Botswana
Bulletin #57
"Here
comes the heat!"
September
10, 2013
Prayer Requests
1) Rain – It has been very dry here in
Botswana. We’ve been told the dam has
only 7 months of water remaining in it.
Please pray for good rains this year to sustain the farmers in the
country as well as the water supply in the capital city (Gaborone).
2) New office – Thank you for your prayers
regarding our new office space. We have
settled in nicely now and are enjoying the space even though it is smaller than
where we were. Praise the Lord for his
provision as we are now saving money each month by not paying monthly rent to
Kia Motors.
3) Open Baptist Church Bluetree – I’ve recently
relocated from Open Baptist Church G-West to Open Baptist Church Bluetree to
help develop their worship team there.
Pray that I would be able to help the ministry grow and that the worship
teams at G-West would continue to thrive in my absence.
4) Flying Mission Leadership – Please continue
to pray for Flying Mission as we have been dealing with some issues among our
leadership. We held a long meeting in
August and were able to come to a peaceful resolution. Please pray for unity and healing as we move
forward from this conflict.
5) New Roommate – At the beginning of August my
roommate left for the USA leaving me alone to pay my house rent. However, the Lord provided a new roommate,
Ben Radmore, in just a few weeks! Praise
the Lord that he continues to provide me with roommates to help keep my living
costs low.
6) New People – We’ve had a lot of new people
arrive recently to serve as pilots and mechanics. We have been in need of more people so it’s
great to see those needs filled. Praise
the Lord!
7) Mom – She is still getting weekly blood
transfusions and is feeling very weak.
Please pray for strength despite her circumstances. Pray that a new heart would become available
to her soon.
Introduction
Greetings
everyone from an increasingly warm Gaborone, Botswana! Winter appears to have finally left us and
midday temperatures are now nearing the mid +30’s (Celsius). Once winter departs we usually have a season
of wind before summer officially begins.
We’ve had some really windy days recently so I’d say the winds have come
and the heat should be just around the corner.
With the heat also comes rain, which we’ve had very little of. I’ve heard people say that there is only
about 7 months of water remaining in the dam, so rain is very much a
priority. I even saw a news article
where the president of Botswana was asking his people to pray for rain. It’s become a very serious issue here
recently so please join with me and the rest of Botswana in continuing to pray
for rain. Anyway, I think that’s enough
about the weather. It’s been a while
since I’ve written to you so let me get right into the updates.
Office Settling In
Last
time I wrote you I was mentioning that our office was moving from its current
location to a Flying Mission owned house in an area of town known as “The
Village”. We have settled in quite
nicely now and we seem to be managing the smaller space quite well. Thank you for your prayers during this
process. It’s been less painful than we
were expecting!
Pilanesberg/Johannesburg
Visit
There
is a national holiday here in Botswana called “President’s Day” which this year
was a 4 day long weekend in mid-July. My
friend Bob Genheimer was taking his family to Pilanesberg which is a beautiful
game reserve a few hours south of Botswana in South Africa. Bob was nice enough to invite me along and I
ended up spending the whole week in South Africa. We had a few days in Pilanesberg and enjoyed
seeing all the wonderful African wildlife.
After that Bob and I went to Johannesburg and stayed with a friend of
his there while we attended something called “MediaTech”. MediaTech is a sound/video multimedia kind of
conference that attracts a lot of sound and audio technicians. Being an IT person I thought I might check it
out to see what all they had for IT stuff.
It was very limited. However, it
was cool to see some of the new technology available and spend some time with
good friends.
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| Lions! |
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| Giraffes! |
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| Elephants! |
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| Breakfast with Uncle Bob! |
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| Mediatech! |
Church Switch
Many
of you will know that I have been attending a local church here in Gaborone
called “Open Baptist Church (OBC) G-West”.
G-West is a daughter church of the much bigger church “Open Baptist
Church Bluetree”. As many of you will
know I have been playing the drums at G-West for a number of years and have had
an opportunity to help in training 3 other people to play the drums. The Worship Coordinator at OBC Bluetree
(Vivien Dapko) approached me about 2 months ago requesting help with her
worship team. Even though Bluetree is a
much larger church than G-West they currently have nobody playing the drums for
the worship team. I was surprised by
this news and she was wondering if there was anything I could do to help. I thought about it and prayer about it and I
decided that it would be good if I could move over from G-West to Bluetree to
help with the drumming there. I spoke
with my pastor at G-West and he felt it was fine as long as my worship leaders
were fine with it. I have developed 3
worship teams at G-West each with its own leader. After speaking with the leaders they all
agreed this was a good thing but were worried that they would lose me to
Bluetree (that I wouldn’t come back). I
wasn’t sure what to say about that but I felt as partnered churches we should
help each other with the resources that we have. They agreed with that line of thought and so
I began attending OBC Bluetree about 2 months ago. I’m happy to report that it has been awesome
so far. Vivien has been very grateful
for my help and the team has played very well.
One of my drum students (Bokang) even came and played for the youth band
(Ignite) at Bluetree. I’ve also spoken
with a few people at G-West who are on the worship team and they all say that
things are still running well. Praise
the Lord! Continue to pray for me and
the other people involved in the worship teams at G-West and Bluetree that the
ministry would continue to grow and thrive.
Flying Mission Annual
General Meeting
Flying
Mission held its Annual General Meeting back in June but because of some of the
issues that arose in that meeting, another meeting was held in August. I won’t bore you with all the details because
the meeting went on for about 6-7 hours but by the end a peaceful resolution
was formed. Please continue to pray for
Flying Mission as we come out of a time of tension between our leaders. Pray for healing and for unity as we continue
to serve the Lord here in Botswana.
Pastor Larson Visit
At
the end of July we were privileged to have an old friend return to Botswana after
a long absence. Jonathan Larson who was
the pastor of Open Baptist Church G-West for a number of years returned to
Botswana and planned a visit with some of us from the church. It was great to see him again and great to hear
him tell stories of what he’s been up to since we last saw him. Pastor Larson a very good story teller and
being a story teller myself, I love hear him tell his tales. Though our time was very short with him it
was also very rich. I look forward to
seeing him again soon. Hopefully he’ll
retire in Botswana!
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| We listened intently to Pastor Larson's stories |
New Roommate
The
rotating roommates continue! My last
roommate, Jeff Burnham, returned to the United States at the beginning of
August but within a few weeks my new roommate, Ben Radmore, moved in. Ben is a pilot with Flying Mission Services
(FMS) and is from the UK. He’s been
spending a lot of time in northern Botswana (Maun) but when he’s around we get
along very well. Praise the Lord that he
continues to provide with roommates to keep my living costs down.
Lots Of New People
Recently
we’ve seen many new people arrive to serve here at Flying Mission. FMS has needed more pilots and mechanics so
we’ve been happy to see new people arriving to fill those gaps. It’s also meant that my social life has been flourishing
which is something I’m always willing to increase! Praise the Lord that he sees our needs! And he not only sees them, but he sees to
them! Praise the Lord!
Mom Update
Last
but certainly not least I’d like to give you a short update on my Mother. She still requires blood transfusions every
week which is getting very tiring.
Please continue to pray for her that her strength would be renewed and
that she would not get discouraged despite her current situation. Pray that a new heart would become available
soon.
The Lighter Side
For
those of you that have read my letters before you know that I always find
something to laugh about here in Botswana.
The ordinary seemingly becomes the extraordinary in this awesome country
of Botswana.
Recently
I saw a van drive by me on a busy road in the middle of town. The van was a Toyota but I was surprised by
the model name of the van which was simply called “Noah”. I wondered who would have thought to name a
van “Noah”. I was almost expecting the
thing to be made out of wood and for the back of the van to be full of
animals. Also, is this a new strategy by
Toyota? Will they be coming out with a
powerful 1000 horse power sports car called the “Sampson”? Or perhaps an economical sedan called the “Solomon”. “The Toyota Solomon. It’s a wise choice”
One
thing you have to get used to here in Botswana is the amount of pedestrians on
the road. I’m not sure exactly why
people do this but when people walk on a road they always seem to prefer to
walk in the dead center of it. Your
instinct is to slow down as you’re expecting them to move out of the way. This is actually the opposite thing you
should do. If you slow down what seems
to happen is you are actually telling the pedestrian “Oh, go ahead
pedestrian. I’m not in a hurry”. When I’ve slowed down for people I’ve had
people take massive advantages of me and you end up going nowhere. A local friend of mine (Andy Moyo) told me
that when you see someone on the road, speed up and honk your horn. This lets pedestrians know, “I’m a car. You’re a person. GET OUT OF THE WAY!” Pedestrians actually do not have the right of
way on the roads and the local people know it.
And let me tell you, they know to get out of the way!
I
had a good laugh recently at the local bank.
I was there with my co-worker Joshua Tlangae and we walked up to the
teller together to deposit some money.
Joshua whispered to me that she thought the tellers hair was very beautiful. I turned to her and said in Setswana that her
hair was very beautiful. The woman’s
reaction was priceless. She covered her
face and began laughing. I’m not sure if
she was laughing because my Setswana shocked her or that she was simply embarrassed
by the compliment. I think I made her
day. As we walked out of the bank I
turned to Josh and said, “See how happy she is?
Compliments shouldn’t be whispered.”
Conclusion
Well,
I think that’s all I have for you this month.
Thank you all again for your prayers and support. Sala sentle!
(Stay well)
Peace
and prayers,
Graham
Crawford <><
Please
visit my blog site at: botsbulletin.blogspot.com
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.
