Botswana, month four, was the first month our team was alone. No squad leaders and not paired with another team. This also meant that as team leader, I was responsible for coordinating transportation to our ministry site, which just so happened to be 9 hours away from the rest of our squad. Obtaining bus tickets in Africa is not as simple as going on a website to reserve your seats ahead of time. It looks like going to a bus rank, which is basically a giant parking lot full of buses, cars, and trucks with signs in their front windows with the name of the cities they travel to. You bought tickets underneath a makeshift tent from a women sitting behind a table and received a written receipt and a time to be back in order to load on the bus.
Luckily it worked out okay and we made it to Maun Botswana on time after a long overnight ride from the southern border to northern border of Botswana. Maun is a launching pad for many safaris in to Chobi and Moremi game reserves. Other than the many safari tour companies, Maun is a small village with lots of sand, some trees, and TONS of donkeys and cattle roaming freely.
We were partnered with a ministry called LOVE Botswana. LOVE Botswana has a church, many youth and outreach programs, an international school, an orphanage, and an educational program. We lived in their orphanage next to nine crazy but adorable orphans.
We would visit with the orphans in the evenings before their bed time, reading them bible stories and singing sunday school songs and helping the caregivers get to them to bed. Using my physical therapy skills and my teammates’ nursing skills, we also completed evaluations of a few kiddos that were presenting with either physical or mental disabilities but had yet to be seen by a medical professional. We typed up our findings and made suggestions for the staff on how to better take care of them and what to tell their doctors when they finally are seen. A lot of the orphans had very tragic stories so loving on them and attempting to improve their quality of life at the orphanage was truly a gift or us.
We also decorated the orphanage for Christmas for the children before we left while listening to all of our holiday favorites. This was strange but sweet as we sang songs that reminded us of Christmas’ spent with family back at home while sweating in shorts and t-shirts in the blazing Botswana heat.
Other ministry included going to an after school program to different high schools and teaching kids about biblical principles and how to live them out by sharing parts of our testimonies with them. We also handed out food to families who were in their feeding program, led bible studies at the international school, helped out with their youth nights, led worship at church, helped in the Sunday school, prayed with people who had been admitted to the local hospital, spoke at their prayer meetings and did morning devotionals for their staff.
The ministry also coordinated for us to go to an area called Xaxao, out in the African bush, where there is little electricity or running water. We stayed for a week there and actually spent thanksgiving there! For ministry in the bush we did door-to-door evangelism, prayed with families already proclaiming christianity, and helped do “household chores” like fetching water and raking the sand around the edge of their fence. We slept in our tents, cooked over a fire for every meal and took outdoor bucket showers underneath the night sky. We also attended a traditional African wedding! It was a hard but also really rewarding week. We grew closer as a team and overcame a ton of challenges together.
We also grew very close to our daily host, Aunty Mitchi, and her husband Wessel. They took care of any of our needs that we had and loved on us like parents would. Once we returned from the bush we celebrated thanksgiving again with them around the table as well with a rotisserie chicken and chicken nuggets as our main entree.
The thing I’ll remember the most about Botswana is the heat. You couldn’t escape it. In the bush, our water was in these huge jugs outside of our tent, and when you poured it into your water bottle, steam rose from it and we swear you could have steeped tea with the water that was being heated by the sun. We would take breaks in the middle of the day to lay in the shade of trees because it was too exhausting to be walking around in the heat. Also, my teammate Ashley, actually burned her corneas because the sunlight reflecting off the sand was so intense. The highest we remember it getting to was 115 degrees farenheight.
The water was unsafe to drink so for drinking water we had to fill up huge 10 gallon jugs of water from a shop in town and then bring them back to our house. Luckily we had a driver from the ministsry, Chombo, to drive us around town in the ministry van and didn’t have to carry them back with us.
On off days, we went on a horseback safari one time and then a real safari one other and saw so many animals. Giraffes, lions, zebras, antelopes, elephants, leopards, wharthogs, and so much more. Animals were everywhere in Botswana, both in and out of the reserves. This month gave me the true feeling of being in Africa and I loved it.
We also had the opportunity to serve at a funeral for a man that attended the church who had died. We helped to make and serve the food for the reception. We made traditional dishes in huge pots over the fire. Seeing the Botswana culture in this way was so cool and felt so intimate and rare.
We were also required to cover our heads as a sign of respect, however none of us were prepared to do so, but we got creative. Some of us wore fabric, bandanas, a pillow case and even a dress on our heads, but I’ve gotta say they didn’t look half bad!
In our free time, we watched movies in a conference room that had the only air conditioner on the campus we lived on. We would also play HeadsUp the charades game or spend some time in town drinking coffee and stocking up on the delicious juice and chip options Botswana had.
We made all of our meals ourselves and had lots of eggs, yogurt, granola, juice (shoutout to Breakfast Punch), grilled cheeses, Simba Chips, chicken, pasta, pizza and chocolate bars.
. . .
I’ll miss how refreshing an Arizona tea can be after spending a week in the bush.
I’ll miss Aunty Mitchi and Wessel.
I’ll miss the orphans and their sweet smiles and hugs.
I’ll miss seeing animals everywhere and feeling like we were constantly on a safari.
I’ll miss getting to talk with the youth about how God transformed my heart and changed my life.
Songs that remind me of this month are:
- Touch of Heaven by Hillsong Worship
- O Come to the Altar by Elevation Worship
- Come Alive (Dry Bones) by Lauren Daigle
- Let it Rain by Michael W. Smith
Want to know more? Ask about:
- Our thanksgiving meal
- Stories of the orphans we lived with
- Seeing an elephant in the wild for the first time
- More stories from the African Bush
