God is good even when things don't go my way. I write in a journal every day. . .or at least more regularly than I post new blogs. I write down my prayers; I suppose God reads prayers, too, He doesn't just hear them, does He? Habakkuk says it like this:
Though the fig tree does not bud
and there are no grapes on the vines,
Though the olive crop fails
and the fields produce no food,
though there are no sheep in the pen
and no cattle in the stalls,
yet I will rejoice in the Lord,
I will be joyful in God my Savior.
I say it like this:
Though our shipment doesn't arrive for six months
and then when it does come it's been pilfered,
Though the computer gets a virus
and it's so corrupted it can't be saved,
Though the electricity goes off for 12 hours
and I have an electric stove and 12 guests to cook for,
yet I will rejoice in the Lord,
I will be joyful in God my Savior.
Thursday, July 9, 2009
Friday, June 5, 2009
3 Weeks in Kacgae
These are e-mails that I sent back to my family while I was out in the Kalahari Desert with 11 students from the Bible College. Our assignment was to live with the San people (the Bushmen) and learn a bit of their culture and serve them like Jesus would serve them. I've mostly just cut and pasted the e-mails.
May 14, 2009
Nora, Yes, I'm fine. I'm in Gantsi for a visit with friends and there's internet at the Post Office. I'll probably write some e-mails and then send some "newsy" ones that Chuck may send out as newsletters. I love you and I miss you. Love, Janet
Chuck & the rest of my family, I'll probably send this news in installments, because if I lose track of time, I might have a long e-mail written and then get kicked off the internet before I get a chance to send it. I love you all! Mom/Janet
Nora, Yes, I'm fine. I'm in Gantsi for a visit with friends and there's internet at the Post Office. I'll probably write some e-mails and then send some "newsy" ones that Chuck may send out as newsletters. I love you and I miss you. Love, Janet
Chuck & the rest of my family, I'll probably send this news in installments, because if I lose track of time, I might have a long e-mail written and then get kicked off the internet before I get a chance to send it. I love you all! Mom/Janet
Charity, I'm at the Post Office in Gantsi, where I can buy internet time for 10 Pula per hour: that's about a dollar and a quarter for an hour! I made the trip here from Kacgae yesterday to spend the night with an old friend and arrange for a "field trip" for the students who are on the Missions Practicum. Love, Mom
To the family, The students seem to be adjusting to life in the Bush. . .most of them are adjusting anyway! This is NOT easy living. They are mostly young enough to consider this an "adventure." Believe me, it does not seem like an adventure to those whose jobs put them here full-time; for instance, the nurse that I'm staying with was so excited that I was coming to stay with her for 3 weeks, because she is very lonely and bored in this remote place. She said when she gets up on Sunday (her only real day off), she washes her laundry (by hand), cleans the bathrooms, sweeps, mops, and then sits down and it’s still morning; so then she cries for a while.
To the family, The students seem to be adjusting to life in the Bush. . .most of them are adjusting anyway! This is NOT easy living. They are mostly young enough to consider this an "adventure." Believe me, it does not seem like an adventure to those whose jobs put them here full-time; for instance, the nurse that I'm staying with was so excited that I was coming to stay with her for 3 weeks, because she is very lonely and bored in this remote place. She said when she gets up on Sunday (her only real day off), she washes her laundry (by hand), cleans the bathrooms, sweeps, mops, and then sits down and it’s still morning; so then she cries for a while.
On Tuesday—our second full day here—we went to greet the chief of the village. We went to his office—I had seen him the day before and he said to meet him in his office. He wasn't there, but as we were standing there, the clerk said, "There goes his truck right now!" I asked, "Did you see him inside it?" He thought he was probably in it. I asked the students who were standing outside which way the truck went and they indicated that it turned right just beyond the offices; so I knew he was going to his compound. We set out on foot to follow him.
to be continued
Family: We caught up with the chief at his house. I appointed one of the students to make a little speech, and then the chief made a little speech and then we prayed for him and his household. Very simple event, but we need the goodwill of village leadership if we expect to have success for the kingdom there.
Family: We caught up with the chief at his house. I appointed one of the students to make a little speech, and then the chief made a little speech and then we prayed for him and his household. Very simple event, but we need the goodwill of village leadership if we expect to have success for the kingdom there.
As we were leaving, I asked the students to gather around because I needed to tell them something. As we gathered together just outside the chief's compound, one little old man approached us, saying something in his language that I couldn't understand. But I understood the gestures he was making. So I asked the student standing nearest him,"Jabu [not his real name], tell him we don't have money to give him for cigarettes, but we'll pray for him that God will deliver him from tobacco."
Jabu turned and translated my comment to him into Setswana.Then I heard the little man say the English word "drink." So I said,"Tell him we can't give him money for beer, but we'll pray that God will deliver him from alcohol."
Jabu translated again, and then turned back towards me so that he could hear whatever it was I wanted to announce to them.
"Jabu!" I said, "Pray for him now. You told him we were going to pray for him, so pray for him."So he turned and laid hands on the little man and prayed. I suppose he prayed that God would deliver the man from alcohol and tobacco; that's what I asked him to do. He prayed in Setswana, so I'm sure God understood what he said.Love, Mom/Janet
Michelle, I'm at a small internet cafe in Gantsi, so I don't know if I'll get on facebook today. I hope you check your e-mails too, because this may be the only way I communicate till I get back home about June 1. I hope you had a happy Mother's Day too; I was missing my own kids and grandkids on Mother's day. That's the day I left the Bible College with 11 students to take them out to the Bush for the missions practicum. Love, janet
Michelle, I'm at a small internet cafe in Gantsi, so I don't know if I'll get on facebook today. I hope you check your e-mails too, because this may be the only way I communicate till I get back home about June 1. I hope you had a happy Mother's Day too; I was missing my own kids and grandkids on Mother's day. That's the day I left the Bible College with 11 students to take them out to the Bush for the missions practicum. Love, janet
Family, A couple of days ago, Susan (the nurse I'm staying with) had to go to another village to run a clinic there. Her daughter (Memory is the daughter's name) is there for a brief visit, and Memory wanted to go with her. Susan asked me before she left, "Do you have any program for this afternoon?" and I told her that I basically didn't. Then she told me they would be leaving me alone all afternoon, perhaps till quite late, and I told them I'd be fine. I said, "I'll spend some time in prayer. And maybe I'll go visit Mma Pego for a little while." Mma Pego is the old woman who used to run a shabeen (that's an unlicensed tavern that's usually operated out of a home); her 2 granddaughters are the people who helped me most when I first started going out to Kacgae.
So I put on my little sun visor (I forgot to bring my sunglasses) and set out to trudge through the sand to Mma Pego's compound. I had just barely ducked under the little gateway behind Susan's house when I found Mma Pego sitting on the ground in the shade opposite the police station. She had a couple of bundles of sugar cane beside her. Finally, when somebody was walking by who can speak a bit of English, I finally got it straight: she's selling the sugar cane for P2 per stalk. So I walked back over to Susan's house and got a P2.00 coin. I bought 1 stalk of sugar cane.
There were 3 or 4 people gathered round by now, so I broke the sugar cane into pieces to share. It doesn't break easily, so I had to twist and pull, and as I twisted, the sweet, sticky sugar can juice began to ooze out. I didn't want it to just drip on the ground, so I made a great show of sucking the drips before they could fall to the ground. A little DID fall to the ground, and some dripped down the front of my blouse as well. I pretended to wipe up the drip from the sand with my little finger and lick it, and those ladies laughed along with me.
My time may be running short here at the internet cafe. I’ll send this & continue in a minute.
My time may be running short here at the internet cafe. I’ll send this & continue in a minute.
Family, After we sat and sucked the juice out of most of that sugar cane, Mma Pego gave me another stalk as a gift. I figured I would give that one to the students at the nearest compound. So I took my leave of Mma Pego and the others and walked over to Ompametsi's compound to see the students there. Nkele and Goitsione and Keamogetse were very glad to get the sugar cane. I sat and visited with Ompametsi while she nursed her little baby--she calls him "Junior" and he's 8 months old. I still had a bit of the first sugar cane left, so I gave that to Qaima (who also goes by "Emily"). She chewed on that for quite a while and talked and laughed for a while. Emily went farther in school than most of the San, so she can understand quite a bit of English, though she doesn't speak much in English. Ompametsi is fluent in English, so we had a good visit.
As we were chatting, I looked down at my blouse where I had dribbled the juice from the sugar cane and I said, "Look, I've dribbled on myself just like an old woman!" Emily just cracked up. Ompametsi said, "You see, she can hear what you're saying!" And then Emily and another Mosarwa woman tried to teach me the word for "old woman."
At this point, my time was up at the post office internet café.
May 21, 2009
This trip to Kang today was totally an accident. Susan (the nurse) asked me yesterday if I'd give her daughter Memory (yes, that's the daughter's name, Memory) a lift to the highway, where she could catch the bus to Gaborone. I told her yes I would. At first she said about 7:15, but later she said, "Well, the bus comes around 7:30, so 7:20 is probably ok." I was ready to go this morning about 7:10, but they were still brushing teeth, etc., and then we had to load her bags in the pick-up.
We reached the highway right at 7:30 and waited. Susan came with us to the bus stop, just to have a few more minutes with her daughter. They are from Zambia and this posting to Kacgae is a real trial for Susan, because it's sooooo remote. Memory wanted to stay in Kacgae only 1 week, but she wound up staying 2 weeks. . .I think just because Susan was waiting to get paid. Memory is in nursing school here in Botswana and she's on break right now till July 12
So, we waited till about 8 for the bus. At one point, Susan came over to the truck and said, "Now I'm really worried, because it's never this late!" At a minute or so after 8, I got out and said, "Let me just drive to Kang and she can catch a bus from there." Besides the one she was planning to catch, which comes from Ganzi, past the Kacgae junction, and through Kang on to Gaborone, there is a bus that comes from Hukuntsi, through Kang and on to Gaborone. Memory is going to visit her Dad in Gaborone and pick up the rest of her luggage and then leave tomorrow evening for Zambia.
I had thought we'd just take off from the junction there. . .partly because I was very low on fuel and another round trip to Kacgae might really be the end for me! But Susan said she needed to go back in case there were any patients today. . .it's a holiday (Ascencion Day, really a Catholic holiday, but it's a public holiday here in Botswana), but Susan is always on call when she's not away from home. I was willing to go back to the house, because, although fuel was low, so was the money I had with me. I had P200 in my purse, but I knew I had another P800 back at Susan's in my suitcase, and I would have a hard time doing much of anything in Kang with just P200. Basically about all I could do would be to get enough diesel to make a round-trip to Kacgae.
We three hopped back in the pickup and I drove Susan home, giving a lift to 4 fellows walking to Kacgae from the highway--that's 11 Kilometers, a LOOOONG hike. I got some more money out of my hidden stash, and then wet my hair and put in the hair mousse so that I could fix my hair by the time I got here to Kang.
First stop was at the Ultra-stop to get fuel. It was pretty empty all right. Luckily, Susan had told Memory where we need to go to catch a bus to Gaborone: she said the FIRST filling station. The Ultra-stop is the SECOND filling station. So after taking a potty stop and paying for fuel, we went back down the highway to the BP station where the bus would be coming. Memory was just taking her suitcase inside the little snack shop when somebody told her, "The bus is here right now!" First they said, "It's around this side," and then they said, "It's around the other side," but we got to it and loaded in the stuff and got her aboard.
I just got bumped off the internet, but I hope this will still work. More later
OK, while I was driving from the Ultrastop to the internet cafe, I got a call from Susan to let me know they had a little problem. The problem is, they are all out of cooking gas there, so she wanted to know if I'd buy a cylinder while I'm here. Usually you have to bring back an empty cylinder, but she said just go ahead and buy a cylinder AND the gas and she'd pay me tomorrow. By that time I was here at the internet cafe and it was open!
I spoke with the owner, Mr. Phiri (it kind of sounds like Perry, and that's how I wrote it down at first; you don't pronounce "ph" like an "f" in Setswana), and I told him I just got a call that they need cooking gas back in Kacgae and I asked his advice about where I should buy it. He said the Cash & Carry, because it's a holiday and Kang Trading Store is closed.
When I got to the Cash & Carry, it looked like every little tuck-shop owner in the whole state (except here they call them Districts, not states) was there re-stocking his/her shop. It's kind of like Costco, and here in Kang it's on a VERY small scale. But still, there were people with those huge pallet-type carts buying enough stuff to keep their little shop going for another month. I didn't dare leave and come back later though: being a holiday, I'm just lucky they were open at all. . .I'm sure they closed at 1:00 this afternoon, and it was noon when I arrived there.
More in a minute
At this point, my time was up at the post office internet café.
May 21, 2009
This trip to Kang today was totally an accident. Susan (the nurse) asked me yesterday if I'd give her daughter Memory (yes, that's the daughter's name, Memory) a lift to the highway, where she could catch the bus to Gaborone. I told her yes I would. At first she said about 7:15, but later she said, "Well, the bus comes around 7:30, so 7:20 is probably ok." I was ready to go this morning about 7:10, but they were still brushing teeth, etc., and then we had to load her bags in the pick-up.
We reached the highway right at 7:30 and waited. Susan came with us to the bus stop, just to have a few more minutes with her daughter. They are from Zambia and this posting to Kacgae is a real trial for Susan, because it's sooooo remote. Memory wanted to stay in Kacgae only 1 week, but she wound up staying 2 weeks. . .I think just because Susan was waiting to get paid. Memory is in nursing school here in Botswana and she's on break right now till July 12
So, we waited till about 8 for the bus. At one point, Susan came over to the truck and said, "Now I'm really worried, because it's never this late!" At a minute or so after 8, I got out and said, "Let me just drive to Kang and she can catch a bus from there." Besides the one she was planning to catch, which comes from Ganzi, past the Kacgae junction, and through Kang on to Gaborone, there is a bus that comes from Hukuntsi, through Kang and on to Gaborone. Memory is going to visit her Dad in Gaborone and pick up the rest of her luggage and then leave tomorrow evening for Zambia.
I had thought we'd just take off from the junction there. . .partly because I was very low on fuel and another round trip to Kacgae might really be the end for me! But Susan said she needed to go back in case there were any patients today. . .it's a holiday (Ascencion Day, really a Catholic holiday, but it's a public holiday here in Botswana), but Susan is always on call when she's not away from home. I was willing to go back to the house, because, although fuel was low, so was the money I had with me. I had P200 in my purse, but I knew I had another P800 back at Susan's in my suitcase, and I would have a hard time doing much of anything in Kang with just P200. Basically about all I could do would be to get enough diesel to make a round-trip to Kacgae.
We three hopped back in the pickup and I drove Susan home, giving a lift to 4 fellows walking to Kacgae from the highway--that's 11 Kilometers, a LOOOONG hike. I got some more money out of my hidden stash, and then wet my hair and put in the hair mousse so that I could fix my hair by the time I got here to Kang.
First stop was at the Ultra-stop to get fuel. It was pretty empty all right. Luckily, Susan had told Memory where we need to go to catch a bus to Gaborone: she said the FIRST filling station. The Ultra-stop is the SECOND filling station. So after taking a potty stop and paying for fuel, we went back down the highway to the BP station where the bus would be coming. Memory was just taking her suitcase inside the little snack shop when somebody told her, "The bus is here right now!" First they said, "It's around this side," and then they said, "It's around the other side," but we got to it and loaded in the stuff and got her aboard.
I just got bumped off the internet, but I hope this will still work. More later
OK, while I was driving from the Ultrastop to the internet cafe, I got a call from Susan to let me know they had a little problem. The problem is, they are all out of cooking gas there, so she wanted to know if I'd buy a cylinder while I'm here. Usually you have to bring back an empty cylinder, but she said just go ahead and buy a cylinder AND the gas and she'd pay me tomorrow. By that time I was here at the internet cafe and it was open!
I spoke with the owner, Mr. Phiri (it kind of sounds like Perry, and that's how I wrote it down at first; you don't pronounce "ph" like an "f" in Setswana), and I told him I just got a call that they need cooking gas back in Kacgae and I asked his advice about where I should buy it. He said the Cash & Carry, because it's a holiday and Kang Trading Store is closed.
When I got to the Cash & Carry, it looked like every little tuck-shop owner in the whole state (except here they call them Districts, not states) was there re-stocking his/her shop. It's kind of like Costco, and here in Kang it's on a VERY small scale. But still, there were people with those huge pallet-type carts buying enough stuff to keep their little shop going for another month. I didn't dare leave and come back later though: being a holiday, I'm just lucky they were open at all. . .I'm sure they closed at 1:00 this afternoon, and it was noon when I arrived there.
More in a minute
But the electricity went off before I could write any more.
May 27, 2009
I'm at my favorite little internet cafe in all of the Kalahari. I'll probably send several short e-mails rather than 1 long one: this is a dial-up service and sometimes the electricity goes off and sometimes the dial-up service bumps me off, so I try not to stay on, typing a long message, because sometimes it gets wiped out before I send it. I was here last week and sent about 10 brief e-mails to Chuck and Jeremy & Charity and the electricity went out before I was able to send the 10th one. Since I had already sent them 9/10 of what I wanted to say, I didn't feel a very great loss.
Speaking of the Kalahari, you should know that this is not a desert like the Mohave or the Sahara: you know, miles & miles of rolling sand-dunes. The Kalahari is sparce grass, scattered thorn trees and deep sand. It's actually considered an arid region; seldom does it fail to get at least a little rain every year.
OK, I can't even send out the message to all the people on my list. I've exceeded the number of e-mails that I can send in an hour! I don't even know if I can send this one through. Love, Mom/Janet
Let me just tell you guys what's going on here, since I couldn't make my "group" e-mail go through.
I've been encouraging the students ever since the beginning of last term to LIVE THE WORD. As far as I'm concerned, it's easy enough to PREACH the Word, but it takes a real man or woman of God to LIVE the Word all day every day. Or even part of the day every day.
So, during the day, we live the word, and every evening the students preach the word. I don't even check up on their preaching, but I'm involved with them every day as they live the word. Mainly because it's the pick-up and a driver that's most in demand. We've been gathering firewood, gathering thatching grass for a couple of roofs, and yesterday and today we've been gathering in the harvest for one old lady, Mma Pego.
Let me continue in a minute.
Nora, Now the internet cafe has used up all its pre-paid phone time, so he has sent his daughter to buy more time. I'm pretty sure that I can re-connect after he loads on the time and, as long as I don't close this page or try to send till I'm re-connected, this e-mail should go through intact. Love, Janet
Charity, I was bumped off for a little while and now I'm back on, but there are people waiting to use the computer. I love you too. Love, Mommie!
May 28, 2009
Friends & family, I tried to send you all a second installment of my little Kalahari newsletter yesterday and I couldn’t do it. The problem is not the dial-up service here at the internet café, the problem is Yahoo: they only let you send out a certain number of e-mails per hour. This is an effort to combat spam, but it’s a hindrance to those of us who want to send e-newsletters.
Anyway, as I was saying, the Kalahari is not quite the desert that the Sahara is—Acacia trees grow here a lot, and every species of Acacia has thorns! The weather is dry and the sand is deep and the San (you probably know them as the Bushmen) adapted to life in this environment centuries ago. But in 1984, the federal government of Botswana moved them out of the Central Kalahari Reserve and into settlements. Life in a settlement is hopeless and meaningless.
I have been urging the students—not just the ones who are here on the missions practicum, but all the students at ABC—that they didn’t come to Bible College to learn to preach the Word, but rather to learn how to LIVE the Word. That’s what we’ve been doing in Kacgae during the Missions Practicum. We live the Word all day and then the students preach the word every evening. It’s been a lot of work, but I think they’re getting the hang of things.
We’ve been out about 3 times to collect thatching grass. Thatching a hut is a new activity among the San, because they traditionally are a mobile people: they hunt wild animals and gather wild plants to sustain their lives, so they never built huts before. It was Sotlhego, Wire’s wife, who first asked me to take her to collect grass. Once her neighbors saw her thatching her hut, several of THEM also decided they needed to get thatching grass as well. Our first load of grass only did about a fourth of the roof, so I took her back the next week for more grass. The students who are staying at her compound (Solomon and Charles) went along to help her cut the grass and I just dropped them and came back about 2 hours later. Her 2 friends who accompanied her and helped her cut stayed another 2 hours and cut more grass, and that last load of grass went to Lentswi’s compound. We still have to get grass for Qaima, but there’s been a little hiccup: the day after getting those 2 big loads of grass, a relative of Lentswi’s died in another settlement about 46 kilometers away—I wonder how she got the news. . .I KNOW she doesn’t have a cell phone.
At that point, Qaima came to ask me if I could give Lentswi and her family a ride to a funeral in Bere, the settlement where her late relative had been residing. Since my fuel was low and there is NOTHING on the road to Bere (interpret that to mean not even a hint of a filling station), I had to refuse. They were quite annoyed with me; it’s hard to make them understand that if I don’t have enough fuel in the pick-up to reach Kang, I might as well have an empty tank. I wound up giving Lentswi and her family a ride to the highway, where they had to hitch a ride to the Bere junction, and from there, I assume they got a ride into Bere. We have a tentative appointment with Qaima to take her to cut thatching grass tomorrow afternoon.
Meanwhile, for the last 3 days we’ve been helping Mma Pego harvest her crop. Mma Pego is not San, she’s Mokgalagadi—they are the “business” people in all the settlements and villages around the edge of the Central Kalahari Reserve. She has a cell phone. She had been telling me that her oldest son was coming to see her. She expected him the first weekend we were in Kacgae, but he got sick; then she expected him the following weekend, but he had 3 flat tires and had to turn back to Ganzi to buy 3 tires. . .or maybe he bought four! I didn’t realize that she was expecting him to come and help harvest her field; she has a huge field—I would estimate 5-10 acres—and she planted it in maize (corn), beans, sugar cane and a variety of melons. All the melons look like watermelons to me, but they tell me that most of them are not sweet and they’re not red inside, and some varieties have to be cooked before you eat them. These are all planted intermingled in the fields.
She called me on her cell phone on Tuesday and had me talk to her granddaughter: Mma Pego can’t speak English, but her granddaughter Betty can. Mma Pego was desperate to harvest her field because cattle had broken down her fence and were feasting on watermelons and corn and everything else. About 7 students went with me as I drove the pick-up through the thick bush (thorns scratching the paint all along the way) and then right out into the field. We collected watermelons and whatever those other melons are, and corn and some sugar cane. It looked as if she had already harvested most of the beans and sugar cane. And when I say we COLLECTED corn and melons, I mean we collected them by hand. We bent over and picked up melons and carried them to the pick-up, then filled in whatever space was left with ears of corn. In the last 3 days I’ve probably hauled about a dozen pick-up loads of melons and corn; often the sugarcane is consumed right in the fields, so we didn’t bring back much of that!
Hey, I have pictures of a lot of this, but I can’t download my pictures to the computer here at the little Internet Café in Kang. I’ll have to send them to you when I get home.
The students have been working as field hands during the day and they take turns preaching every night. Lots of people pray the sinner’s prayer at the services, but we usually find them back in the shabeens the next day. Oh, I should tell you, Mma Pego has closed HER shabeen, but there are still plenty of others. Pray for the San people; above all else, they need the light of the gospel to transform their lives. Pray that our students will hear God calling them into missions; even though they have not left their own country, they are ministering to a people who are foreign to them. Pray that we’ll have a safe trip home on Saturday. God is good.
Love, Janet
May 27, 2009
I'm at my favorite little internet cafe in all of the Kalahari. I'll probably send several short e-mails rather than 1 long one: this is a dial-up service and sometimes the electricity goes off and sometimes the dial-up service bumps me off, so I try not to stay on, typing a long message, because sometimes it gets wiped out before I send it. I was here last week and sent about 10 brief e-mails to Chuck and Jeremy & Charity and the electricity went out before I was able to send the 10th one. Since I had already sent them 9/10 of what I wanted to say, I didn't feel a very great loss.
Speaking of the Kalahari, you should know that this is not a desert like the Mohave or the Sahara: you know, miles & miles of rolling sand-dunes. The Kalahari is sparce grass, scattered thorn trees and deep sand. It's actually considered an arid region; seldom does it fail to get at least a little rain every year.
OK, I can't even send out the message to all the people on my list. I've exceeded the number of e-mails that I can send in an hour! I don't even know if I can send this one through. Love, Mom/Janet
Let me just tell you guys what's going on here, since I couldn't make my "group" e-mail go through.
I've been encouraging the students ever since the beginning of last term to LIVE THE WORD. As far as I'm concerned, it's easy enough to PREACH the Word, but it takes a real man or woman of God to LIVE the Word all day every day. Or even part of the day every day.
So, during the day, we live the word, and every evening the students preach the word. I don't even check up on their preaching, but I'm involved with them every day as they live the word. Mainly because it's the pick-up and a driver that's most in demand. We've been gathering firewood, gathering thatching grass for a couple of roofs, and yesterday and today we've been gathering in the harvest for one old lady, Mma Pego.
Let me continue in a minute.
Nora, Now the internet cafe has used up all its pre-paid phone time, so he has sent his daughter to buy more time. I'm pretty sure that I can re-connect after he loads on the time and, as long as I don't close this page or try to send till I'm re-connected, this e-mail should go through intact. Love, Janet
Charity, I was bumped off for a little while and now I'm back on, but there are people waiting to use the computer. I love you too. Love, Mommie!
May 28, 2009
Friends & family, I tried to send you all a second installment of my little Kalahari newsletter yesterday and I couldn’t do it. The problem is not the dial-up service here at the internet café, the problem is Yahoo: they only let you send out a certain number of e-mails per hour. This is an effort to combat spam, but it’s a hindrance to those of us who want to send e-newsletters.
Anyway, as I was saying, the Kalahari is not quite the desert that the Sahara is—Acacia trees grow here a lot, and every species of Acacia has thorns! The weather is dry and the sand is deep and the San (you probably know them as the Bushmen) adapted to life in this environment centuries ago. But in 1984, the federal government of Botswana moved them out of the Central Kalahari Reserve and into settlements. Life in a settlement is hopeless and meaningless.
I have been urging the students—not just the ones who are here on the missions practicum, but all the students at ABC—that they didn’t come to Bible College to learn to preach the Word, but rather to learn how to LIVE the Word. That’s what we’ve been doing in Kacgae during the Missions Practicum. We live the Word all day and then the students preach the word every evening. It’s been a lot of work, but I think they’re getting the hang of things.
We’ve been out about 3 times to collect thatching grass. Thatching a hut is a new activity among the San, because they traditionally are a mobile people: they hunt wild animals and gather wild plants to sustain their lives, so they never built huts before. It was Sotlhego, Wire’s wife, who first asked me to take her to collect grass. Once her neighbors saw her thatching her hut, several of THEM also decided they needed to get thatching grass as well. Our first load of grass only did about a fourth of the roof, so I took her back the next week for more grass. The students who are staying at her compound (Solomon and Charles) went along to help her cut the grass and I just dropped them and came back about 2 hours later. Her 2 friends who accompanied her and helped her cut stayed another 2 hours and cut more grass, and that last load of grass went to Lentswi’s compound. We still have to get grass for Qaima, but there’s been a little hiccup: the day after getting those 2 big loads of grass, a relative of Lentswi’s died in another settlement about 46 kilometers away—I wonder how she got the news. . .I KNOW she doesn’t have a cell phone.
At that point, Qaima came to ask me if I could give Lentswi and her family a ride to a funeral in Bere, the settlement where her late relative had been residing. Since my fuel was low and there is NOTHING on the road to Bere (interpret that to mean not even a hint of a filling station), I had to refuse. They were quite annoyed with me; it’s hard to make them understand that if I don’t have enough fuel in the pick-up to reach Kang, I might as well have an empty tank. I wound up giving Lentswi and her family a ride to the highway, where they had to hitch a ride to the Bere junction, and from there, I assume they got a ride into Bere. We have a tentative appointment with Qaima to take her to cut thatching grass tomorrow afternoon.
Meanwhile, for the last 3 days we’ve been helping Mma Pego harvest her crop. Mma Pego is not San, she’s Mokgalagadi—they are the “business” people in all the settlements and villages around the edge of the Central Kalahari Reserve. She has a cell phone. She had been telling me that her oldest son was coming to see her. She expected him the first weekend we were in Kacgae, but he got sick; then she expected him the following weekend, but he had 3 flat tires and had to turn back to Ganzi to buy 3 tires. . .or maybe he bought four! I didn’t realize that she was expecting him to come and help harvest her field; she has a huge field—I would estimate 5-10 acres—and she planted it in maize (corn), beans, sugar cane and a variety of melons. All the melons look like watermelons to me, but they tell me that most of them are not sweet and they’re not red inside, and some varieties have to be cooked before you eat them. These are all planted intermingled in the fields.
She called me on her cell phone on Tuesday and had me talk to her granddaughter: Mma Pego can’t speak English, but her granddaughter Betty can. Mma Pego was desperate to harvest her field because cattle had broken down her fence and were feasting on watermelons and corn and everything else. About 7 students went with me as I drove the pick-up through the thick bush (thorns scratching the paint all along the way) and then right out into the field. We collected watermelons and whatever those other melons are, and corn and some sugar cane. It looked as if she had already harvested most of the beans and sugar cane. And when I say we COLLECTED corn and melons, I mean we collected them by hand. We bent over and picked up melons and carried them to the pick-up, then filled in whatever space was left with ears of corn. In the last 3 days I’ve probably hauled about a dozen pick-up loads of melons and corn; often the sugarcane is consumed right in the fields, so we didn’t bring back much of that!
Hey, I have pictures of a lot of this, but I can’t download my pictures to the computer here at the little Internet Café in Kang. I’ll have to send them to you when I get home.
The students have been working as field hands during the day and they take turns preaching every night. Lots of people pray the sinner’s prayer at the services, but we usually find them back in the shabeens the next day. Oh, I should tell you, Mma Pego has closed HER shabeen, but there are still plenty of others. Pray for the San people; above all else, they need the light of the gospel to transform their lives. Pray that our students will hear God calling them into missions; even though they have not left their own country, they are ministering to a people who are foreign to them. Pray that we’ll have a safe trip home on Saturday. God is good.
Love, Janet
Thursday, March 5, 2009
An Unstung Hero
We've hired a new gardener here at our house in Tlokweng: his name's Benjamin, and he doesn't speak much English, though he understands a fair amount. For the past couple of days, Chuck has had him up on a ladder in the back yard, cutting back some tall vines and a rubber tree, because they were blocking the security light from shining into the far corners of the backyard. He was finishing up that job this morning after I got back from the school and I could hear him just outside; I was sitting with my back to the sliding glass door, reading my Bible on the sofa. But I wasn't paying him much attention.
After a while, I heard him say just "Oh!" and I thought he wanted me to come to the door. I started for the back door, where he usually comes, and then I remembered that he'd been working just outside the living room door, right where I was sitting, so I turned around, and sure enough, there's Benjamin standing at the other end of the Boma. I went out to see what he needed.
He led me over to where the ladder was leaning against the outside of the Boma and he said, "Trouble," and pointed up the ladder. "What do you mean? Is it an animal?" Actually I was afraid he'd got an electrical wire and maybe snipped it, but that wasn't it. He pointed to his upper lip and said, "It bite me." The light dawned. "Oh," I said, "you mean zzzzzzzzzz ow!" "Eee," he said, which is Setswana for "yes."
I got him a little hydrocortisone cream and 2 aspirins; I know I have some benedryl somewhere, but I couldn't find it. The he asked me for "three plastics," which is simply 3 plastic grocery bags. I went back to my reading, but I could hear him crinkling those plastic bags outside, behind my back. When my curiosity couldn't stand it any longer, I got up to see what he was doing!
He had tied 1 plastic bag around his head, poking out holes for the eyes (& air, too, I hope!). He was working hard at tying the other 2 plastic bags around each hand, to meet the sleeves of his jacket. I helped him tie those two and then prayed for his safety. Even if he didn't suffocate, I wasn't sure those eye-holes would be sufficient to prevent him from stumbling around on that ladder and falling and breaking his neck!
But he didn't. Now he's done with the pruning and with the plastic bags, and with lunch, too. And he's alive and un-injured and un-stung!
After a while, I heard him say just "Oh!" and I thought he wanted me to come to the door. I started for the back door, where he usually comes, and then I remembered that he'd been working just outside the living room door, right where I was sitting, so I turned around, and sure enough, there's Benjamin standing at the other end of the Boma. I went out to see what he needed.
He led me over to where the ladder was leaning against the outside of the Boma and he said, "Trouble," and pointed up the ladder. "What do you mean? Is it an animal?" Actually I was afraid he'd got an electrical wire and maybe snipped it, but that wasn't it. He pointed to his upper lip and said, "It bite me." The light dawned. "Oh," I said, "you mean zzzzzzzzzz ow!" "Eee," he said, which is Setswana for "yes."
I got him a little hydrocortisone cream and 2 aspirins; I know I have some benedryl somewhere, but I couldn't find it. The he asked me for "three plastics," which is simply 3 plastic grocery bags. I went back to my reading, but I could hear him crinkling those plastic bags outside, behind my back. When my curiosity couldn't stand it any longer, I got up to see what he was doing!
He had tied 1 plastic bag around his head, poking out holes for the eyes (& air, too, I hope!). He was working hard at tying the other 2 plastic bags around each hand, to meet the sleeves of his jacket. I helped him tie those two and then prayed for his safety. Even if he didn't suffocate, I wasn't sure those eye-holes would be sufficient to prevent him from stumbling around on that ladder and falling and breaking his neck!
But he didn't. Now he's done with the pruning and with the plastic bags, and with lunch, too. And he's alive and un-injured and un-stung!
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
My Lego Sermon
I think a lot of Christians know the Bible like a bag of legos: they know a verse here and there, but they've never put the whole thing together so that it makes sense.
I thought of this sermon illustration a few years ago and I wanted to use it with our students. . .but I didn't know if any of them had every seen legos, much less played with them. I knew the only way I could make this work would be to buy a lego set and show them the difference. So I bought this box of legos in South Africa (you can see the corner of the box sticking up out of the green bag). Then I divided out the legos into two zip-loc bags so that each bag had exactly the same legos in it. And then, from the legos in one bag, I built something.
I used this illustration a couple of years ago and preached in chapel to the students from Romans 3. This past Sunday, I preached in a local church plant--they're still meeting in this tent, you see. At the beginning of the sermon, I held up both bags of legos and told them, "Both these bags contain exactly the same thing! Do they look the same to you?" People responded that they looked different. Somebody said, "There's a figure in that one." "What kind of a figure?" I asked. "It's a human being."
I explained that it's easy for us to concentrate on learning favorite verses from the Bible; few of us ever put those verses together to make sense of the whole thing. And it's true: think about it. We like to meditate on John 3:16; or we find our favorite proof texts and hammer home our take on doctrine. We seldom trace Paul's arguments from the beginning of Romans through to end to find out the point he's making. Or we don't even know that the unifying principle of the gospel of John is the description of 7 miracles that persuade us to "believe that Jesus is the Christ, the son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name."
So I proceeded to read Romans 5:12-19 and tied it all together into one coherent argument. And then, when I was finished, I told them, "See, I have built you a man! These verses are no longer scattered about, but we've connected them to each other to make something familiar, something that makes sense."
Saturday, February 21, 2009
Going out to the Bush
February 21, 2009
We’ve been here nearly a month now. Last weekend we drove out to the Kalahari desert and stayed at the Ultra-Stop in Kang. I’ve already posted pictures from that trip on my facebook page, but I didn’t give many details.
We’ve been here nearly a month now. Last weekend we drove out to the Kalahari desert and stayed at the Ultra-Stop in Kang. I’ve already posted pictures from that trip on my facebook page, but I didn’t give many details.
The reason for our trip was to visit the little group of believers there and to make arrangements for our students to stay out there for three weeks during the Missions Practicum in May. The students are excited, yet nervous, about going out to Kacgae and pitching tents in the compounds of various Bushman families. But I’m not nervous, am I?!? Hah! What do you think?
We were saddened and surprised to learn that T.T., the government nurse at Kacgae, is being transferred to Ghanzi. We knew she was due for a change, but it seemed God was keeping her in the clinic there because she helped to keep the little congregation going. We met the new nurse, Susan, and learned that she is also a Christian lady. T.T. is from the Apostolic Faith Mission in Zimbabwe and Susan is from the Pentecostal Assemblies of God of Zambia. Nurses from Botswana don’t usually take jobs out in these remote clinics. We thank God he sent another Christian to take T.T.’s place.
I also met my namesake on this trip: Keatlaretse’s little daughter Janet. I wonder who she’s
named after?Pray that we’ll be able to work out all the details for the Missions Practicum. We’ll be taking a group of about 12 students out to live in very harsh conditions, to learn about the Bushmen, and to seize every opportunity to teach from God’s Word.
Friday, January 30, 2009
We've Arrived!
30 January 2009
Praise God! We arrived back in Botswana nearly a week ago now, and the work wouldn’t wait! We’re living in temporary housing for a couple of weeks till we can change the flooring in our hallway and do a bit of painting and some other maintenance and updates that are easier to do when nobody’s living in the house.
It was kind of nice to leave the US late in the day: both our kids
and both our grandkids were able to come to the airport with us at about 4:30 in the afternoon. Ian got absorbed in his Nintendo DS, but Iona was literally bouncing off the walls! We hugged and kissed a lot, but finally had
to let them go so they could eat dinner and we could go through security to our gate.One of the big projects last term was the registration of our school with the government of Botswana. We assumed that government registration was equivalent to what we call accreditation in the US, but we found out differently since we got here. When our colleague, Pat Mahar, picked us up from the airport last Saturday, he told Chuck there was a seminar on accreditation sponsored by the government and 2 people from Assembly Bible College were required to attend on Tuesday and Wednesday. So Chuck and Pastor Ntwaetsile attended, and they discovered that registration only makes us eligible to apply for accreditation; well, that and it gives us permission to keep the school open. Other schools have been shut down by the government, if their application for registration was not approved. ABC is the only theological school whose registration application was approved—the other 3 Bible Schools have been closed.
We thank the Lord for bringing us here (in 2005) in time to apply for registration and for helping with all the paperwork (reams and reams of paperwork!), so that Assembly Bible College is operating, still training pastors for local churches. God is good.
Love in Christ, Chuck and Janet
Saturday, December 6, 2008
More of Romans 3
The main theme of Romans 3 is righteousness. We tend to think of righteousness as a description of a person’s behavior or character; if you read this chapter carefully, though, you will notice that Paul does not speak of righteousness as if it is behavior, but more as if it is a status. He says that a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known. Later he says that “we maintain that a man is justified [made righteous] by faith apart from observing the law;” in other words a person’s righteousness does not depend on what he does—not on his observance of the law.
I can remember Sunday School teachers defining “righteousness” as a right relationship with God. I like that idea; and the relationship with God that it best describes is a relationship of approval: your status is “righteous” when God approves of you. Mankind has always assumed that we had to earn God’s approval by keeping the law, but Paul explains that we can never earn God’s approval no matter how hard we try. Instead God bestows His approval graciously on anybody who trusts in the sacrifice of Jesus.
I can remember Sunday School teachers defining “righteousness” as a right relationship with God. I like that idea; and the relationship with God that it best describes is a relationship of approval: your status is “righteous” when God approves of you. Mankind has always assumed that we had to earn God’s approval by keeping the law, but Paul explains that we can never earn God’s approval no matter how hard we try. Instead God bestows His approval graciously on anybody who trusts in the sacrifice of Jesus.
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