Botswana Bulletin – Thirty Fourth Edition
“Ups And Downs”
“Ups And Downs”
October 15, 2008
Greetings from the desert! With temperatures now approaching the high
30’s on a daily basis I think it’s safe to say that summer has officially
hit. As predicted the complaints about
the heat have already begun. I was
talking with a Motswana woman today who works in the same building as me and
her reaction to the 36 ̊C heat was “Go molelo!” which literally means “It’s
fire!” Ironically enough, this isn’t
very far from the truth. At present
there are a number of fires blazing in northern of Botswana. This is affecting farmers, wildlife and in
some case even threatening some historical sites. Oh, how we desperately need the rains to
come! Please pray that God would bring
rains, especially in northern Botswana to extinguish the fires up there.
I was looking on my calendar today and
began to think, where has the time gone?
It’s already been over two months since my last prayer letter. There is a very good reason as to why I've been delayed which I will explain later. For now leet me just summarize by saying there
will be plenty of things to talk about in this edition. So, without further ado, here is the latest
from Botswana, Africa.
I guess I’ll start by talking about the
trip I took to Namibia in August. I
mentioned in my last letter I had some company on the trip. Nicola Hofmann (Germany) and Debi Urech (Switzerland)
joined me as we traveled all the way to the Atlantic coast stopping in Windhoek
and then staying for the majority of the trip in the coastal town of
Swakopmund. The short story is it was a
great trip and I had alot of fun. One
major highlight would be (get ready for it) my first official skydive. ???
Yep, you read that right. I went
skydiving! To belittle it slightly it
was what they call a “tandem” jump. What
that means is instead of skydiving alone you jump with a professional skydiver who does important stuff like make sure your parachute opens and that
you land where you’re supposed to. For
those who may want to know the details, I jumped out of the plane at 10,000 ft
and enjoyed a 30 second free fall. After
that, the skydiver pulled the chute and I just sat back and enjoyed the
view. Shortly after, we performed a
textbook landing of what not to do. All
I know is when we landed, I somehow ended up on my rear end instead of on my
feet. For those who want a good laugh, I
have a dvd copy of the riveting event.
So be sure to ask me about it when I return to Canada next year.
Other highlights were things such as
sandboarding, quad biking in the dunes, riding a camel, eating fresh live
oysters in Walvis Bay and petting a seal.
Let’s just say each day was a new adventure. I hope to one day get my act together and
post some of the pictures on my picture gallery. I’ll let you know when that happens.
So after all that fun I was hoping to just
head home and relax a bit before my family arrived. Unfortunately, that didn’t happen. The next night after arriving home from
Namibia, my roommate (Luke) and I headed out for a farewell dinner with a few
friends (the Swiss gal Debi was leaving the next day). After dinner some of us decided to head off
to play some pool but Luke was tired so he decided to head home. When he got home a disturbing scene was there
waiting for him.
When we left for dinner that night I was
the last one out and had forgotten to set the house alarm. DOH!
To be honest this has happened a few times in the past to both Luke and
I. Unfortunately, this time somebody
capitalized on my mistake. Someone had
taken a crowbar to our front door and literally broke a chunk out of it. We always lock a middle door inside the house
to slow thieves down but their crowbar made quick work of that as well. Once inside our rooms they took our laptops,
my ipod and Luke’s really nice camera. A
few other things were missing but not of any value. So upon finding this out Luke called me and
together we filled out a report with the local police.
So with that said some of you might have
asked, “Why didn’t you tell us!” Well,
without my laptop it was difficult to do that.
My laptop was both my personal and work computer. Luckily, I had done a backup to an external
hard drive just before leaving for Namibia so most of my data was intact. I did lose some of my e-mail contact database
but luckily I had some mail server logs of a recent prayer letter I had sent logging
all the e-mails addresses I had sent my letter to. From that I was able to fill in the blanks in
my database. It was a little
embarrassing though. There were a few
e-mail addresses I couldn’t match to people I knew. So in an attempt to find out I sent a few
e-mails out asking, “Sorry, but who are you?”
Luckily they were all people I knew and were gracious enough to
understand my predicament. Thanks for
going easy on me guys! J
So with my ipod and laptop stolen you think
all would be lost, right? Wrong! What happened next was so cool! This may sound weird but the timing of our
break-in couldn’t have been better.
Within 2 weeks my parents and my brother were due to arrive in Botswana. Laptops here in Botswana are more expensive
so it would save me alot of money to have one come from Canada. Had the break-in happened 2 weeks later I
would have been forced to buy one locally.
God is good! When my parents went
to get a laptop for me at the store my mother explained what had happened to me
and why she was buying one. When the salesman
heard the story he was so touched that he decided to lower the price of the
laptop by $400! Wow! Also, when my brother-in-law (David) heard
about my break-in he realized that he had an old ipod in his house that he
wasn’t using and decided he’d give it to me.
So when my parents came to Botswana, there was an ipod for me! Thanks Dave!
I had planned to pay for the laptop with some savings my grandmother had
given me earlier in the year. She turned
90 this year and wanted to do something nice for her grandchildren so she gave
us each some money for our savings accounts.
Well, my parents thought about it and decided it would be best if they
gave me the laptop as a birthday/Christmas present since I’d be in Botswana for
both of those events. So, within two
weeks a laptop and an ipod had re-appeared in my room. Praise the Lord!
And it wasn’t just me who was blessed. A fellow Flying Mission co-worker was leaving
this month and wanted to sell his laptop before he went. When he heard about what happened to Luke he
decided to sell it to him for a really low price. So without spending much Luke was able to
replace his laptop. Also, a mutual
friend to both me and Luke had just replaced his old camera with a digital one. When he heard Luke had lost his nice film
camera he decided to give Luke his old camera.
Luke actually thinks the camera he has now is even better than the
one he had. So, does God sometimes take
things away from you to give you something better? It sure seemed to be the case in this
instance. God truly does take care of
his sheep.
So after having a great time in Namibia, to
having a tough 2 weeks dealing with the break-in, the roller coaster ride of
emotions continued when my family arrived in Botswana on September 9th. My family stayed in Botswana for 10 days and
then headed back to Canada via London, England.
While they were here we did quite a variety of things. Firstly they were able to meet some of the
people I work with in the Flying Mission.
They had a chance to see where I live, where I work and where we keep
our planes. We had a day out in Jwaneng
where they saw one of the largest diamond mines in the world. They had a chance to meet some of my friends
and experience an African “braai” (BBQ).
They were able to attend my local church and meet some of the elders as
well as some of my friends in the congregation.
They got to do some local shopping in the markets as well as take in
some of the history of the country at the 3 “Dikgosi” (Chiefs) monument. After all that we took some time to go out in
the bush and see some of the wildlife in Mokolodi Game Park and Madikwe Game
Reserve. So considering all that
happened in 10 days, I think we did pretty good! I felt really blessed to have my family
around and to be able to show them the country that I’ve been living in for 3
years. Next time my sister and her
family will have to come out!
Speaking of my sister she had a baby girl
(Hannah) at the end of August so I’m an uncle x 2 now. Having a niece is a big deal in Botswana
culture. Typically it is the uncle who
arranges the marriage of his niece. I’m
sure Hannah is grateful that this won’t be the case for her! J
So after my family left, life returned to normal for the most part. One thing I was really
looking forward to in October was something called the “Tsoga Festival”. I believe I talked about it in my last
letter, but basically the Tsoga Festival was an evangelistic outreach event
planned by my mother church (Open Baptist Church) and led by a fellow Canadian
Christian musician Sam Rowland. The band
I play drums for , “Audience Of One”, opened and closed the night for Sam. All in all the event was a great
success. All who came were blessed to
have been there. I didn’t get exact
numbers from OBC’s pastor but he said between 25-30 people came to Christ that
night. Praise the Lord! OBC is hoping to do a similar event next
year.
Last weekend was Canadian thanksgiving so a
few of us fellow Canadians gathered to attempt a thanksgiving dinner. There wasn’t any turkey to be had, but we had
a nice big chicken, stuffing, mashed potatoes and my favourite, pumpkin
pie! Of course one of the main things we
talked about was the upcoming Canadian election. I looked online today and saw that, although
some ground was taken, we still have a minority government. I was glad to see Harper win, but still not
sure what to make of this minority government.
Who knows, perhaps this will force some of the parties to play nicer
together. I guess we’ll just have to
wait and see.
Well, I see that this letter is starting to
get long so I think I better close. I
didn’t mention many prayer requests during the letter so I’ll do that now. Here they are in random order:
1)
Rain – Please pray for rain. Fires are blazing in northern Botswana so
rain would be of great help right now.
2)
Praise – Praise the Lord for
the ways in which he has provided for Luke and I after our break-in.
3)
More praise – Praise the Lord
for the time I was able to spend in Namibia and with my family when they were
here visiting last month
4)
Direction – Please continue to
pray for me as I sort out what God is asking of me. I feel he wants me more involved in
evangelistic activities. Pray for
patience during this process.
5)
Stress – Work has been very
busy lately. Pray that I would cope with
the stress of getting things accomplished for the mission.
I want to take the time to thank each and
every person who makes a difference in my life.
Thank you for your prayers. Thank
you for your e-mails/letters/packages. Thank you for your financial
support. Thank you for your
friendship. Thanks to all for the
different ways in which you have blessed me through the years. God bless you!
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
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