Botswana Bulletin – Thirty Fifth Edition
“The only guarantee, is change”
“The only guarantee, is change”
January 14, 2009
Greetings to all from a very dark and
cloudy Gaborone, Botswana! Rapula must
be back in town because the clouds have gathered and the thunder has begun so
I’m assuming we will be getting “Pula” (Pula is Setswana for rain, my Setswana
name “Rapula” means Mr. Rain) any minute now.
It’s a welcome relief. About a
week ago temperatures were soaring into the high 30’s which is definitely not
my cup of tea. One thing is for sure, you
definitely know when it’s raining in Botswana.
We never seem to get what we would consider back home as “light showers”
or “drizzle” or whatever you call it.
I've heard it said that the Batswana have 2 words for
rain. I can’t remember the words but
directly translated it’s something like “Male Rain” and “Female Rain”. Apparently male rain is rain that seems to be
of the garden variety here, hard and fast.
On the other hand, female rain would be Botswana’s equivalent to a light
shower which in my time here has rarely happened. What boggles my mind is how hard it is to determine whether it will rain or not. The storm
clouds will appear, the wind will pick up, the temperature will drop, thunder
will crash, and not one drop of rain will fall.
However, it likely meant that rain fell somewhere in town. Extremely isolated showers are a common
occurrence here in Botswana. So as
plausible as it looks right now no rain may actually fall. Oh well, at least it’s nice and cool!
Well, enough about the weather it’s high
time I given you all a little update on what’s been happening here in
Botswana. It’s hard to believe it’s been
3 months since I’ve written you.
Although, now that I think about it, a ton of stuff has happened since I
last wrote to you so I shouldn’t be surprised by how much time has passed. Perhaps it’s best if I just get right into it
before this letter becomes a novel.
As usual a number of comings and goings have happened since I last wrote you. A new
couple, Matt and Jessica Cressman have come to work for Flying Mission
Services. Matt is a Pilot/Mechanic which
is a welcome relief since we are in desperate need of airplane mechanics these
days. Jessica has been helping out with
HR in the Flying Mission office, something we have also been in need of. We had a new short-termer arrive from the US,
Adam Darlington. He is a super good
rugby player and came to take part in some sports ministries here. He was scheduled to be here 9 months, but due
to issues at home he’s heading back early.
He hopes to one day return to Botswana once things have been sorted out
back home. Monica Kribs, a former
co-worker of mine here at the Flying Mission office, returned to Botswana to
volunteer and help out with the ministries in Old Naledi. Old Naledi is the poorer area of Gaborone,
what some may call “the ghetto”. Monica
did a lovely job taking part there, especially with the orphan kids at the
Tlamelo project. Monica left in December
but I’m thinking this will likely not be the last time we see her here in
Botswana.
We lost a few key roles here in Flying
Mission over the past few months. Bob
Patterson, one of the co-directors of Flying Mission Services returned to the
US to help get Flying Mission USA going.
Luke Saffarek, my former roommate and the Short Term Coordinator for
Flying Mission left for Mauritius to do discipleship training with a local
church. Gerhard Venter, our Chief
Finance Officer took a position with SIM in Cape Town, South Africa. Peter and Joanna Shaw (along with their 3
children) returned to Australia after serving 2 years with Flying Mission. Peter was heavily involved in discipleship
and helped create a bible study course which has been used by some of our
abstinence clubs as well as other groups.
The Shaw family attended the same church as me (Open Baptist Church
G-West) and it was cool to see how the whole family was involved in the
ministries of the church, from preaching to powerpoint, from bible studies to
Sunday school lessons. One of my
favourite things about being a missionary is having the chance to meet great
people from all over the world. As much
as I’ll miss all these people it was great to have met them and to have had a
chance to minster together with them.
Speaking of farewells, November marked one
of the saddest months in Flying Mission history. A new couple here with Flying Mission, Keith
and Cheryl Kowalski had to say good-bye to their 18 month old son
Johnathon. Tragically, Johnathon managed
to wander off alone and ended up falling into their swimming pool and drowning. Johnathon was rushed to the hospital but
passed away the next morning. The
funeral was held at Open Baptist Church G-West, which is where the Kowalski’s
have been attending. As heart wrenching
as it must have been, both Keith and Cheryl decided to make the funeral a
celebration of Johnathon’s life and filled the
funeral will songs of worship.
One of the songs we sang at the funeral was “Blessed Be Your Name”. Part of the lyrics of that song are, “Blessed
be your name, on the road marked with suffering, though there is pain in the
offering, blessed be your name. You give
and take away, you give and take away, my heart will choose to say, Lord,
blessed be your name.” It was awesome to
see a couple live out the words to that song.
In the midst of their greatest loss they were able to have hope and
declare the goodness of God. It was a
powerful testimony.
With the change of the year comes another
big change in my own life. In July I
will be returning to Canada to take a 2 year course on IT (Information
Technology) Management at NAIT (Northern Alberta Institute of Technology) in
Edmonton, Alberta. The reasons for taking
this course will be to learn management skills to enable me to manage an IT
team on the mission field. I’m not sure
where or when I will be able to return to the mission field but the hope is one
day I will return. So, until the way
becomes clear, July will be my last month in Botswana. Botswana has been like a second home to me
for over 3 years and I hope one day I’ll be able to return. The second year of the course is a work
experience year meaning I will get a job with a company or organization and do
on the job training. It’s possible that
I could do the work experience portion of this course with SIM or perhaps even
Flying Mission. This will likely be a
question that won’t be answered until next year. I’m not sure of the exact requirements of the
work experience so this will have to be discussed with NAIT personnel. I’ll be updating you on this new development
as information becomes available. Please
pray for Flying Mission as they seek a new System Administrator (my current job
title) to fill in the gap I’ll be leaving.
Please don’t read anything into this
decision. I’m not leaving because I hate
Botswana or Flying Mission or anything like that. This decision came about in a very unexpected
way. This past year has been a challenge
for me. Richard Wheatley, Flying
Mission’s IT Manager, decided to move to Zambia to build an IT infrastructure
for our mission base up there. When he
left it was up to me to keep things running here in Botswana. For the most part things have worked well but
I’ll admit I’ve felt a bit inadequate at times.
I talked to Richard about this and we both agreed I could use some
training. I looked at training options
in Botswana and South Africa and didn’t really find anything that suited my
needs. It was then that Richard
recommended I look for some management training. At first I had been mainly concerned in
taking courses which would increase my technical skills so Richard’s
recommendation caught me a bit of guard.
I had to admit though, it sounded like a great idea. With this new direction I wasn’t sure exactly
where to look for training. I decided I
would start looking at some possible bible school courses which teach
leadership. I didn’t find much. The courses revolved more around pastoral
leadership which wasn’t exactly what I was looking for. For some reason (I believe it was God’s
leading) I decided to look at the school I went to for my computer training,
NAIT. As it turns out NAIT had the
perfect course which met both the technical and the managerial training we were
looking for. Both Richard and John
Lubbe, the CEO of Flying Mission agreed it was a great opportunity so I decided
I would go for it. I love doing mission
work and hope to be able to relate these new skills I’ll learn back onto the
mission field. As I’ve already mentioned,
exactly where I will go or when I’ll leave is still uncertain, but I’m excited
to see what the Lord has in store for me!
So, how can I possibly top that little
tidbit of news?! Well, I’m not even
gonna try. Did anyone notice that I
referred to Luke Saffarek as my former roommate? Yep, when Luke left I was in jeopardy of
having my bills and rent double. Yikes! Thankfully there was another single guy
within Flying Mission that came to the rescue.
His name is Ryan Cole and he is a young pilot working with Flying
Mission Service (FMS). Ryan moved in
with me in November but his days appear to be numbered as it’s beginning to
look like he’s going to be moving to Maun (northern Botswana) to help with our
operations up there. This isn’t a major
concern as it appears a new pilot is coming to Botswana soon who will likely
take Ryan’s place. So, it looks like it
will be musical roommates this year!
In December I had a chance to attend my
first “Bogadi” ceremony. The Bogadi is a
traditional ceremony where the price for a new bride is paid. I was asked to be the official “cameraman”
for the ceremony which turned out to be a real treat. Early in the morning the groom comes to the
house with the cattle that the family of the bride has asked for. Once this occurs the family of the groom
enters the house of the brides family.
This is done with lots of shouting, singing and dancing. Once the families have been seated the
“theatre” commences. Basically this is
when the bride price is negotiated and agreed upon. Of course this has already been decided
elsewhere by the uncles of the two families so it’s more of a drama
than anything. Once the decision has
been made more shouting and singing and dancing occur. Then things conclude with a meal.
Some of you may be wondering about the
bride prices. Bride prices are
negotiable but from what I hear a typical price these days is 8 cows for an
“unblemished bride” (meaning the bride is still a virgin). Weddings can be a devastating financial
burden for the husband and his family.
I’ve heard it said that once all is said and done a man could spend up
to P40, 000 – P50, 000 ($6000-$8000 CDN) to get married. I don’t know of any local man here in
Botswana that could easily pay for something like that and yet marriages happen
all the time. It’s anyone’s guess where
the money comes from.
Speaking of weddings we had a Flying
Mission wedding recently. The oldest
daughter to John (the CEO of Flying Mission) and Yvonne Lubbe, Nathania Lubbe,
married TJ Mvungama at a beautiful ceremony in the luxurious Grand Palm Hotel. It was quite a separation from the typical
weddings I attend. Usually I’m spending
my day in the hot sand in a neighbouring village, not enjoying an air
conditioned ballroom! I’ll admit, it was
hard to complain and a lovely time was had by all.
Some of you may be wondering what I did
during the Christmas holidays. Well,
this year I had the chance to travel with some good friends to Cape Town, South
Africa. It is such a lovely city! I went with some “locals”, Benny and Marlain
Londt, which was great because they knew so much about the area and were
excellent hosts. It was great to be with
a family that embraced me as one of their own, especially during such a family
oriented time as Christmas. Some of the
highlights of the trip were “Christmas Karaoke”, Cape Point, climbing Table
Mountain and attending my first cricket match.
Fortunately, it wasn’t good bye after the holidays as some of Benny and
Marlian’s relatives will be coming up to Botswana for a visit before I leave. Now I’ll have a chance to play host!
Unfortunately, after returning from a
magnificent 2 week holiday I came home to find thieves had once again decided
to visit my house. Our back door and 2
interior doors had been broken and my roommates laptop was missing. Fortunately, most of my things weren’t in the
house (I have been house sitting for some friends from church so my things were
there) and I didn’t end up losing anything.
Since the alarm didn’t seem to scare off the thieves (we found out the
alarm had been activated at 8pm on January 2nd) we felt it was in
our best interest to increase our security at the house. I talked with a friend of mine from Zimbabwe
called “Delani”. Delani has done some
odd jobs for me around the house and I thought perhaps he knew how to make some
steel burglar doors to put in front of our front and back doors. He came with a friend of his and they were
able to build us some nice security doors for our house. I’ve called our new security doors “Delani
doors” much to the delight of Delani and his friend. I'm sure the money I gave Delani was greatly appreciated as he had spent most of his money
during the holidays while back home in Zimbabwe.
Well, with that said I think I’ve come to
the end of this letter. I apologize for
keeping some of you on the edge of your seats for so long. Many of you have been asking where I was so
obviously too much time has passed since my last update. I’ll try to keep you better informed in the
future.
As usual, I don’t want to end any prayer
letter without prayer requests. Here
they are in no particular order:
1)
Break-in Part 2 – Praise that nobody was hurt
and that Ryan had insurance for his laptop.
Praise as well for Delani and his friend for building new security doors
for the house. Pray that God would continue
to protect us and our neighbours as thieves continue to visit our
neighbourhood.
2)
Rain – We’ve been blessed with
good amounts of rain lately. Pray that
the rain would continue so the farmers will be blessed with a good harvest this
year.
3)
Personnel – Pray that Flying
Mission would be able to find suitable people to replace those that have
left. This includes a replacement for me
as I will now be leaving in July.
4)
Course – Praise for the
opportunity to take some management training.
Pray that the training would better enable me for IT mission work in the
future.
5)
Kowalski Family – Continue to
pray for the Kowalski family as I’m sure the loss of their son, Johnathon, will
be felt for some time.
6)
New Roommates – Praise that the
Lord has provided me with roommates preventing my rent and utility bills from
doubling in size.
7)
Christmas Break – Praise that
the Lord kept me safe during the long trip to Cape Town. Praise for the rest and relaxation I was able
to enjoy during the holidays.
Thank you again for all your prayers and
financial support. If it were not for
such a supportive group of people I would have not been able to last these 3+
years here in Botswana. Belated holiday
wishes and may God bless you in the new year!
Peace and prayers,
Graham “Rapula” Crawford <><
For more info on SIM Canada visit: www.sim.ca
For more info on the Flying Mission visit: www.flyingmission.org
No comments:
Post a Comment