We have been here in Botswana for about a week now and it has been a very cool experience. Since we have been in Southern Africa, there has been a huge focus on not so much doing as being in God’s presence. This obviously means a lot more time spent in prayer and introspection and it is very hard to learn. My patience wears thin at these times and I want to go do something else besides praying when I am with our team, but I know that God is teaching me. There is no sweater time than that spent talking with God. He is our all sufficiency.
The ministry we have been a part of is going to the hospital to play with the children there. Most of them are boys and have injuries like broken bones. They really enjoy the chance to play and you can see it in their eyes. I wish I had a picture to show you, but I will get some next time.
We have been spending time with a young guy named Musa who is the pastor of a church here. His vision is to raise up leaders and he has been discipling us and just chillin with us. There is another guy who is less fiery but still solid none the less and is really cool. His name is Luke and he is a long term missionary here and he works with fly missions. He is great to chill with and is taking us fishing early Saturday morning.
So what do I have pictures of? Well, I went to a Botswana wedding with my teammate Matt Peters and had a very cultural experience. There are three parts to a traditional wedding, and this one was a small one at that. There is the official part where they are married at the church and get a marriage license. Then there is a reception at each families house. The first one is at the bride’s house and the man has to come early in the morning and pay the bride price, which was about $2,600. Then the rest of the day is pictures, ceremony, and eating.
One cool thing that Matt and I got to do is eat a special meat with the men after the ceremony and lunch. Only the men are allowed to eat this meat and is a very important time of comradery and hanging out. Women cannot eat this meat, and at times the men were arguing about who gets to eat it. The meat is from the intestines and stomach of the cow. There was a lot that day and both Matt and I got huge plates of the stuff. The meat was cooked and different parts of the meat had different color liquid that came out of it. Mine had yellow stuff come out of it, and Matt’s was green. Needless to say this was pretty gross and I didn’t know if I could do it. I was actually praying that we would have to leave before we had to eat it, but this did not happen. I ate some, and luckily it tasted mostly like beef. You eat it with your fingers – there are no untesils.
The last part of the wedding is the next weekend at the grooms house, and I do not know if we are going this Saturday. Well here are some pictures. We ride around a lot in the back of this pickup. Sometimes it’s cold too. Like my Duece shirt?
We went with the wedding party to this huge rock that a lot of people take their wedding pictures at.
This is where we parked before we took the pictures.
This is the wedding couple. I do not know the girl’s name, and the guy’s name is too hard for me to pronounce. He said to just call him OT.
This is the wedding couple with the pastor we are working with – Pastor Musa.
This is the wedding couple with their mothers I think.
Just a random shot
We ate a lot of food, then me and Matt ate the meat. Beside me is Pearl who is really cool, speaks with a proper British accent, and is sold out for Jesus.
