So Wednesday morning, the 7th, Sam and I sat down and met with Ephraim, the coordinator for the Lephoi Center for the Blind. We learned a little about his ministry there, and shared about the World Race and why we were there. He said he wasn’t sure his ministry would be a good fit for a team to partner with. But he said that his wife has several connections, and he also said they were good friends with a local pastor who might be a good fit for a team. So he had a driver take us to a local preschool that his wife, Rachel, was the director of.
We met with Rachel in her tiny office at the preschool. We shared our story with her, and asked her some about her story. It was amazing to hear her tell about how her and Ephraim are living their lives, day to day, and how Kingdom-focused they are. Missions work isn’t something they do, it’s how they live. The stories Rachel shared about how Southern Africa is beginning to own their culture, and get excited about utilizing the resources they have to do things for the Kingdom, were so inspiring. We only visited for 15 or 20 minutes, but she talked a million miles an hour, and shared TONS of good stuff.
Next Rachel took us across town and left us with their pastor friend. We sat down with Pastor Simon and his wife Rose, and shared our story. They were very open to the idea of having a team come and partner with their ministry for their month. They said that they definitely wanted to continue to pursue this relationship. It was really fun to hear their story. They were originally from Zambia, and Pastor Simon attended school in Swaziland. He originally thought the Lord would for sure call him back to Swazi. But instead He called them to Botswana, and now they’ve been here pastoring for over 11 years.
So at the end of the day we officially had our first solid UH submission (Pastor Simon and Rose), plus several more solid leads. We spent some time that evening thanking the Lord for all he had done already. Then Mandy shared that the day before, the Lord had told her that we would be packing up and leaving on Friday. I was pretty sketched by that – it seemed like there was still work to be done in Francistown, and the Lord hadn’t told us where we were going next. But I tried not to worry about it too much.
Thursday morning, the 8th, rolled around. Mandy and Danica had a meeting with a potential host, and they were really excited to hear about the ministry. Thursday was a great day, that included a couple of surprises – check out the next blog to read about them!
