Botswana Bulletin – Twenty First Edition

Botswana Bulletin – Twenty First Edition

“Praise The Lord!”

September 27, 2006

Greetings to all from the great nation of Botswana!  My, it’s been a while since I’ve written!  For those of you who enjoy my lengthy letters I apologize for not sending one sooner.  It has been a busy few months to say the least so let me fill you in on what has been happening in my life and ministry.

To start things off I think I should mention the AME (Aircraft Maintenance Engineers) Training School Graduation we had on August 4^th.  The AME School is a cool ministry within Flying Mission as it gives us an opportunity to give some real practical training to local Batswana in a Christian environment.  I won’t go into all the details in this letter so if you want more info on our school check out this link: http://flyingmission.org/ameschool.php

For the first time ever we had graduates from our school so we held a special graduation ceremony to recognize the accomplishments of these 2 young men.  It was a very special time for us as well as the students and it was great to see the proud parents and family in attendance.  It’s a real feeling of satisfaction knowing you made such a difference in a young persons life.  These boys are now living there dream of being airplane mechanics.  Praise the Lord!

Well the first weekend in August was very special because the day after the graduation we had our Flying Mission Annual General Meeting.  The meeting was filled with reports from all of our different departments and we had a real chance to see how God has moved during the course of the year and the areas where he is challenging us next.  It was encouraging to see how much we had grown with the ministries in Zambia and the amount of new personnel coming.  Praise the Lord!

I had the privilege once again to play with the worship band I’m involved with, Audience Of One. (as a drummer of course)  We held the event at the Baptist Mission Student Centre in Gaborone and it drew quite a crowd.  I love how excited the local people get as they sing and worship God.  A lot of people came up to us afterwards and expressed how much they appreciated us leading them in worship.  You can sense a real hunger for authentic worship here in Botswana and I feel so privileged to be a part of it.  We are currently practicing for our next event which will be on November 18^th at the main Open Baptist Church.  This will be kind of a farewell event for me as well as I leave for Canada on November 21^st.  I will really miss being a part of this band when I go but I’m glad for the opportunity I had to help in leading God’s people in authentic worship.  Praise The Lord!

During the last weekend of August I had a chance to be part of my churches first ever (I think) Sunday School Retreat!  This was really a monster of a project but by the grace of God we somehow managed to pull it off.  The theme of the retreat was basically keeping oneself pure (sexually) before marriage.  We of course talked a lot about sex and why you should wait and all the difficulties surrounding the issue.  Not necessarily every Sunday Schools favourite curriculum item!  However, we felt with the HIV/AIDS crisis in this country this is something we had to talk about and most importantly, talk about in a Christian environment. 

Putting the theme aside, I think the hardest part of the weekend was the overnighter we had with the boys group Friday night at the church.  There were me and two other leaders in charge of about 15-20 boys who all spoke Setswana.  Me and the other 2 leaders only spoke bits of broken Setswana so it was definitely a challenging environment to be in.  However, my rule is if you still have all of them in one piece by the end of the day, you’re doing pretty well. 

My favourite part was when we took them out to a local game reserve and did a game drive together.  It was cool to see the kids enjoying themselves so much.  I can only imagine what there lives are like back home.  Some of these kids come from difficult circumstances so it was great to be able to invest some love into these little ones while we could.  Praise the Lord!

The end of August marked the coming of some new short-termers.  We’ve been lucky enough to get a regular stream of young men and women into the organization to help out where they can.  So where were these short-termers from you ask.  Well, Germany of course!  I wish I had taken German in high school!  It definitely would have come in handy during the last two years.  Anyway, Simon and Roman are the names of these young men and it’s been great getting to know them.  They are only going to be in Botswana a short while for orientation before they are off to Zambia.  It has been decided they would be of best use up there with all the new development going on so they will be a welcome addition to our team up north.  Praise The Lord!

September marked the leaving of a close friend of mine here in Botswana.  My friends name is Barry Fraser and he’s one of those guys you go to if your backs all out of whack.  He’s a…I think you spell it…Chiropractor?  Long story short, he’s a doctor.  Anyway, a while back a Flying Mission short-termer from Switzerland (Karin) rolled into town and badda bing badda boom they got engaged.  So the sad part of this story is Barry now had to leave for Switzerland!  So, early this month we had one last pizza dinner together at our favourite restaurant, “The Bull And Bush” and said our farewells.  So Barry, I wish you well in your new life together and in your study of the German language.  It was awesome to have you as a friend and mentor and I’m so glad you found an awesome Christian gal to spend your life with.  Praise the Lord!

Once again I was part of another first in Open Baptist churches history.  For the first time ever, Open Baptist Church held a mission expo which consisted of missionaries and mission organizations working together in Gaborone to come together and showcase what it is they do.  For those who have attended a Missionfest back home it was similar to that expect way, way smaller.  There were maybe 10 organizations and a few independent missionaries but I thought it was a real awesome event.  I had a chance to give my testimony during the evening program which was totally fun.  I hope they do something like that again at the church because it was really cool to see all the different things God is doing just within the city of Gaborone.  Praise the Lord!

The next story I’m gonna share with you should blow your socks off!  I couldn’t believe it when I first heard it so get ready for a whopper folks.  Oh, and no it’s not about Steve Irwin “The Crocodile Hunter” dieing.  I didn’t believe that when I first heard it either.  Quite a sad story actually what happened to him.  Anyway, back to what I was talking about.  Here is the story as told to me by one of our own pilot wives, Michelle Royce.  Ok, on September 14^th one of our pilots (Tim Schubert) was flying 4 passengers over the Okavango Delta to an area known as “Jack’s Camp”.  About 20 minutes after departure and at 2500ft above ground level, a 15-20kg vulture came crashing through the window of the plane, breaking the plexiglass, and striking Tim in the shoulder!  That’s right A VULTURE FLEW THROUGH THE WINDOW AND HIT THE PILOT!  Can you believe that!  Good grief!  Anyway, the force of the impact destroyed about 75-90% of the window, severely damaged the instrument panel in front of Tim and blew his headset off.  When the bird crashed through the window, a piece of plexiglass about 1 metre long by ½ a metre wide flew through the plane blew past all the passengers and smacked into the back of the plane without touching a single person.  Praise the Lord!  By the grace of God, Tim somehow managed to keep his head and figured out a solution to the problem. 

Tim knew of a nearby airstrip called “Stanley’s Camp” (about 5 miles away) so he immediately made a course change and headed for the airstrip.  As you can imagine the hole in the windshield was acting like a huge air scoop and was creating a lot of drag making it difficult to keep the plane airborne.  Tim is a total pro-star pilot so he gunned the engine to full power but realized before to long that he just wasn’t gonna make it to the airstrip.  He aimed for a small patch of land (remember he’s flying over a river delta people!) but unfortunately wasn’t able to make it and instead he landed in some shallow water.  As soon as the wheels touched the water the resistance it created flipped the plane over onto its back!  Tim now found himself upside down with the top of his head in the water.  He quickly unbuckled himself and got the passengers out through the passenger window.  He even managed to get out the first aid kit in the process.  Once everyone was safely outside the aircraft on the underside of the wing Tim asked if it was alright if he prayed.  Not one person objected.  J  After praying and thanking God Tim said candidly, “Well, we can all be sure that God has a purpose for each one of us, otherwise we wouldn’t be here!”  In actuality, Tim only missed the Stanley Camp airstrip by about a mile so they could have walked to the camp, however, with the area known to have lions, water buffalo, elephants, leopards, and who knows what else they decided to just sit and wait until help arrived. 

Meanwhile back at the Flying Mission hangar there was growing concern with our chief pilot Mark Spicer.  It had been a while since Mark had heard from Tim and he began to wonder what might have happened.  By the grace of God, our Flying Mission mechanics installed an Emergency Locator Transmitter device in the plane Time was flying (A2-AEP).  When this device is jostled violently it sends out an emergency signal.  These signals are received by satellites and are relayed to airports around the world monitoring the satellites.  Flying Mission received a call from Cape Town, South Africa informing us that they were receiving a signal from A2-AEP and wanted to know if we knew why.  Sometimes these transmitters can be set off by a hard landing, etc so they wanted clarification.  With this information our Flying Mission staff jumped into high gear.  FM alerted the other charter companies working in the Delta, the Botswana Defense Force (BDF), the Department of Civil Aviation, and Jack’s Camp (the intended destination).  After about 30 minutes of frantic phone calls in the office Mark realized that the emergency signal could also include GPS coordinates.  Mark quickly called the Cape Town airport and they were able to give him GPS coordinates.  They now knew exactly where the plane landed!  One of the other airplane operators in the northern town of Maun had a plane in the area so Flying Mission gave the coordinates to them via the radio and sure enough, they were able to find the downed plane.  Soon after they established exactly where the crash site was the BDF had a helicopter onsite to take Tim and his passengers to the nearby airstrip so that they could be evacuated and assessed.  Miraculously, none of the passengers, including Tim, were seriously injured.  Minor cuts and bruises were all that could be found.  Better yet, another Flying Mission family (Dave and Sally Lott) had just returned from furlough and were up in Maun when all of this went down.  So Tim’s wife, Uli Schubert, was informed about the situation by David Lott, in person.  The Lott’s and the Schuberts have become close friends over the years so it was awesome how the Lord provided for Uli and the Schuberts 5 children that they could be comforted during this potentially tragic situation.  The Lott family were able to stay with the Schubert children while Uli went to meet Tim at the airport.

Mark Spicer (Chief Pilot) and Jeff Royce (Chief Engineer) immediately departed for Maun to assist in any way they could.  Family, government, reports, insurance, etc all had to be dealt with.  Oddly enough, as this was happening our weekly prayer meeting was just getting started.  Mark called John Lubbe (Flying Mission Director) to update him on the situation.  John set his cell phone to speaker phone and we were all able to get a report on what had happened.  What a way to kick off a prayer meeting, huh?  Considering the potential of what could of happened we were all encouraged at how God kept everyone safe in the midst of such circumstances.  If you're ever feeling like you’ve lost control of a situation and there is nobody you can turn to for help, turn to God.  He is bigger than any situation and I think that is exactly what our Flying Mission personnel needed to hear.  Praise the Lord!

 Ok, one more story and then I need to update you on my future plans.  And this is recent news folks, this just happened this afternoon.  One of our short-termers from Germany, Tobi Hayer, was walking from his house to the mall to get some groceries.  Now there is a road that takes you to the mall but it is a lot faster to cut through some bushes that run along the side of the road.  I’ve taken this route many times as have other short-termers that have stayed in the same house Tobi is in now.  Well, as Tobi was walking out of the bush (he was alone and unarmed) 7 men circled him, armed with knives, and demanded he give them whatever it was he was carrying.  Yikes!  What do you do?  Well, Tobi did as they asked.  Unfortunately, Tobi just happened to be carrying with him his portable MP3 player.  Ouch!  These guys ended up taking everything he had, his cell phone, his money (approximately $16CDN dollars, so not all that much) even the keys out of his pocket!  As they were gathering his things he pleaded with them to leave the identification in his wallet behind.  Being honest thieves, they took out the money and dropped his wallet to the ground.  Just as this happened a friendly taxi driver spotted what was happening from the nearby street.  He yelled at the 7 men who quickly darted off into the bushes.  Shaken but not stirred, Tobi used the taxi drivers cell phone to call the police as well as his Flying Mission supervisor to let the staff know what had happened. 

Ok, now I know what your thinking.  What is going on over there in Botswana!  Well, I think I know the answer, God is showing up in difficult circumstances.  I am so grateful to God that even through the fires of plane crashes and robberies he has kept all of us safe and free from harm.  Praise the Lord! 

Ok, last item of discussion is my future plans once my contract ends in November.  For those who may not know or have forgotten I am set to leave Botswana on November 21^st.  This is officially the end of my term as a short term volunteer as far as SIM is concerned.  However, Flying Mission has extended an invitation for me to return if I so wish.  The answer to that question is, I do wish to return!  So with that said I now have a few options.  I can choose to become a “long termer” with SIM and extend my contract as a missionary in Botswana.  This would probably be the easiest solution.  However, I have been contemplating another option.  I have also been considering the option of returning to the field through one of my supporting churches.  This option would require a church to basically “sponsor” me and would then act as my sending organization while I am in Botswana.  I have talked with a number of seasoned missionaries who have worked both for mission organizations like SIM as well as through their churches.  There are positives and negatives to both sides and I definitely need to spend more time in prayer and in discussions with both my supporting churches and with SIM to contemplate this decision.  I have been happy with the way SIM has nurtured and guided me these past 2 years, I just feel the need to look at all my options and see where God is leading.  I thank you my support team for standing with me these two years and I pray you will continue to stand with me as I seek the Lord in the way he wishes to send me back to the field.  Praise the Lord!

With that I think I will close this lengthy prayer letter.  Sorry its was long this month but I had to pack two months into one update.  There is just so much I want to share with you!  J  Speaking of sharing, let me share with you my most recent prayer requests:

1)  Audience Of One – We are preparing to do a worship/outreach service on November 18^th.  Pray that God would prepare people hearts as we prepare to lead his people in worship.

2)  Open Baptist Church Sunday School – Pray that the words spoken during the retreat would have an impact on the lives of these kids.  The temptation to experiment in sexual acts is huge.  Pray that God the kids would lean on God for strength.

3)  Open Baptist Church as a whole – Things are really happening in the life of this church!  Our average attendance has risen to 120!  Pray for the leadership group as we continue to lead this young church into maturity.

4)  Flying Mission and its personnel – We have had a number of potentially tragic events happen these last two months.  Pray that God would continue to ward off these attempts of the evil one to break our spirits.  Pray that through these weak moments God would be glorified.

5)  Mission opportunites – Pray for me as I seek God’s wisdom in how to return to the Botswana field.  Pray that God would shed his light on the path I am to walk.

Thank you again for your faithful prayers and giving as I continue to serve the Lord here in Botswana or wherever he may take me.  To God be the glory.

Psalm 150:6 – “Let everything that has breath praise the Lord.  Praise the Lord.

Peace and prayers,

Graham Crawford <><