Very Inspiring Video

A friend sent me the link to this video and it ministered to me so much. I've been thinking about what I would put on my cardboard, which has caused me to reflect on all God has done in my life. I am completely blessed and overwhelmed by His love and the work He's done and is doing in me. I hope you find the video as inspiring as I did!

"Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold the new has come." 2 Corinthians 5:17

Prayer for Zimbabwe

Please say a prayer for Zimbabwe, a neighboring country to Botswana and home to many of my friends here. The situation there is not good at all and my heart breaks for the condition of that country. I was pleased to see the word getting out when I logged on to cnn.com today and saw the top story was about Zimbabwe and the violence going on right now surrounding the re-election. You can go here to read the cnn news article or here to read an article on time.com. It just breaks my heart and it's hard to feel so helpless when such things are going on so close to you and you can't do anything about it, especially when so many around you every day are carrying the heavy burden of this being their home country where their families and many friends still live.

In my classroom we pray for Zimbabwe every day and my boarders and I pray for the country every week at our Bible study. Could you take a bit of time and pray for them also, for Mugabe's leadership to end, for the violence to stop, and for Zimbabwe to be restored to the beautiful and prosperous country it once was. Thank you so very much.

For more information on Zimbabwe now and what it used to be, you can go here.

Celebration

June 16th was the holiday "The Day of the African Child" and we had a wonderful time celebrating here at the mission and at school. All school staff and students, as well as all mission staff were encouraged to wear ethnic African clothing and I LOVED seeing all the beautiful, colorful outfits! We had a fantastic presentation with the whole school where students read poetry, sang songs, saw performances from the group, "Face the Nation", and listened to an 87 year old man share with history with them and charge them to make a change in Africa. A wonderful time was had by all and the day was made just a bit more special when the Botswana news reporters showed up! We were all ecstatic to see our little school make the national news here in Botswana on Tuesday night. What a wonderful experience for us all!

Here are some pictures from the day and the rest of them can be found here.

More Randomness

Winter in Botswana
It is winter now here in Botswana, and what an interesting experience it's proving to be. At night and in the morning it is very, very cold. Sometimes I leave for school wearing two jackets. But layering is essential here because by about 10:30, it is almost warm enough to walk around in just a t-shirt! It's the craziest thing to feel the temperature go up and down so drastically each day. I must say, though, that the day time temperature is wonderful! Sunny and warm, but not too hot, with a slight breeze. It's great!

Learning Shona
I have to admit to not being very disciplined with my Setswana learning. I think it is just too easy to speak English and not feel the need to learn Setswana. I think I'm fairly proficient with the greetings, but beyond that it's not too good. I've taken on the new challenge now of learning some Shona (spoken in Zimbabwe). I have no shortage of teachers because honestly I think I have more friends from Zimbabwe than I do from Botswana! I would write out a few words that I've learned, but I actually haven't seen any of them written down. With Shona I am learning by hearing only. I think if I actually saw the spellings, I probably wouldn't even recognize the words!

Airhead Moment
I can't believe I am sharing this, but it is just too comical not to. When you are ready to get more petrol (gas) put into your car here, you to the gas station and there are workers there ready to pump it for you. When finished, you can also have them check your vehicle's fluids. I decided to have that done this week since I haven't checked them yet. Well, I had no idea what a challenge this would be! When the guy asked me to lift up the vehicle's hood, I thought "No problem." It was a problem, however, when I went to look for the latch under my steering wheel and couldn't find it! I looked and looked and still didn't see it. Normally I would just toss this up to being a girl and having an airhead moment, but when not one, but two guys came to help and they couldn't find the latch either, I didn't feel so bad. Can you just imagine the scene of three adults searching everywhere under the dash for a latch that doesn't seem to exist! Unbelievably, we really never did find it. I am going to enlist the help of a couple of the men who work here at the mission and hope that they are able to find it. Do you think this should be added to my prayer requests? :)

Ethnic Africa
This weekend and specifically Monday, we are celebrating the holiday, "The Day of the African Child". (You can read more about this holiday here.) At Fire by Nite last night and for school on Monday, we've been asked to wear ethnic African attire. I panicked a bit at first since I didn't own anything of the sort. I had a great shopping experience yesterday, though, and found a beautiful dress that I love. I definitely plan to model this one in The States when I visit in August! Everyone looked great last night and I can't wait to see all the kids on Monday!

African Robots

I had a funny moment recently with one of my boarders. I was driving her to the bus stop when we started talking about how nice it was not to have much traffic. She was telling me about all the traffic there is in Gaborone, the capital city. She said when you are in traffic there, you are just hoping to be on a road with robots. I then asked what a robot was. She said, "Miss! You don't know what robots are?!" I said, "Well, when I think of robots, I think of like mechanical people or some time of machine. But what are you talking about?" She then responded with, "Well, they are tall, metal things that have red, yellow, and green lights." I interrupted with, "You mean stoplights?!" and got her response of, "Yes, stoplights! Also called robots!"... Just one of the many awkward conversations I find myself in here, mostly relating to vocabulary differences. Oh, how I wish I had my video camera going at these times!

Seeing changes

I just have one thing to say tonight...WOW!!! I just finished up bible study with the girls and I am still feeling totally blown away! It was by far the best study we've had, and the funny thing is, we hardly stuck to the study at all! Typically at our studies, I have a hard time getting most of the girls to open up. They are great listeners and a few of them will ask questions or even come to me privately to talk about something more in depth, but rarely do we get a really good discussion going with the girls. Well last week we spent a large majority of our time going around and each of us sharing at least one thing that was burdening our hearts so that we could each pray for each other over the week. I don't know if that broke the ice or what, but when these girls came to study tonight, they were ready to talk! From the moment we started, hands were raised all over the circle with all kinds of questions that are on their hearts. These questions ranged from "How do you really hear God speaking to you?" to "How to do you handle feelings of anger towards God after you've lost a loved one?" to "What if you've prayed about something and waited but still don't feel God's direction?" It was an intense discussion time to say the least. But the most absolutely amazing thing about it all was that before I was able to answer any of their questions, there was almost always someone else in the group who raised their hand to share their thoughts and experiences to help answer the question. How wonderful to see these girls teaching and encouraging each other!!

I am so amazed at what God is doing here. Even Tendai said the boys' bible study was incredible tonight. Thank you for your prayers! They are really working!!