Botswana Bulletin – Thirty Third Edition
“Is It Summer Yet?”
August 7, 2008
Greetings one and all from an increasingly
warmer Gaborone, Botswana! Yes, it
appears winter is finally over and soon all will be complaining about how hot
it is instead of how cold it is. That’s
one thing I’ve noticed here in Botswana. People are always saying it’s either too hot
or too cold. We never seem to be able to
have a day where the temperature is just perfect. Perhaps it’s because the weather is trying to
teach us something about life. We never
seem to be content in life. We’re too
busy, too lazy, too lonely, too bothered.
Perhaps that is why the Holy Spirit led the apostle Paul to write in
Phillipians 4:12, “I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to
have plenty. I have learned the secret
of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry,
whether living in plenty or in want.”
Are you wondering what Paul’s secret of contentment is? Just read the next verse. “I can do everything through him who gives me
strength.” Ah, that truly is the
secret. So whether cold or hot, rich or
poor, Botswana or Canada, if our strength is found in God, who NEVER changes,
we can be truly content. If my happiness
was governed by how much money I had, or how lovely the weather was, wow, I
think I’d be a very miserable man! What
a blessing it is to know God.
Wow!
I wasn’t planning to start off with a sermon but I guess it’s too late
now. J Either way I hope it
encouraged you. Ok, let me get back on
track and give you some brief updates on how things have been going here in
Botswana.
There has been a lot of comings and goings
during the last 2 months. I believe I’ve
mentioned this in previous e-mails but I’ll mention it again in case I
didn’t. The pastor of Open Baptist
Church G-West, the church I have been attending here in Botswana, returned to
the United States back in June. Jonathon
Larson had led the church for a number of years, at first as an advisor and
then later as our pastor, and has left a massive hole in leadership both
spiritually and practically. However,
Jonathon did his work well and helped build up a group of elders to help lead
the church in his absence. It has been a
tough transition and not without its ups and downs, but the church has been
managing to get by. We are now looking
to the future and anticipating the Lord will provide another pastor for us
soon. Please pray for the existing
leadership that they would be able to handle the burdens of leading the church
and that a new pastor would be given to us in the near future.
As most of you already know I’ve been
staying in a 3 bedroom house with a fellow Canadian, Luke Saffarek. Luke is in charge of our short term program
and helps plug new people into the different ministries that Flying Mission is
a part of. He recently had a chance to
travel back to Canada to attend his brother’s wedding which gave me a chance to
have the house to myself. Sometimes we
don’t realize what we need but (and no offense to Luke, he’s a great roommate)
it was good to have some time to myself.
There has been something bothering me a bit lately and I wasn’t really
able to unpackage it fully until I had some time to myself. What I managed to find out is that I’ve been
bothered by the lack of direct evangelism in my own life. When I think of the entire reason for
becoming a missionary I think back to the fact that I wanted to be involved in
expanding the kingdom of God. My role
with Flying Mission does this to a certain extent but I’m feeling a bit removed
from the ministries that directly relate to evangelism. I’m not exactly sure what God is asking of me
at this time. Perhaps it’s a conviction
to be doing evangelism more in my own personal life. I’m not sure.
It’s hard to explain because I’m not exactly sure what it means
myself. I know that’s not much to go on
but I just want to ask for prayer that I sort out what God is trying to tell
me. I’ve talked with my parents and some
friends about it but I would appreciate your prayers as well. Perhaps God is preparing me for something
new!
Flying Mission was blessed to have quite a
number of short term volunteers this year.
Last month we said “Auf Weidersein” (Good Bye in German) to Stefan and
Christian, two short term volunteers from Germany. Both Stefan and Christian brought unique
spiritual gifts and we’re nice enough to share and use them while here in
Botswana. Thank you very much gentleman
for coming and serving so well here at the Flying Mission! We now have the difficult task of saying
farewell to two more of our short termers.
Nicola (Germany) and Debbie (Switzerland) will be leaving at the end of
the month to return home. Nicola is a
trained nurse and used her skills masterfully in the Flying Mission Care
Ministries. Debbie came as a more
generalized short termer but with plans to become a social worker back in
Switzerland she was very willing to “get her hands dirty” in the ministry. As kind of a farewell to these wonderful
ladies I will be joining them on a trip to Namibia in about a week and a half
(Aug 17-26). I feel privileged to have
known both these girls and to have a chance to spend some time with them before
they go.
One of the ramifications of Pastor Jonathon
Larson leaving Botswana is that we lost our “Worship Coordinator” as well. Jonathon would organize the songs, the order
of service as well as play the guitar for our Sunday gatherings. So as you can imagine, when he left we felt a
little bit lost. Fortunately, one of our
elders, Peter Shaw, was put in charge of organizing the worship of our church
and decided to allocate a roster of worship coordinators to help organize the
practices and Sunday services. And guess
who he picked to be one of the worship coordinators? Yep, me!
So I’ve been struggling through exactly how to lead a worship team as
a drummer. It’s been an interesting
challenges and I’ll admit I’ve been frustrated at times, but God has given me a
gracious bunch to work with. Luckily,
nobody seems to be expecting perfection from me so in a way it’s been a good
work environment. Please pray for me and
the other worship coordinators as most of us have never lead a music practice
and are by some standards relatively unskilled at doing it. I even did the unthinkable one Sunday and put
the drumsticks down and switched them for a mic. I think the last time I sang on stage at a
church was 15 years ago. So yah, there
was a little rust on the vocal chords that’s for sure! Anyway, please pray that the coordination of
the worship would go well and that the church would be blessed by our efforts.
Last month I had the opportunity to visit
one of the mines here in Botswana. I’ve
told many people that Botswana’s main source of income comes from diamonds, yet
after almost 4 years I’d never seen where they come from! So one of our short termers who I mentioned
earlier (Debbie) organized a tour of the Jwaneng mine which is about 150kms
west of Gaborone. The mine reminded me a
lot of my hometown, Fort McMurray, AB.
The only difference being in Fort McMurray the large trucks haul sand
filled with oil instead of diamonds.
Anyway, it was good to finally see one of the mines that are responsible
for the stability and progress of this country.
As the country continues to develop we can pray that the money from the
sale of the diamonds would be used wisely.
Botswana's leaders have been known to be a lot less corrupt than its
neighbouring politicians and you can see it here by the way the leaders
actually care for the people. May God
continue to provide good and honest leaders to ensure that this trend
continues.
Luke and I were surprised one day to have a
visitor from BHC at our door. What is
BHC you ask? BHC stands for the Botswana
Housing Corporation and is an organization that was developed to build
affordable housing for the people of Botswana.
I know they have something similar in Canada but I’m not sure what they
are called. Anyway, the house Luke and I
rent is owned by BHC. They are supposed
to do maintenance on the house once in a while but by the looks of our house it
looks like it had been neglected for a number of years. Anyway, one day this guy from BHC comes to
our door and says he wants to inspect our house because they are going to have
a crew come around and paint.
Awesome! Well, as it turns out it
wasn’t all that awesome. What was
decided is that they would come and paint the walls on our house and fix a few
other minor things. Well thankfully we
did get the walls painted and a few other things fixed. However, it was a total nightmare! They made a real mess in our back yard
slopping paint all over the place. It
took forever for them to do the work (almost a week). Numerous times we had BHC guys come and look
at the work and all of them were unimpressed.
So yah, if I had to do it all over again I think I’d just have
BHC buy the paint and then do the work myself.
Eventually we did get the walls done and the backyard cleaned up so the
house looks a lot nicer now. The real
bonus is it didn’t cost us a dime.
Last month I also had the privilege of
having some time off so I took advantage of it and travelled down to Lesotho to
visit some friends. Lesotho is a small
mountainous country which is completely surrounded by South Africa. It truly is a very beautiful country. I visited my friends Peter and Carrie Koens
whom I met when they were short term volunteers here in Botswana. One of the highlights of the trip was
travelling up the Maluti Mountains to see the Katse Dam. The Katse Dam is the main source of income for
Lesotho as the water is sold and piped to South Africa. It was quite a sight to behold. The other highlight was going on a flight
with MAF (Mission Aviation Fellowship) Lesotho to visit some of the remote
villages in the mountains. I was
surprised by how well I did in the language.
Luckily Sesotho is a lot like Setswana so I really confused a few of the
locals with my ability to speak the language even though I’d only been in
Lesotho for a few days! Thank you very
much Peter and Carrie for hosting me and showing me the beautiful country of
Lesotho. Your welcome back in Botswana
any time!
Although August has just begun I’ve already
have a highlight to report. Those of you
who remember my first letters from Botswana will remember that I spent a short
time in the village of Kumakwane. This
small village has become to me what many local people would describe as my
“home village”. The pastor of the
Christian Assembly church there in Kumakwane (Pastor Cain Malizimba) invited me
to a fundraiser braai (BBQ) last weekend.
They are currently building a new church and are requiring money to buy
cement and gravel for the foundation. I
have had little chance to visit my home village since my return last year which
in this culture is a terrible thing. So,
I was fully expecting to have people upset at me that I hadn’t visited in such
a long time. Fortunately for me, the
opposite was the case. Upon arriving at
the tiny church in Kumakwane (I almost got lost as the road I usually turn on
was blocked by large rocks) I was warmly greeted by MmaThabison and her mother-in-law
Mmashinga. They thought I had left for
good when I went home in 2006 so they were pleasantly surprised to see me. After a long absence I was finally able to
see MmaBella, the lady who gave me my Setswana name, “Rapula”. She was happy to see me and happy to hear
that my Setswana had gotten better. I
was glad I was finally able to see the newlyweds Tops and Thuli. Thuli is the sister of our Flying Mission
receptionist Lilian so I had been planning to attend their wedding upon my
return. As it turned out, I was late
returning so I missed the wedding. Tops
and I had met at a previous wedding in Kumakwane and we had gotten along really
well. One of our Flying Mission staff
members still bugs me about Tops. In
Botswana culture it is acceptable for two men to walk down the street holding
hands. It simply shows a sign of
friendship. Tops proved this to me when
he walked me hand-in-hand to get a Coke at the shops in Kumakwane which was at
least a 15-20 minute walk. As a
westerner who hadn’t fully integrated into life in Botswana, it was extremely
awkward. I don’t have any problems with
it now. So if you ever come and visit me
don’t be offended if I hold your hand for long periods of time. I’m just showing you Botswana culture!
I was also able to visit with my friend
Antony while I was in Kumakwane. Antony
is a real character and I always enjoy taking time to talk with him. I’m just gonna tell you a quick story about
our conversation last weekend and then I’ll close. We had begun eating so a group of us younger
men had formed a circle and we were talking together. One of the guys in our circle, Casper, told
me that my belly was looking a little large and that I should share part of my
plate of food with him. Of course he
said these words loud enough so the whole group could hear. Another part of Botswana culture is that
people are very open about calling you fat where as in the western world you would never
say something like that to someones face (although I guess mentioning it in
private isn’t all that good either).
Anyway, knowing this and knowing a bit about how much you are expected
to respect your mother in Botswana culture, instead of answering his question I
told him a story. I told him that there
are times in a mother’s life where she may have difficulty feeding her
child. For whatever reason the child
will not eat what she gives it. This
brings trouble upon the mother and she may even get emotional about it. In Botswana culture, I’ve heard it said that
if you bring tears to your parent’s eyes you are cursing yourself. So obviously this is a grave offense. The men sitting around me knew this so I
continued in my story. My mother told me that when I was little, eating was never a problem. I happily ate everything my mother gave
me. Sometimes I was so excited to eat
that I didn’t even chew things properly and would choke myself. I carried on enjoying eating into my
adult life because often my mother would call me and would want to make sure I
was eating enough. So you see, the
reason for my large belly is simply because I want to please my mother! At this the whole group laughed. Antony replied with the comment that, “Ah,
Rapula! This man knows how to defend
himself!” There are times when it
definitely pays to know the culture.
Well, with that I think I will close. For those who are still with me thank you for
taking the time to read my prayer letters.
I have been flattered by the comments people have made about my
writing. I try to make these letters
enjoyable and informative which is at times is a difficult balance. I’m glad that more often than not people are
pleased with my efforts.
Ok, so before I go I’d like to leave you
with some prayer requests. I had a few
scattered throughout the letter but I’ll summarize them here for you. Here they are in no particular order:
1)
Please pray for the leaders of Open Baptist
Church G-West. Pray that they would be
able to handle the leadership of the church in Jonathon’s absence and that a
new pastor would be sent to us soon.
2)
Please pray for my concern at
being more directly involved in evangelism.
Pray that the Lord would guide as to how he wants to use me.
3)
Praise the Lord for the great
short term missionaries he sent us this year.
Pray that the Lord would send us more!
4)
Pray for me as I help with the
worship coordination at church. Pray for
the other coordinators as well as most of us have never done anything like this
before and are feeling a little ill-equipped.
5)
Praise the Lord that even
though it was a headache, Luke and I were able to get our house painted…for
free!
6)
Praise that I was able to
travel to Lesotho last month. Pray that
MAF Lesotho would be able to bring the gospel to the people living in very
remote villages.
7)
Praise that I was able to visit
a lot of old friends in Kumakwane last week.
Pray that the new Christian Assembly church would have sufficient funds
to continue building.
Before I close I want to take the time to
thank each of my supporters for their help in my ministry. Your prayers and financial support are deeply
appreciated. May the Lord bless you and
keep you as we serve Him together.
Peace and prayers,
Graham “Rapula” Crawford <><
For more in on SIM Canada visit: www.sim.ca
For more info on the Flying Mission visit: www.flyingmission.org
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