After about 12 hours of travel the six of us, my team and I, scrunched up in a small van, began to see fires along both sides of the rocky dirt road we had been on for a good hour. Crudely made fences consisting of only pointy sticks began to appear, enclosing around think village huts where the Bush people lived on what they called settlements. This African tribe had been indigenous to Botswana, a hunting people, but over a hundred years ago had been forced out by invading tribes that had pushed them out into the Kalahari Desert, where I, riding in the car now, was just realizing that we were in.
At the start of our journey we had been told to pack light, that we were going to spend a week in the African Bush with a tribe of people whom our mission contact had never visited before and where missionaries had never before been sent. We were told stories of ignorance and how they consider white people good luck because we ( meaning only caucasians) are made in the image of God, and that if it rained we would probably get the credit. I was forlorn at this news. But I had no idea what I was in for, as much as I tried to imagine, how little I knew of what God was going to do that week and what I would see.
“I am with you always, even to the ends of the Earth,” Jesus said. Praise Him, because thats exactly where we were headed. The Kalahari Desert in Botswana.
The tires of our vehicle hit sand about the same time that our driver told us that leopards still lived in the desert along with several other dangerous animals that he rattled off as if it was not a big deal. Leopards? There was nothing but bright blue moonlight as I peered out my window then, scouring the landscape of rough desert bushes for a sign of movement, like I was back home in Cades Cove, looking for black bears on a routine drive in the Smokey Mountains. But I felt the distance from home when I thought, this is not a park, this is the wild, and Im living here for the next week. My blood pumped faster as I took in the fact that I was in the Kalahari.
We finally made it to where we were staying, which was a simple house that we were very thankful for. The arrangement was that girls stayed in the house and the guys slept outside in tents. We quickly realized that the desert held no heat so once the sun was gone from the sky, the temperature plummeted as far as the 40s. We got the guys blankets.
We entered the house, greeted our hosts and us girls got our first taste of African culture in that, girls sit on the floor and guys sit in the chairs. We had had this preparation at training camp, but it was still a little hard, especially when our hosts wife told us to serve the men tea and coffee and then for the rest of the week we were in charge of cooking the AFRICAN meals of pop (grit like stuff only thicker) and minced meat. With hardly any instruction, we cooked.
Our first day of ministry we divided into 2 groups and started out the door for door to door evangelism, the first I had done on the race. Walking through sand I kept expecting there to be a beach somewhere, but there was none, only more sand. One of the first settlements we came upon had about 20 people there, sitting outside, talking, most of them were in their 20s. They were tribal dancers. We sat down with them and I shared how I had come to be there and shared the good news of Christ. They asked me questions and I answered them and we spoke for almost half an hour. They were right with me, listening and you could see the Holy Spirit tugging at their heart strings, calling them. The whole household came to know the Lord. I am not a big fan of door to door because I would much rather develop a relationship with the person first, not just give them the good news in a 20 minute nutshell, but the Holy Spirit was working, clearly. After praying for them and encouraging them further we left, and I was comforted knowing that there was a new church plant and that the pastor would be visiting them soon.
As we were walking out our contact said to me, “Wow, praise God.” “What?” I asked. “That was the witchdoctors house. This village has two of them and that was the elder ones family.” You could have knocked me over with a feather. Witchdoctor? And he explained further that yes, the witchdoctors here were very powerful and dealt in voodoo, spells, curses, you name it. And by that night we heard from some of the villagers that the witchdoctor (along with several others) were enraged and that he was telling people that we were vampires and had come to suck their blood. That night I laid in my sleeping bag thinking of how isolated we were from the world and prayed that they would not come during the night to harm us in any way. I later had to repent of that attitude because I was operating in fear, not faith.
The next day we met the chief of the tribe, the most powerful man in the village. With one word he could have you whipped or thrown into jail. I shared the gospel with him and he quietly listened to me and then to others as they gave their testimonies of His faithfulness. Finally he shared that he didn’t really believe in anything but that a while ago he had been seeking guidance in prayer for how to lead his people. And he had a dream in which he saw a Bible verse. Some time later, he told us, he had met a Christian man with a Bible and the chief had asked for him to look it up. The verse was from the book of Deuteronomy and it was a verse on judging impartially when you lead people. It was the exact guidance he had prayed for. My contact looked him right in the eye and told this powerful man that the Lord was pursuing him and had been for quite some time. We left there, knowing seeds had been planted and that the Holy Spirit would continue to draw him- and He did.
Our last day there we held our first church service and several people from the village came, including people who had just come to know the Lord. As I sat down I looked up and was shocked to see the chief sitting there in the church service! At the end of the service there was an invitation to give your heart to Jesus and the chief was one of the first to stand and raise his hands. Our contact led them forth in prayer in a rich, resounding voice and my eyes were on the chief as he prayed. I had lowered my eyes to the Bible in my lap when suddenly there was the loudest, blood-curdling scream.
My head shot up in time to see a young women on the far left collapse and begin thrashing about uncontrollably. Hannah was across the room instantly and I was seconds behind her, alarmed and hesitant I reached the woman just as another lady went down in the middle of the room. I had known the moment the scream happened- demons. Hannah and I laid hands on the woman and prayed for her and commanded the demon to leave and not return as another lady sat on her legs to keep her from kicking people. Her ams were flailing and eventually the manifestation slowed and went away, but she was not delivered on the spot- which has launched me into a study on the authority we have in Christ and what that faith looks like.
After that happened the chief came straight up to the man that had led the prayer to receive Christ and asked for prayer to lead his people well. We were ecstatic. Because once the chief of a tribe comes to know the Lord, it turns the tide on the whole village.
My week in the Kalahari Desert was one of the most amazing times I have ever had in this life that God has given me- what an adventure, to walk hand in hand with the Father and to literally meet people who have never heard of Christ before and get to say, “It took me 9 months to get here but God has brought me to your home here in the desert especially to tell you He loves you and wants you to know Him better.”
