Botswana
Bulletin #56
"Hot Wheels, Meetings and Movings"
July
1, 2013
Prayer Requests
1) Praise for my safe arrival back in
Botswana. Pray that I would be able to
seamlessly fit back into life in Botswana as I work with Flying Mission and the
local church.
2) Praise that I was able to find a suitable new
car. Pray that it continues to run well.
3) Pray for Joshua as he continues to volunteer
at Flying Mission. Pray that he would
grow spiritually and that his knowledge of IT would grow as well.
4) Please continue to pray for Flying Mission as
our AGM (Annual General Meeting) clearly showed that there is still disunity
within the mission. Pray for our meeting
on August 24th that God would show us the way forward.
5) Please be in prayer for our Rerotlhe orphan
care program. Pray that funding would
continue to be available so the children can be properly looked after. Praise that I was able to go out for a visit
and brighten the children’s day with some presents.
6) Pray for Flying Mission as we settle into our
new smaller office space. Pray that we
would be a secure place and that it would suit the needs of our ministry.
Introduction
Greetings
everyone from sunny Gaborone, Botswana!
Well, I say it’s sunny but the evening have been getting quite
chilly. June and July are the coldest
months in Botswana and most nights the temperature has been dropping down to
around +5C. Some may think that isn’t
that cold but when you don’t have central heating it can be uncomfortable for
many. Especially those used to +30C
temperatures!
I
should apologize for my lack of correspondence recently. I’ve been getting settled back into life here
in Botswana and things have been hectic at Flying Mission so it hasn’t left
much time for me to write. However, since
today is a national holiday (Sir Seretse Khama Day in Botswana and Canada Day
in Canada) I thought I’d spend my holiday updating you all. How wonderfully sacrificial of me, eh? J Honestly, it’s not a problem. It’s the least I can do for you guys. So, let’s get straight into it shall we.
Trip Back To Botswana
I
was taking a bit of a slow route back to Botswana this time around. I left Edmonton on April 30th and
travelled to Toronto where I visited the SIM Canada head office for a few
days. I was able to get reacquainted
with some of the staff that I hadn’t seen in a while which was great. I especially enjoyed seeing a surprise
visitor who was helping put in some new servers. For those of you who have been reading my
letters for a number of years you’ll remember that I was planning to move to
the USA to work at the SIM International office in South Carolina. Before leaving for the USA I had arranged to
stay with a fellow SIM co-worker who works for the IT department there. His name is Joseph Kejr and because I was
rejected at the border I was never able to meet him until a few years later
when I attended a mission IT conference in Indianapolis, Indiana. So I was of course surprised to see that he
was now at the SIM Canada office just as I was passing through. Joseph and I get along well and it was
awesome to be able to catch with each other while I was there. It made the trip extra special.
So,
after a few days in Toronto it was off to London. I had a long layover in London (about 12
hours) so as usual I decided to wander into the city to see some sights. A friend of mine recommended that I go on a
bus tour of London so I could do some extra sightseeing that I hadn’t done in
the past. I was glad I took her advice
because the bus tour I booked ended up being fantastic. I got to see parts of London I’ve never had a
chance to see and was able to learn more about the heritage of the great
city. I’ll post some of my pictures
below so you can see where I was.
After
spending half a day in London it was sadly time to go so I took the Tube back
to Heathrow and I was off to Johannesburg, South Africa. As usual by the time I arrived in
Johannesburg I was almost falling over in my seat because I was so tired. To try and wake myself up I thought I’d go
get myself something to eat. I realized
just how tired I was because as I was standing in the queue to get food I
realized that I had left my bag on the seat at the gate with my laptop and plane
tickets in them! Knowing that Johannesburg
isn’t necessarily the safest place to leave valuables unattended I hurried back
to where I had left my bag. As expected
it was gone. My heart sunk. What should I do now? As I began to search around the seat where I
left my bag an airport gate worker noticed me and asked me if I was looking for
my bag. I told her I was and she said
she had noticed it and had left it behind the gate counter because she didn’t
want it to get stolen! J
Needless to say I was now in love with this woman and she told me that I
should thank her with a gift instead of words.
I’m not sure if she was joking or not but I went and bought her a
chocolate bar to thank her for keeping my bag safe. I spoke a little Setswana with her which made
her laugh and she wished me a safe journey back to Botswana. It’s good to have stories like that to tell
about a place that seems to have a bad reputation for unkind people.
Trafalgar Square
Elizabeth Tower
River Thames
New Car
After
arriving safely in Botswana I was thrilled to see that both my bags had arrived
with me and that a few people from Flying Mission were there to greet me. Once I settled back into my home it was time
to start searching for a new car. I had
a silver Nissan March but was finding it to be a very limited vehicle. It was small and with all the potholes and
bumps on the road here in Africa it’s nice to have a vehicle that is a little
more…substantial. I sold the March back
in February and because I was able to have a few roommates during the year I
was able to save up some money for a new ride.
At first I was thinking I would buy a Toyota Rav4 but when I looked
around I was pointed towards a very nice Subaru Forrester. I had never owned a Subaru so I wasn’t really
sure if it would be a good car or not.
After asking a few of my friends that owned Subaru’s it seemed like a
good choice so I went ahead and got the car.
So far I’m happy to say that the car has been fantastic. It’s great to have some extra room in the car
to car my things as well as extra people.
It’s been a blessing to me and I’m thankful to God for providing the
means for me to able to own it. I’ll
post a picture below so you can see what it looks like. Oh, and of course I have come up with a great
name for the car…the Botsmobile! :-)
My 2001 Subaru Forrester (The Botsmobile)
Joshua the IT Intern
When
I started back at work with Flying Mission I found out that we had a new intern
in the IT department. His name is Joshua
Tlangae and he comes from Francistown, Botswana. Since Flying Mission is currently struggling
financially we were unable to pay him.
However, Josh was able to get funding from a government internship
program so he is able to continue to pay his bills while he volunteers for
us. The internship program is for two
years so I hope we are able to give Josh some good experience that he can use
to get a good job after his internship.
He is a fantastic person and we have gotten along really well. Josh loves hard rock like I do so we enjoy
listening to music together when Richard isn’t in the office (he doesn’t share
the same taste in music) or when we are in the car together. Josh is also a relatively new Christian so
I’m trying to mentor him as much as I can as well while we work together. Please pray for Josh that he would grow
spiritually as well as in his IT knowledge while he is with Flying Mission.
Joshua enjoying his lunch
Annual General Meeting
Last
month Flying Mission had its Annual General Meeting (AGM). At last years AGM all of our board members
stepped down and we formed a new larger board with the hopes that they would be
able to help Flying Mission get back on track as 2012 was quite a tumultuous
year organizationally. Well, as it
would turn out there is still a lot of disagreement within the mission. A few Flying Mission members have actually
proposed a vote of no confidence in the current board at the meeting. There was a lot of discussion regarding this
and eventually the decision was to postpone voting to a future meeting in
August. It was very discouraging to see
that there are still a lot of issues to be resolved with the FM family and I
ask that you continue to pray for unity within the mission. The next FM meeting is scheduled for August
24th. Pray that God would
give us all insight into how to move forward as a mission.
Rerotlhe
At
the end of June I was able to go visit our recently re-opened orphan day care
centre “Rerotlhe” (when translated means something like “All of us”). Rerotlhe was struggling financially but some
extra donations were received which has allowed the program to continue. Praise the Lord! A very nice family from one of my supporting
churches donated about 30 Hot Wheels cars for me to give to the orphans. I was finally able to deliver them into the
hands of the kids. Boy were they
excited! We also purchase some new
underwear to give to the children as well as some fresh oranges. They all looked very happy by the end of the
day. I’ll post some pictures below so
you can see some of the kids. Please be
in prayer that the centre would continue to have enough funds to operate so
that the children would receive the love and care that they deserve.
The Day Care with it's new paint job
The classroom
The play room
A fellow Flying Mission co-worker with the kids
The teacher giving instructions to the kids
Time for games!
Time for presents!
The happy kids with their gifts
Office Move
After
my visit to Rerotlhe it was time to get to work moving the Flying Mission
office. For about 8 or 9 years the
Flying Mission office has been located on the second floor of the Kia Motors
car dealership. Our lease ran out a
while back and we have been looking for viable office space ever since. With funds low and options limited the Flying
Mission leadership decided to move into one of our existing houses. It’s a downgrade size wise but will save us
from having to pay rent each month. It
took a lot of work to get the house ready.
It’s quite an old house and hadn’t received a lot of upkeep. We’ve done some interior painting to spruce
up the place a bit and there are plans to upgrade the security now that we have
a number of computers living there. We
officially moved in on Wednesday last week and it’s starting to look like a
real office now. The major problem we
still have is the phone lines. BTC
(Botswana Telecommunications Company) has struggled to get the lines switched
on time. My hope if that things will
come together next week and we’ll have a fully operational office. That’s the hope anyway. Please be in prayer that this would happen
and that we would settle in well to our new environment.
Running cables in the roof is a dangerous job!
Installing network and phone cables
Cables continued
Putting the finishing touches on the cables
Closing
In
closing I want to continue to thank all of you for your prayers and for your
financial contributions to myself and to the ministries of Flying Mission. God bless you all and Happy Canada Day!
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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