christmas dinner that I normally wouldn’t have….watermelon!  It was quite warm on Christmas day so after dinner we went outside and chewed on some watermelon.  How’s that for a new Christmas tradition?

Some of you may be wondering how Christmas differs here as compared to Canada.  Well, as I’ve explained the biggest difference is the weather.  Seeing decorations of Santa in a giant red parka when its 36ºC just doesn’t seem to fit.  The biggest similarity I found was that it’s a very commercial holiday (unfortunately).  The malls were packed and Christmas sales were on all over the place.  I was hoping in a third world country it wouldn’t be like that but it appears you can’t escape that even in Africa.

New Years Eve was great this year.  Me and my 3 German friends (Michael, Benjamin & Mario) climbed up Kgale Hill to watch the fireworks.  For those who don’t know Kgale Hill is a large hill on the south side of Gaborone and is a very popular spot to go for a hike.  Unfortunately, it’s also a spot where many people have been mugged!  Travelling with a pack of 4 guys seemed safe enough though so we decided to risk the journey.  I realised after about 30 minutes of hiking that I’m not in as good a shape as I once was!  It is quite a steep climb so by the time we got to the top I was ready for a rest (it only took about an hour).  It was beautiful up on the hill at night.  A thunderstorm was occurring on the other side of town so watching the lightning was really exciting.  When the wind started to kick up and the lightning appeared to be getting closer I’ll admit I was beginning to wonder if we shouldn’t climb back down.  We decided to climb down a short ways and wait out the storm.  For those who think I’m crazy for being on top of a large hill during a lightning storm doesn’t understand Botswana weather.  There have been plenty of times during my stay here that lightning and wind have rolled into town and not one single drop of rain has fallen.  The storms here in Botswana seem to be very isolated so honestly I felt that the storm was never going to reach us.  And luckily for us, it didn’t!  So we climbed back up to the top of the hill and counted down 2005 from the top of Kgale Hill.

Before this letter gets too long (again) I think I’ll close it with some prayer requests:

- Pray for those who received bibles during our bible distribution.  We are praying that God’s Word will really move in the hospital and bring comfort to the patients.

- Pray for me as I seek to grow spiritually.  The preaching here on Sunday mornings has been less than I was used to receiving in Canada.  I’ve been reading books and studying the bible on my own but it can sometimes be tough on your own.  I have joined a small group study with some of the other missionaries and it has been great having there input.  Pray that I would continue to grow through these avenues.

- Pray for the Flying Mission itself as we are losing more people this year.  Pray that God would send people to help in the work of the Flying Mission.

- Please pray for my drivers license which seems to have been lost in the mail.  I renewed my Alberta drivers licence before I left for Botswana but was unable to receive it before I left.  My mother mailed it to me around the end of November and it still hasn’t arrived.  I was hoping to be able to start using a Flying Mission vehicle this year so I’ll be more mobile.  Pray that the license would arrive or that things will work out and I’ll be able to get a new one.

Once again I thank you all for the support you have given to me both prayerfully and financially.  Every day feels like Christmas when you know there are people out there praying for you.  Thank you so much.

Thanks again for your support and prayers!  Happy holidays everyone and God Bless!

Peace and prayers,                              

                                                                                             

Graham Crawford <><