Botswana Bulletin – Twenty Fifth Edition

Botswana Bulletin – Twenty Fifth Edition

“A Missionary Life For Me”

April 23, 2007

Greetings one and all from a very spring like Edmonton, Alberta, Canada!  Wow, it’s been too long since I’ve written to you all.  I sincerely apologize for that.  As you all can imagine things have been happening and time has not been standing still.  In fact, I was looking at my calendar yesterday and I couldn’t believe I’ve been home almost 5 months now!  Well, fortunately I believe my time here in Canada has been well spent.  I’ve had time with family, with friends, and time to reflect on how God is leading me in my life.  I’ll explain this more as we continue.

When I last wrote you I believe it was early February and I was starting my new job with Enbridge Pipelines.  Most of the month of February was simply spent working but I did have a chance at the end of the month to go to Missionfest.  Missionfest, for those who may recall my previous letter, is a large conference here in Edmonton where you have a chance to connect with tons of mission organizations and get more info on what they are all about and how you can partner with them.  Since I’ve been looking at other possibilities this seemed like the perfect venue to exhaust the idea of going to Botswana with another mission organization.  So, off to Missionfest I went.

Missionfest ran for three days over the weekend and I was there every day.  I can’t remember exactly how many people I spoke to or exactly how many organizations I visited but it’s safe to say it was a lot.  AIM, MAF, SIM, OMF, name an acronym and I visited them.  I was even able to help Jim and Vegas Dargatz at the SIM booth.  I was glad to be able to reconnect with my area directors and meet a few new faces from the SIM family.  Anyhow, after talking with organizations for three straight days the fog on this whole idea of going with another organization began to lift.  I was so encouraged by what people had to say about SIM.  It was great to hear the reputation SIM had among its peers.  I have always been told how good of an organization SIM is but that had mostly come from fellow SIMers so it was good to hear the same thing from “the competition”. 

Just to backtrack a bit I should mention that before Missionfest I spoke with pastors at both Fort Saskatchewan Alliance Church (my home church here in Canada) and Parksville Fellowship Baptist Church (the church I interned at after Bible School).  The whole reason for approaching these churches was to see if I could bypass the whole mission organization route and have a church as my administrative base.  The first person I spoke with was Pastor Daniel Harstad of Fort Saskatchewan Alliance.  He seemed to think the idea was possible but admitted that it was a big task for the church to take on.  He also felt that SIM would do a far better job at meeting a missionaries need while on the field.  After a few elders meetings discussing the idea, it was decided that the church would not be my administrative base but would continue to support me as it always has through prayer and finances.  So with that door closed I spoke with Pastor Jerrold Paetkau of Parksville Fellowship Baptist.  Pastor Jerrold’s advice was similar to Pastor Dan’s in that he felt the mission organization route was a better route to go as far as support on the field.  However, he was willing to speak with the church leadership about the possibility of taking me on.  I didn’t want to proceed with this until after Missionfest so this was kind of left on hold. 

So, back to Missionfest.  As Missionfest began to wind down I felt a real confirmation from God that SIM was a good place to be.  As I’ve said all along to people I have been very pleased with the way SIM has treated me and made me feel part of the team.  We’ve had some misunderstandings with finances once in a while but with the changes in the SIM finance office it was easy to see why things got a little hairy.  So after months of prayer and investigation and three straight days of talking with mission organizations I decided to apply for full-time work with SIM.  That feeling of peace that “passes all understanding” (Philippians 4:7) fell upon me and I knew I had made the right decision.  I spoke with both Pastor Dan and Pastor Jerrold again and they both felt the decision I made was a good one.  Pastoral confirmation of a major life decision is always a good thing to have as far as I’m concerned!  So, there you have it.  Important life decision…decided! 

So as I waited for my forms to arrive from SIM, the month of March arrived.  Once again most of March was filled with working at Enbridge, but I was able to get away and visit the church I grew up in, Fort McMurray Fellowship Baptist Church.  My parents joined me on the trip up to Fort McMurray so that made the time there extra special.  I was able to meet the new pastor there, Pastor Brent Carter, and even had lunch with him and his wife.  I had a chance to share during the services how God had been working in my life while in Botswana and then to share with them the decision to return to Botswana full-time.  As I thanked the church one thing stuck out to me as I looked out upon the congregation.  I saw in the crowd my Sunday school teacher, my youth leader, the people who helped raise me to be the man I am today and I realized something.  This journey into life as a missionary didn’t start just a few years ago when I applied with SIM, it started years ago in the very church I was standing in.  The people I was looking out upon had given of their time and energy to ensure that as a child I knew who God was and how important a person Jesus was in my life.  They showed me how to have a relationship with God and how to walk in Jesus’ footsteps.  Without there sacrifice, I’m sure I would have never gone to Africa as a missionary.  Thank you Fellowship Baptist Church for “training a child in the way he should go.” (Proverbs 22:6)

My SIM paperwork arrived in early March and I began to go through them.  I decided to leave a portion of it until after I was finished working.  This portion is what is known as a “Doctrinal Assessment”.  As its name suggests this is more of an “assessment” than a right or wrong test of knowledge.  Basically it’s like an essay that will help SIM assess my theological understanding and belief system.  Since I haven’t opened the package and looked at it yet I can’t tell you exactly what it is.  SIM gives a one month period to finish the assessment so I didn’t want to open it until I knew I had sufficient time to spend on it.  At present that is what I will be spending my time finishing. 

I have one last update I'd like to share with you before I go.  During the month of April I was able to visit Parksville Fellowship Baptist Church on Vancouver Island.  This was another special trip as I was accompanied by my parents and my brother.  My parents had never been to Vancouver Island so it was great being able to show them the church I interned at and introduce them to some of the people I met there.  As usual, time was too short to visit with everyone but I was encouraged by the people I did see.  Thank you PFBC all for your support and prayers over the years!  A special thanks goes out to Mike and Sheila Bates who hosted me during my time there.  It was definitely a full house but their hospitality was more than adequate.  Thank you again for making me fell like a part of your family.

As a side note I was able to do something quite unexpected during my time in Parksville.  The Bates daughter “Dilly” spoke to her teacher and I was given permission to go to her public elementary school and give a small presentation on my time in Botswana.  Since these kids were only in grade 3 I decided to skip talking about the culture and problems (HIV/AIDS) of Botswana and went straight to…the animals!  I did show them the powerpoint presentation I had made for my church visits so they did get to see pictures of the Flying Mission and the local church I attend but they definitely liked the animals the best.  This became evident when Dilly brought home 23 thank you cards from school.  A quote from one written by Teigan,”Thank you Graham for coming.  I enjoyed it so much.  I liked the pictures of the animals the best.”  The cards were decorated with Botswana flags, animals, Victoria Falls, I was really impressed.  So thank you back Nanoose Bay Primary School for allowing me to come and show you a little of what Africa is like.  A special thanks to Virginia Brucker, Dilly’s teacher, for having the guts to allow a Christian Missionary into a secular classroom, definitely a rare pleasure these days

Ok, so hopefully that catches you up on what’s happening with me.  Just to make a clarification, since I am not officially a member of SIM I will not be receiving funding until the application process is complete.  I’m thinking this won’t happen until June.  Once I am a full member of SIM I will let you all know and then for those who would like to support me can feel free to do so.  Until then I am still adding people to my prayer team and prayer letter e-mail list.  If you would like to either pray for me or be on my e-mail list please let me know via my e-mail.  I appreciate all those who have continued to support me in prayer while I’ve been back in Canada.  God has been faithful and has been guiding me each step of the way.

For those who maybe wondering if I have a return date yet there is a rough one in place.  The IT Manager for the Flying Mission (Richard Wheatley) is planning to leave for furlough in mid September.  With this in mind it would be ideal if I could arrive a few weeks before he goes for a bit of a transition period and then cover for him while he’s gone.  This would make the end of August the ideal time of departure.  Now because we don’t live in an ideal world this could be subject for change but ideally the end of August would be the desired time of departure.  Let’s pray that this departure date would become a reality.

Speaking of prayer I have a few prayer requests to give you before I go.  Thank you once again for the ways you have blessed me the past few years with your prayers.  I couldn’t ask for a more supportive group of people.  Thank you, thank you, thank you!  I just can’t say it enough.  Anyway, on to the prayer requests:

1)  Doctrinal Assessment – Pray that I would finish this large task in a short amount of time.  Also pray that this process would be a time of spiritual growth.

2)  Departure Date – Pray that everything would come together and that I would be able to leave for Botswana by the end of August.

3)  Patience – Pray that I would be patient during the whole process of being accepted with SIM and that I would understand that God’s timing, not my own, is the most important.

4)  Passport Renewal – I realized that my passport will expire during my time in Botswana so I will have to renew it before I leave.  Since the United States is now requiring Canadians to show passports at its borders a ton of requests for passports has flooded into Canada Customs.  This has resulted in extremely long waits for passports.  Pray that my passport would be renewed in time for my anticipated departure in August.

Once again I apologize for the lack of correspondence during the past 2 months or so.  I guess for those who had fell behind in the reading of these letters it gave you some time to catch up.  J  So, until next time! 

Tsala sentle!  (Stay Well)

Graham Crawford <><