Botswana Bulletin #48
“Full Circle”
October 29, 2011
Greetings one and all from a windy and cool
Edmonton, Alberta, Canada! It is
currently Fall here in Edmonton but you can definitely tell that winter will
soon be here. I was watching the news
this morning and saw that New York City has already gotten snow! Whether it’s global warming or global cooling
I don’t know, but either way it is definitely safe to say things are going to
get colder before they get warmer. I was
reminded today that I haven’t been around for winter much over the last 7
years. When I looked in my closet for my
“winter clothes” I only had a few sweaters.
I guess I’ll need to stock up on some warmer shirts if I’m hoping to
last during the winter deep freeze.
However, I may not have to endure winter for long if current plans go
ahead. Stay tuned and I’ll explain what
I mean by that. For the moment let me
get you caught up on what’s been happening the last few months.
Ministry
Options
Back in August I mentioned that SIM was
currently looking to re-assign me to a position they were creating called a
“Regional IT Coordinator”. They were
hoping to send me to either Thailand or South Africa to have me support the SIM
offices located in East Asia or Southern Africa. It appeared it was going to take a long time
before this position would become available so I began to look at other
potential ministry opportunities. I
spoke with the pastor of my home church, Pastor Nori Anderson, and he advised
me to talk to our local denomination mission organization, the Christian and
Missionary Alliance (C&MA). Not
knowing much about the organization I began to inquire about possible
opportunities with them but as with SIM it appeared things were going to take a
while before they’d have a placement for me either. After hearing this it became apparent that I
was going to be home for a longer period of time than I had planned. So instead of just sitting around waiting for
something to happen I decided it was time to look for a full-time job.
Back
to work
I began looking for work and before long I
was able to find a job working for a local IT company in Edmonton. The company is called Yardstick Technologies
and they do IT support for small to medium sized businesses. My job was to do tech support over the phone
to the various clients we supported. It
was a challenging job and I was enjoying working with the team and our clients
all the while learning some new things along the way. When I started with Yardstick I explained
that I had plans to travel overseas next year so they knew that I would only be
around temporarily. As it turned out, my
stay was much shorter than planned. Let
me explain. While I was working for
Yardstick I was still in contact with SIM and the C&MA to see if there was any
progress in a ministry position. The
news I was receiving from SIM wasn’t very encouraging. There were some issues with getting area
management to agree with the need for a regional IT coordinator. When the C&MA leadership team met to
discuss possibilities of sending me out to one of their fields they didn’t
believe there would be enough work to send me out full-time. The possibility of me returning to do IT
mission work at all was starting to look quite bleak.
Then, something I wasn’t expecting to happen…happened!
I have done my best to explain what I knew
about the situation with the Flying Mission in Botswana. When I left Botswana back in May, Flying
Mission was going through some tough times with regards to its leadership. There were some disagreements at a very high
level (CEO, directors and the Board) and the reality is the CEO of Flying
Mission resigned as well as the Chairmen of the Board as a result. As you can imagine this was a very dark time
for the mission and it was going to take some time for things to get sorted
out. When I explained these things to
SIM it was agreed that it was not in my best interest to return while things
were so up in the air. This is why SIM
was pursuing a reassignment for me in the first place. Well, around the end of September I contacted
my old supervisor at Flying Mission, Richard Wheatley to get an update on how
things were going there. We had a long
Skype conversation and I was really encouraged by what Richard was telling me. He explained that an interim CEO had been put
in place and meetings were happening to try and “right the ship”. New board members had been elected and a plan
to change the leadership structure of the different departments was being put
in place. In summary, it was sounding
like things were getting back to normal.
At the end of the conversation Richard reminded me that there was still
a place for me at Flying Mission if I was willing to come back. After our conversation I took time to
consider Richard’s proposal and prayed over it.
I had really been missing Botswana and the thought of going back stirred
my heart. That night I had a dream I was
back in Botswana. I’m one of those
people who usually doesn’t remember his dreams so it was interesting that I
remembered that particular night. I didn’t
take that as direction from the Lord but I think the Lord was working because
that coming Sunday I really felt him challenging me to return to Botswana. Pastor Nori preached a sermon called “And…”
that Sunday and during the sermon he told us about a prayer he once prayed for a friend of
his. The prayer went something like,
“Lord, please send someone into my friends life to teach him about you and to
lead him to faith in Christ.” After he prayed, he felt like God was saying to him, “And…” as
if to say, “And what are you going to do about it?” Since the problems with Flying Mission began
my prayer for them has been that the Lord would provide the right people to be
involved in sorting out the issues it was facing. I had been praying those prayers for months
and never felt the Lord say, “Graham, you can help Flying Mission sort out its
problems.” However, during Nori’s sermon
I felt the Lord say to me, “Graham, maybe you can’t sort out the problems Flying
Mission is having, but there is a need there that you can fill.” So basically God was answering my prayers for
Flying Mission by saying, “And…”
At that point I wasn’t sure what to do with
that. I decided to talk it over with my
parents. I mean, there was a lot to
consider. I didn’t want to rush into
anything. I had a job and a possible
position with SIM next year. However, I
know the importance of answering God when he calls so I starting discussing the
possibility of returning to Botswana, firstly with my boss at work and then
with SIM. To my surprise both parties
were very supportive. Yardstick was
willing to let me go earlier than anticipated to begin raising support and SIM
felt that if things had begun to settle at Flying Mission that it was fine to
send me back. So long story short, the
plan at the moment is to return to Botswana to work with the Flying Mission as
an IT person once again!
Bostwana
Bound…Again!
The administrative process required to send
me back to Botswana has already begun but things aren’t quite finished yet. I had my last day with Yardstick on Friday so
I’ll be free to concentrate on getting things setup to return. Once a contractual agreement between SIM and
Flying Mission is complete a budget will be formed and I’ll begin raising
support. I’m hoping to get prayer
letters out by early November and that I’ll be able to schedule visits with my
supporting churches before Christmas. At
the moment we are thinking of a possible departure date as early as February
2012 if all goes well. That may change
but that will be the target at the moment.
I’m excited to be returning to Botswana and look forward to visiting
with many of you soon!
Prayer
Requests
I think that is pretty much all that I need
to update you on at the moment. I’m
hoping to be in contact with many of you over the next month whether by e-mail,
phone or in person. As usual I could use
your prayers over the next few months as I prepare to return to Botswana. Please see a short list of requests below:
1)
Flying Mission – Praise the Lord for how he
has worked things out at Flying Mission and that he is sending me back to
continue working there.
2)
Agreement and budget – There
are some administrative tasks that need to be done in order to send me back to
Botswana. Pray that we can get those things
together quickly so that I can return to Botswana by our target date of
February 2012.
3)
Support – Pray for me as I’ll
be needing to raise support to return to Botswana. Pray that I’ll be able to schedule time with
supporting churches and individuals.
Thank you for your prayers during my time
back here in Canada. It has been a
discouraging number of months but I’m glad that the Lord has now made the way
clear. I look forward to seeing many of
you soon!
Peace and prayers,
Graham Crawford <><
For more info on SIM Canada visit: www.sim.ca.
For more info on Flying Mission visit: www.flyingmission.org
The opinions expressed in this letter are
my own opinions. They are not
necessarily the opinions or views of my employers, SIM or Flying Mission.
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