Victoria Falls Part 1

Well, it has been quite a while since I've attempted to post about something that actually happened while I was in Botswana, and I think it's time I do something about that!  So, without further ado...here's Zimbabwe!

Heaven on Earth

Breakdown.

I am sitting in a coffee shop in Minneapolis right now, putting off some things I actually need to do by looking through pictures from Bots.  Of course I break into tears in public again (this happened at another coffee shop 2 months ago after I had a chance to Skype with my beloved Brenda and see some of the children from the Lorato House of Love).  I miss Love Botswana so much...man alive, did the Lord put a burden on my heart for the place and the people there.  Anyway, thought I'd share some of the pics that did me in:

This was after spending a few hours with Mma Sibingole's family.  The little ones changed into their best clothes for us.

Sehitwa

Well, 4 months later and I am now finally getting ready to finish out some of my stories from the last month or so in Africa.  Up first: the visit to our branch church in the village of Sehitwa!

Sehitwa is Pastor Sunny's church, and is a couple of hours outside of Maun.  The girls and I loaded up the van with all of our camping equipment, drive into town, picked up Pastor Sunny and hit the road.  The only thing to note from this drive was that I finally saw my first black and white cow in Africa.  Kirsten and I (the midwestern gals) got excited, and everyone else yawned.  That was that.

Our church!

Once we arrived in Sehitwa, we pulled into the church property and started unpacking.  Within about 3 minutes we already had a hoard children surrounding us.  You definitely make a splash when 7 white girls show up in a village of a couple hundred people!  We got to work right away on cutting the grass with slashers (think of machetes, but duller).  One of my interns (Heather) was an all-star with this.  She grabbed a slasher and went to work, and while the rest of us were taking turns with the other slasher, she finished half the property.  It was nice to have her along, that's for sure!  The best part of that experience was having 7 year old children take them from me to show me how it's done :) The kids were so sweet and so talkative.  I was videotaping a group of about 5 of them as they were teaching me Setswana; it was great.  Anytime I repeated something correctly, one of the boys would say (so encouragingly) "Yes!  That is correct.  Well done!"  After we did this for a while, I was going to play back the video for them and sadly discovered that I had never pressed "record."  The kids were disappointed, but not enough to re-enact the scenario for me.  So now I don't have any video of that.  Bummer.

After we got the tents set up and finished slashing the yard, it was time to split up into 2 groups and begin evangelism in the village.  In all honesty, this type of ministry pushes me out of my comfort zone more than any other, and definitely challenges me each and every time I did it.  This time was no different.  We spent quite a bit of time in one woman's home, having a lovely conversation with her about her family and life, and then things took a turn.  She explained that it is so difficult to make any money in the village (which I completely understood- in all honesty, I don't know how anyone could make money there).  Because of this though, she was struggling to feed her children and admitted that she felt like a failure and has been contemplating suicide. What do you do with that?? We did our best, and I still think of her and pray for her often.  I hope that she's giving church another chance.  Anyway, we spent about 2 hours doing evangelism (while getting attacked by millions of ants), then met back up at the church/campsite.  It was time for Saturday night youth group!  All of the kids returned, along with about 20 teens, and we had a great service that the youth led.  I just can't get enough of our branch churches.  The cute little boy who was teaching me Setswana earlier sat with me during the service, and he knew my favorite song was "Jo Na Na" and he kept trying to request it for me.  When they finally sang it, he grabbed my arm and gave me a huge smile.  The memory of that is bringing a huge smile to my face as I type this.  Goodness, I miss Africa.

Home

I am back in Minnesota, safe and sound after 30 hours of travel.  I will spend some time over the next few days to go back and share stories from my last 7 weeks in Botswana, as well as let you know what it's like to readjust to life in America.  Hint: I cried in Target twice...and not tears of joy.  Eish.

Truth be told, I am so happy to be back with my family (and of course the hubby).  I feel like I saw them 3 weeks ago though!  It doesn't feel like 7 months have passed.

Anyway, I need to get some sleep.  I only slept for about an hour and a half on my 16 hour flight from Jo-burg, so time to crawl into bed (in fact, it's 4:15am Bots time, so I feel like I'm missing another night of sleep).  My prayer is that the jet lag wont be nearly as difficult to deal with this time around.  It took me nearly 2 weeks to get over when I went to Bots back in September!

Love to all!  Sala sentle!

Getting Ready to Leave

I still have many things to update this blog with- children's ministry, our trip to the branch church in Sehitwa, our trip to Vic Falls...but at the moment the only thing that I can think about is the fact that I am leaving Botswana in two days.  I have been an emotional rollercoaster the last few days.  At one moment I am ready to head home and see Roger and my family again, and the next I am weeping because I don't want to leave.  These past 7 months have been some of the best of my life.  I have learned so much, grown so much, and loved so much.  I am head over heels crazy about the people in Maun.  Not just the kids (which, if you have read my prior blog posts, you would know has definitely been the case); I have met some amazing people while working at the school, ministering at the church, and helping with the women's shelter.  I have made some very dear friends that I will have trouble keeping in touch with, as most of them don't have access to computers at all.

I am nervous about returning to the states.  In all honesty, I'm not looking forward to it at all.  I like the slowed-down pace of Africa; I love the ministry opportunities; I love spending my evenings at the baby house (rescue center).  I love getting kissed on the nose every week after children's church by Shawn, one of our 5-year olds.  I love looking at the clock at 10am on the weekdays and heading down to the offices to hang with the teachers over tea time.  I like getting frustrated at the donkeys, cows and goats that wont move out of your way on the road.  I like driving stick shift on the left-hand side of the road.  Eish, watch out, drivers.  I'll be second-guessing myself for weeks, I'm sure.  I love saying "Dumela, mma!" to every lady I pass on the road.  I love how I have to touch my right forearm with my left hand when shaking hands or transferring items.  I love seeing our plot dogs, Big Man and Livingstone, happily wagging their tails as they roam the property.  I love my Thursday night LOST parties with the Claytons after church.  I love doing prayer line ministry in the church if I am not working in the children's church that Sunday.  I love sneaking off the plot with Dietra for lunches at Wine and Dine or Nando's.  I love stopping by the playground at school and having 30 kids run at me screaming "IT'S MISS ASHLEY!!!!" to each other and then getting tackled. I love my greeting with Pastor Sunny: "Hi, Pastor Sunny!" "Hello, my dear!  How are you?" followed by a big hug...and we do this every single time we see each other, even if it's 12 times in a day.  I love playing games with Dietra and Brenda.  I love knowing that I am living on the tip of both the Kalahari Desert and the Okavango Delta.  I love that I could go for a walk any day and see a giraffe if I wanted to.  I love that I go out for dessert so much that staff from 2 different restaurants have become friends of mine.  I love our dinner parties at the Lackey house.  I love playing "The Game" with Mason, Dietra and Godfrey in the pool.  I love the babies we are caring for.  I love that I am blessed enough to have spent 7 months with our little Olisego.  I love that you never know when a snake is going to pop up.  I love that when I see bugs, I can say "Oh, that's only a wall spider; those are good" or "That's a blister beetle.  No biggie, just don't let it touch you." I love making fun of Dietra for talking like a Motswana.  I love leading the Heart Ablaze Bible Study.  I love doing something meaningful every single day.

It's going to be an interesting adjustment, coming back to America.  For those of you who know me, please give me a grace period to readjust.  Don't be offended if I don't seem to want to be there; Africa has completely stolen my heart.