Sweaty, exhausted, hot, lethargic, and hungry are just a few of the things we were feeling on the last hour of our 11-hour bus ride to our location in Botswana. We had walked 15 minutes through “no man’s land,” crossed the South Africa/Botswana border, and were pulling up to our new home for the next few days of training.
We were told Tsabong was the town where we would buy most of our groceries and be the best accommodations of all the teams in Botswana. As our 50 passenger bus bumped across the dirt road all I could think was, “it’s gonna be a long three months.” The “town” of Tsabong was really more of a village and didn’t give us much hope for our own ministry location in Bokspits.
After meeting our ministry contact and spending some time listening to what the Lord was saying for our time in Africa, we left for our new home in Bokspits. If any one of you readers were to drive up to the Dutch Reform Church of Bokspits, Botswana and be told you were to live there, you would not have the same reaction as my team did. Keeping with the World Race tradition of coming in with low expectations, we praised the Lord when we found an outhouse with running water and a church that had a new roof to pitch our tents in. It certainly isn’t much, but we call it home now.
Ministry:
Because our main contact lives a 4-hour bus ride away, we have the ability to create our own ministry. We work in a preschool (one of the only centers for miles), have youth and moms groups, work with the police to speak on issues such as drug and alcohol abuse, and – my personal favorite – hold chess club at the border patrol. I do not know how to play chess, but probably about three people a day cross the Bokspits border into South Africa, so the people who work at the border are usually bored out of their minds. We also do some miscellaneous things. I preached this past Sunday in church, we play with the kids who follow us everywhere, and for the first couple weeks we were on the Bokspits volleyball team.
Personal life:
Sometimes when the sun is setting I think we’re running more of the ranch from the biggest loser than a church. If you stop and look around you’ll see my whole team of six working out. For future Racers – one of the best ways to combat both lethargy and you’re newfound ridiculous carb intake is to get yourself and your team into a healthy workout routine. It’s actually a really fun way to pass the time after a while. My team plays a lot of cards, shares a lot of books, and is getting into the Word probably more than we ever have.
One of the greatest things about living in the Kalahari Desert is that it’s really just ridiculously beautiful. Not necessarily in an aesthetic way, but it’s one of the only places I’ve been where I’ve truly experienced the Lord through nature. When you look around in America you see everything man made. If it’s not buildings and roads, it’s telephone lines or plowed fields. You can only see what man has accomplished. When I look out over the desert of Africa, all I see is God’s work. It’s wild. Like, I didn’t think the desert would look like the typical desert in my mind, but it really is exactly like what I pictured in my mind. Animal bones included because we’re in a draught. (I wish more than anything that I could share videos on here because my team has had some great goat herding, getting lost in the desert, ostrich sighting, and attempted donkey feeding moments. It’s safe to say out life here is a little abnormal.)
I tell my team bedtime stories of finding John the Baptist wandering outside our gate, we watch the stars, pull thorns out of each other’s feet, and sometimes get invited to play the fill-the-water-bottle-with-sand-before-you-get-hit-with-the-tennis-ball game with some friends. Life in the desert is really what you make it.
So although I don’t think I would ever voluntarily live in the quiet town of Bokspits, Botswana and although I know the Lord isn’t calling me here long term, I know He is teaching and shaping me a lot as I witness His hand moving in the Kalahari.
I’m at debrief in Tsabong right now at the little library which has wifi (there is no such thing as wifi in Bokspits) so I’ll be posting another blog about my spiritual journey hopefully before going back for the last few weeks of the Race. I can’t believe it’s almost over, but my team and I are learning what it means to finish strong. For now, I’m glad I was able to update everyone so you at least know a little of what I am doing and where I’m living.
Thank you for taking time out of your day to keep up with my adventures and thank you again to all of you who donated to this trip and those of you who have kept me in your prayers these last several months.
