Botswana Bulletin #53
“Bands, blogs and break-ins”
October 1, 2012
Prayer
Requests
1)
Roommates! - I’ve been thankful
to the Lord for the provision of roommates over the last few months. I’ve had 3 different guys live with me at
different times since arriving in March and they’ve all helped out with paying
rent and bills. This has allowed me more
flexibility in my monthly spending. I
saved enough money one month that I was able to afford a microwave! J
2) Break-in
– Praise the Lord that although I had a break-in in June nobody was hurt and
nothing was stolen. There was some minor
damage done to my bedroom window but was fixed a few days later. Home invasions are still common in Botswana so
continue to pray the Lord would protect me.
3)
AGM aftermath – Please pray for the new Flying Mission board as they
continue to deal with some of the issues that are still pending after the
results of the AGM. Praise the Lord that
there was a sense of unity at the AGM and that processes are being put in place
to solve some of our management issues.
4)
MCP Workshops – Praise the Lord that the Flying Mission training on MCP
(Multiple Concurrent Partnerships) has reached many in the large village of
Molepolole. Praise the Lord for the
response of the churches and the young people in the area.
5)
Youth band – Praise the Lord for the development of the OBC G-West youth
band. They have worked very hard and have
successfully led worship Sunday morning as well as at another church during a
Friday night youth event. Continue to
pray for the youth that they would grow closer to the Lord through the ministry
of music as well as through the youth bible studies we hold Saturday
afternoons.
6)
Audience of One – Please pray for Audience of One (the international
worship band I play drums for) as we are preparing a worship event for the end
of November. Pray that we would have
fruitful practices and that the worship night would be a blessing to all who
attend.
Winter
has ended!
Greetings one and all from a currently
overcast Gaborone, Botswana! Yes, winter
appears to have finally come to an end as our daytime temperatures have crept
back into the +30C’s and nighttime temperatures have been staying in the double
digits. My yard is also showing signs
that winter has ended. Flowers are
beginning to open and colour has returned to different parts of my yard. It is a welcome sight! Hopefully before too long we’ll see the rains
return. It has been very dry here so I’m
praying for a lot of rain this year to fill up our dam and help the farmers
with their crops.
What’s
a blog?
I realized recently that it’s been about 4 months
since I’ve written to you so I apologize for my silence. I’ve been working on another change to my
letter which I’ll share with you now.
For a number of years people have been requesting that I write a blog. Some of you may be asking, what is a
blog? A blog is basically a personal website
that is devoted to simply sharing news/pictures/rants from a single person or
group of people. As blogs have become
more popular and internet connections have become faster here in Botswana, I
thought it was time to start one. So,
you can now access my letters from my blog which can be accessed by any
computer with an internet connection at the following website:
I will still send out e-mails to let you
know when I update my blog. I’ll also
continue to attach the word document version of my letter for those who like to
print it or for those with slow internet connections who prefer to download a
plain texted file. However, I recommend
most of you go to the blog site as I’ll be posting pictures there which won’t
be included in the word document. You’ll
also notice that every letter I’ve ever written is now on the blog so if you
feel like diving into the past, feel free!
School
Children Incident
In early June I ran into a problem I
haven’t had to deal with before during my time here in Botswana or for that
matter, anywhere I’ve lived. The house
I’m currently living in is across the street from a Primary (Elementary) school
so there are always a lot of children around.
This wasn’t really an issue until some children became interested in
spending time in my yard. Children were
opening my gate and stealing oranges off my tree in the backyard. They were also climbing a tree in the front
yard which was causing damage to the trees branches. I’ll admit I didn’t really notice what was
happening until my gardener caught them in the yard one day and chased them
out. When I came home for lunch he told
me what had happened and pointed the children out to me who were playing out in
the street. I rounded up the children
and walked them back to the school to inform the school about what was
happening. I was told to speak to the
school guidance counsellor who confirmed that the children I was reporting have
been very naughty that year. There is a
grocery store close by the school and some of the children have been stealing
from there. Also some of the children
have been throwing rocks at dogs living in some of the yards near the school. I asked her what she planned to do to
discipline the children. She said that
she would talk to them. This surprised
me as I understood that spanking was something that was still done in the
schools. The guidance counsellor told me
that things were changing and they no longer spanked the children. However, she told me if they came back to my
house that I had permission to beat them.
In fact I was specifically told to whip them with my belt. She told me, “If you do that they won’t come
back.” So, with hopes that I would never
have to do that I headed home for lunch.
Unfortunately my hopes were dashed almost immediately. Three boys decided they would press their
luck and came back into my yard about 10 minutes after I had reported them to
the school. Needless to say I was very
unimpressed. I walked out my front door
and headed straight for the three boys.
To my surprise they didn’t run.
They actually didn’t even look afraid.
Well, that was about to change.
As I approached the 3 boys I quickly unbuckled my belt, yanked it free,
and gave the nearest boy a solid whack on the behind with it. The boy instantly ran out of my yard. The other two seemed to sort of stare at me
for a split second with expressions like, “That wasn’t supposed to happen!” and
then took off as well leaving a trail of dust behind them. This was about 3 months ago and I’m happy to
report that there have been no further incidents of kids fooling around in my
yard. For those who may think this was a
bit rough, I’ll admit that it was something I would have preferred not to do
and probably would have never even thought of doing had it happened back in
Canada. In Canada I likely would have
ended up on the news and been described as some deranged lunatic who enjoys
beating up small children in his spare time.
When I told some of my local friends here what happened they all agreed
I did the right thing. It just goes to
show you that your “comfort zone” gets tested in many different ways when you
live in another culture.
Rotating
Roommates
For the past few months I’ve had the privilege
of having roommates. This has provided
multiple benefits as it has helped with security and reduced my monthly rent
and bill costs. In June I had a young
man from Canada stay with me named Andrew.
He only stayed with me for a month but we got along really well. He’s been studying to become a pilot in
Calgary and had some time off during the summer to come check out Flying
Mission. He hopes to one day become a
missionary pilot. Good luck to you
Andrew!
In July I had a Motswana friend live with
me. His name is Gontse and he was
looking for a place to stay as his current living conditions weren’t the
greatest. Gontse is a bodybuilder and is
a trainer at the gym I have been attending.
He is a friendly guy and we often chat when I go for a workout. He stayed with me for the month of July and
then at the end of the month moved out as he had found a place of his own in
another part of town. Gontse is not a
Christian so it was great to have some meaningful discussions with him during
his stay. His words to me were, “I don’t
want to be pressured into becoming a Christian” which I told him was a perfect
reason not to become a Christian. We
both agreed it was something God had to do inside a person’s heart. Please pray for Gontse as I continue to chat with
him at the gym and that he would one day experience that heart change that only
God can bring.
In August a German guy by the name of
Martin Menz moved in. He will be staying
with me until sometime in November. He
is studying to become an aviation mechanic and wanted to come and check out
Flying Mission. So far he has been
enjoying things which is good, well as far s I can tell anyway. I wish I could tell you more but unfortunately
language has been a bit of an issue.
Martin is still learning English so our conversations have usually been
short and simple. I’ve actually been
using “Google Translate” to communicate with him at times since we’ve simply
not understood each other. However, I’ve
found that Martin’s English has been improving so things have been getting
easier.
Martin and I on top of Kgale Hill
Break-in
As I mentioned in my prayer requests I had
a break-in at my home while I was at work on June 20th. Thankfully, it wasn’t that big of a
deal. Unfortunately I live in a house
with limited security around its perimeter.
Many homes in Gaborone now have high walls and electric fences to keep
thieves out but my house just has a short chain link fence. This allowed the thief to enter my yard without
much hassle and then from there moved to the back yard to start his work. He was able to pry open one of the bedroom
windows, break the burglar bars, and then knock the screen out and enter the
house. Fortunately I have a house alarm
which was set and when it went off it scared him away. Strangely, the thief decided to break into my
house around 12pm. My neighbor was home
and heard the alarm. When she walked to
the front door to look what had happened she saw a young black man jump over my
short fence into her yard and began running to her gate. Unfortunately for him, my neighbor’s husband
had just arrived home for lunch and was pulling his vehicle up to the
gate. Upon seeing this, the thief
decided it was best to jump back over my fence, run through my yard to the
other side, jump that fence and then continue to run away. My neighbor tried to pursue him but by the
time he was able to get around to the other side of my house, the thief was
gone. In my opinion I don’t think I have
to worry about this thief anymore since my neighbors were able to see his face
very clearly.
The aftermath of the break-in was very
typical as this has now been the 4th time I’ve had an unwanted
visitor in my house. The security
company called me to tell me about the break-in. When I arrived at home, security personnel
were there as well as the police. I
unlocked the door and let them in. After
looking around briefly I was unable to find anything missing (anything of value
was already with me at the office).
However, since this was a white man’s house the security and police
expected it to be lavishly furnished.
One of the police officers said to me, “They stole your TV!” I simply replied, “I don’t have a TV!” He replied “Ah! Why don’t you have one?” To which I said, “Why would I want one? I’d just be buying gifts for thieves!” Another policeman said, “Where is your
stereo?” Once again I replied, “I don’t
have one.” Surprised, the policeman
said, “You have nothing!” I chuckled and
said to him, “I enjoy disappointing thieves.” The fact of the matter is I have
a laptop which I use as both a TV and a stereo but I didn’t feel the need to
volunteer that information. As you can
see it was simply expected that I’d have a fully furnished house with all the
bells and whistles. They seemed very
surprised at how little this white man actually owned. It is a stereotype I didn’t mind shattering
for them.
So, after checking the house the police
told me I needed to go to the police station to report the break-in. I wasn’t interested in that at all. Every crime I’ve ever reported here has never
gone anywhere so I figured I it would just be a waste of my time reporting it. However, the policeman insisted that I should
so I reluctantly went down to the station to report the theft. When I got to the police station it was
packed so I had to wait in line. After a
long wait I was finally able to see a police officer. I told the woman what had happened and she
just pulled out a form handed it to me and told me to fill it out. I had just watched her fill out forms for 3
other people before me so I wasn’t going to let her off that easy. I told her that either she fills out the
form, or I turn around and walk out because I wasn’t interested in doing her
job for her. Reluctantly she started
filling out the form. We got about
halfway through it when another police officer walked up to her and started
talking to her in Setswana. I didn’t
catch all that was being said but once they had finished she jumped to her feet
and said, “I have to go.” As she started
to walk away I said, “What about the form?” She pointed to another police officer and
said, “She’ll fill out the rest.” So, I
waited in another line to have another lady finish filling out my form. Once the form was filled out I said to the
police woman, “Are police officers going to come to my house to take
fingerprints?” She said, “Umm…they’ll
contact you when they are ready.” To
this day no police officers ever came to do a follow-up for fingerprints nor
have I heard anything else about the case.
Good thing I reported it!
AGM
Results
Many of you have been wondering about the
results of the Flying Mission AGM (Annual General Meeting). The meeting was long (about 4 hours) but some
major things were decided. One of the
biggest things on the agenda was the option to sell a portion of the mission,
specifically FMS (Flying Mission Services) to allow it to grow and develop
outside of the mission. This option was
defeated so FMS has not been sold. The
Flying Mission Board has basically had a wholesale replacement as only two
existing members remain. The board has doubled
in size to 10 now and we have a wider range of people on the board, from
pastors to lawyers to aviation experts to business experts. We are excited to see how this new board will
lead FM and it’s departments into the future.
Please continue to pray for them as they seek the way forward.
MCP
Worskhops
In July I had the privilege of accompanying
2 of our FMC (Flying Mission Care Ministries) staff members, Pastor Emanuel
Nwako and Tagwa Chauke to the large village of Molepolole. One of the issues we face when dealing with
HIV/AIDS is the idea of people having multiple sexual partners. The workshop I attended addressed this issue
also known as MCP (Multiple Concurrent Partnerships). The workshop outlined the dangers of this
lifestyle and how it affects not only families but an individuals health as
well. FMC invited church representatives
to come and see the workshop with the idea of then training church leaders to
pass the message on to their congregations and communities. Please pray for Emanuel and Tagwa as they
teach these workshop leaders and that it would help to stop the spread of
HIV/AIDS.
Pastor Emanuel Nwako teaching at the workshop
Tagwa Chauke taking her turn to speak
Youth
Band
As I mentioned in my last letter, I’ve been
helping the youth at Open Baptist Church (OBC) G-West (my home church) develop
a youth praise and worship band. It’s
been a lot of hard work, but the hard work has paid off! The band has done extraordinarily well and is
now at the point where they are able to perform. The youth band lead worship at OBC G-West one
Sunday and did an excellent job. They
also lead worship at a youth event at the OBC Main church. The band is planning to lead worship at
church on a monthly basis now. Praise
God for what has been happening among our youth! Continue to pray for them as they continue to
practice and develop. Pray that this
would develop them spiritually as well as they continue to meet for Bible
studies on Saturday afternoons.
OBC G-West Youth band leading worship
Pastor Ngugi leading the youth Bible study
Ao1
(Audience Of One)
For those who aren’t aware I am the drummer
in an international worship band called “Audience of One” (Ao1). I been involved with the band since its start
in 2005 and it’s been a real awesome experience to be a part of. After being in Canada for almost a year I’ve
started practicing again with the band of Monday nights. We are planning a worship night at the end of
November and would appreciate prayer as we prepare. Pray for those who come that they would
experience God in a new way through the ministry of music.
Last
Words
As many of you know I never seem to run out
of words so I’m just going to have to stop myself here. Thank you so much for your prayers and your
financial support. It really means a lot
to me. Until next time!
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.
