Blessing a Missionary

The interns were recently given two assignments: bless a national, and bless a missionary. This past weekend we completed the mission of blessing a missionary. We chose to bless Ms Pat, who is basically our plot grandma. She's Jerry Lackey's mother and has been living in Botswana for the past 18 years. I just love her so much. She is this tiny little woman who has so much spunk and personality. She came out here to start the Ngamiland Christian Academy, which has now turned into the Okavango International School, where I work. She is very hands on with children's ministry at the church, and spends every Saturday morning running puppet practice and special music practice. She is busy now with bells; the kids are going to do some caroling and bell ringing in town on December 19th. I volunteered Dietra and myself to help her the day of, but we knew she would need some help with practices prior to it.

So on Saturday, we went to her house at 9:30am to pick her up and head over to church. We spent 2 hours rehearsing with the children that came to practice (which was so fun!) and then spent some time in town helping her run a few errands. She is just so sweet- she was so excited to have the help, and was so thankful for every little thing that we did. It really felt like we weren't doing much at all, but I am glad that whatever we did made a difference for her.

That night we had her over to our house for dinner. We did our best to set it up as nicely as possible, but we don't have much to work with. I was giggling at our hodge podge of "china" and our tablecloth made out of a bed sheet that has been acting as a curtain for the past 2 months. We had a candle lit on the table and Christmas music playing as she walked in the house; she just loved it. It was such a wonderful time of fellowship. Ms Pat stayed over until almost 9:30 that night, just chatting with us. The guys had to leave at 8pm for boarding duties, so Dietra and I were able to get some good "girl time" in with her. She is such a dear. When we were walking her home that night, she said twice "I will never forget this night." That put a smile on my face :)

The next day she stopped over with her tape player and some Christmas tapes for us to enjoy; how cute is that? She gave me a hug and called me her friend for life.

It was a good weekend.