Fun fact: in Botswana, an infestation/basically a plague of termites means that the rain season is going to be good…
…. my team can assure you that Botswana
is going to have a GREAT rain season.
For the people of Seronga, rain is everything. It gives life to their crops, money for the months ahead, and food for their families. Rain season is the time of year where the people who live in this village go into the fields for planting and harvesting. Their kids leave with them because they are on holiday during all of December. Ministry is much slower with the few amount of people and children who are still in the village. This is something we knew would be true prior to arriving in Seronga. With ministry not being as fast paced as we had been used to and thinking we would have zero access to wifi, we knew we were going to have more time on our hands- or at least more than we had in Haiti…
So what we’re a bunch of eighteen and nineteen year old girls going to do in rural Botswana with no wifi and some extra free time????
OBVIOUSLY, read the entire bible…
(side note: since we’ve all started reading from the Old Testament, we have lots of “funny” and “super cool” Old Testament jokes from it. For example, we only make promises now by putting our hand under the other person’s thigh, thanks to great influences such as Abraham).
But listen to this!!! I have discovered something that I never would have guessed… I love, like really, truly LOVE the Old Testament.
I was talking with my leader, Lucie, about specific things I am learning from it, how my perceptions are being altered, and am undoubtedly seeing how badly the world needed a savior. She pointed out that leading up to Christmas, majority of Christians are reading the New Testament and focusing on the Gospels. It is such a gift for me to be given the time and interest to be invested in the Old Testament and having my mind BLOWN. I have always known the common stories of Adam and Eve, Moses, David and Goliath, etc., but to sit down and read the bible like a fluent story reveals, so blatantly, our need for a savior. Somehow, I have never realized how horribly, horribly bad people- myself being VERY much so included- needed Jesus. Specifically Jesus, not just a man who is in tune with God and His spirit, but the actual Son of God to come down and save us. We needed someone who was perfect and guaranteed never to fail us. How crazy is this- in eighteen and a half years of living, I never knew the NEED for Jesus. I feel like I appreciated Him, but nothing more. And I had to come all the way to rural Botswana to figure this out. God is so good and faithful for bringing me here, during rain season, placing this passion of reading the Old Testament on my heart, blessing me a better understanding of His word than every before… AHHH!! GOD IS SOOO GOOD!!!
During our first debrief, Lucie told me that whenever she reads her bible, she makes it her own testimony. This revolutionized reading the bible for me. It has helped me stay engaged in the Old Testament and the Holy Spirit is revealing so much to me about both, my life and who God is.
When God is telling the Israelites how He brought them out of slavery in Egypt, that directly correlates to us. We didn’t deserve to be brought out of slavery, our slavery being eternal life in hell. God sent Abraham to rescue the Israelites from slavery, just like He sent Jesus to rescue us from hell.
The Israelites are so annoying!! God did all these amazing things for them- brought them out of Pharaoh’s rule, provided heavenly food for them every single day, tangibly went in front of them day and night in a pillar of cloud and fire, ETC. In response, the Israelites complained, made idols, turned away from God, etc. But when I stop and look at my own life, I am so annoying!!! God has been more present in my life than He was in the Israelites’. He has blessed me Jesus, the bible, and the Holy Spirit. I literally have the spirit of God INSIDE of me and I still can’t walk and follow God the way I ought to. I am tenfold more annoying than the Israelites. But we all have some things the Israelites never had- God’s abounding grace, forgiveness, and mercy, just to name a few.
As Christmas is rapidly approaching, I am so humbled. Humbled that our God- the Maker of Heaven and Creator of the Universe- loves me. He loves you. He knows the depths of our hearts and still loves us. HE STILL LOVES US WHEN HE KNOWS EVERY UGLY AND SINFUL THING ABOUT US. AND He loves us enough to send His only son to come down and die so that we may live with Him eternally!! He comes down to us because He knows it is the only way we can get to Him. Our God is unlike any “god” out there, His steadfast love is abounding in ways that seem impossible and are certainly underserving.
Moral of the blog: read the bible starting from the beginning, make the bible your testimony, have a merry Christmas, pray for rain and less termites
Katie<3
