The Accident

*NOTE: I apologize if this post consists of a lot of rambling and incoherent thoughts. It's a difficult subject to tackle, and things that I am going to write about are still jumbled in my head a bit. Also, some of the details could be incorrect. This is just my experience and how I personally remember the events*

Many people who come to this site are ones who personally know me or have heard about this site from my friends and family. So most people who are here have likely already heard about the incident that took place when I was visiting Botswana this past Feb/March.  If you have no clue what I'm talking about, you'll understand shortly. Now, I want you to also understand that I had an amazing time out there and I am working on some posts to talk about the trip in general and the wonderful things I saw and experienced this time around. However, I felt like I was only fooling myself by trying to avoid talking about the incident, so I couldn't bring myself to finish any of those posts until I wrote about the incident that took place on March 2, 2011 (which I just realized is actually a month ago today as I write this).  So here goes (deep breath).

Victoria Falls Part 2

Ok, so it has taken me over 2 months to get back to this blog. When I have so much to say, so many pictures to look through, I tend to get slightly overwhelmed and back off until I feel more ready. So back in January, I had a lot of different things going on in my personal life and couldn't face the task of dealing with this blog. Then February came, and I had an opportunity to get back to Botswana (more on that in posts to come). So now that I am back and a little more settled in my life, it is time to pick things back up and tell you about my time in Victoria Falls, March of 2010!

As I mentioned in my last post, I was looking forward to this Monday being the best day of my life. On the agenda: a trip to the falls, a stop at the curios market, jumping off a cliff, an elephant back safari, a dinner at the Boma, and a nighttime safari drive. What could possibly ruin this day? Waking up with the most violent stomach ache that I could hardly stand up straight.  Well, I wasn't about to let that get in my way! Let's do this!

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.