January 1, 2017. My new year started by piling into the back of a pick-up truck with 13 other people and their backpacks, as we frantically raced to the outdoor bus station in the middle of Livingstone, Zambia.
I spent the first day of this year on a 11-hour bus ride from Livingstone, Zambia to Divundu, Namibia, savoring my two PB&Js and two cereal bars that were to get me through the day. We journeyed through two border crossings (Zambia-Botswana & Botswana-Namibia), dirt roads with elephant crossings, and the typical World Race scenario when a friend has a poop emergency (check out this HILARIOUS story written out by my teammate). After camping overnight in Divundu, Namibia, we piled into three vehicles and traveled into Botswana with our ministry host for Month 6.
In all honesty, I was apprehensive about Month 6. We were scheduled to be in Botswana for the longest amount of time of any country during our World Race, and my team was placed in the bush. Our host lives in Seronga, a town at least 3 hours away from the nearest grocery store and ATM. This town is located in a game reserve, and can only be reached by vehicles that can make the treacherous journey down a bumpy dirt road full of obstacles ranging from massive puddles to herds of donkeys, cows, and goats.
Before heading to Seronga, we stopped in Shakawe, the town that would be our promise land of groceries and cash. We pulled up to the grocery store, and our host informed us that no ATMs were working, all cell service that reaches Seronga was down for an unknown period of time, and there was some trouble with power so we would have to use a generator to get power for a few hours each day. Oh, and the next day we would need to send three people on the 3+ hour journey back to Shakawe to grocery shop for 15 people for a month, because we couldn’t make the trip to the grocery store multiple times.
Shout out to Molly, Morgan, and Ali for being the true MVPs of the month!
I have never experienced being as removed from civilization as I was last month. I did not have wifi once all month, and I was lucky to get to talk to my mentor in the United States once even though our phone call was cut off 6 times during our conversation. I expected to be in desperate search of escape, craving the ability to use an off-day as a taste of normalcy. I could not visualize myself enjoying this degree of isolation, and to be frank, I could not imagine what a month without chocolate would look like.
God shocked me with this month… I actually loved being in the bush! The bush became the place on the Race that took me back to the basics of life, free from the distractions of a world of plenty. God stripped away a life of options and entertainment to bring me back to the beginning with Him, to find joy in Him and only Him.
Our days in the bush followed this general schedule:
7:00-9:00 Breakfast and Bible time
9:00-11:00 Evangelism
11:00-1:00 Free time (aka Bible time)
1:00- 2:00 Lunch
2:00-3:00 Team Time
3:00-4:00 Free time (aka Bible time)
4:00-5:30 Children’s Ministry
5:30-7:00 Dinner
7:00-9:00 Coffee and Bible Study with our host
9:00-10:30 Alone Time in my tent (aka Bible time)
Take note, this schedule set aside 7 hours or more a day for studying the Bible. Wow. That is a lot. But between all of that study time and the amazing evangelism training we had (EE3), I grew so much in my knowledge of God and how to effectively share the Gospel.
To all my Christian readers out there, do you feel confident that you could explain the Gospel to someone? As much as I would like to say “yes,” I think years of sermons and studies on the intricacies of the Gospel have taken me away from being able to easily summarize the core points of our faith. I know a lot about God and the Bible, but I could not conversationally explain the Gospel in a way that is clear and addresses each important part of the message. But how can we call ourselves Christians, people called to share the Gospel, if we don’t know how to sum up the Gospel easily in a way that people can understand?
God really convicted me this month to make sure that I am ready to give an answer to anyone who asks about my faith. 1 Peter 3:15 says, “Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have.”
And more than just being able to explain the Gospel, the Lord spent this last month showing me the incredible weight that comes with this message. One of my biggest pet peeves in Christian culture is how the message gets watered down to bring less offense to people. Christianity is often viewed as a goody-goody, perfect life, where people feel ashamed if they are struggling because they feel it taints this happy picture painted in Sunday school classrooms. Non-believers see Christianity as boring and full of rules that restrict the enjoyment of life, while many people who have grown up in a Christian home skate through life thinking that knowing some Bible stories and attending church once in a while makes them a Christian. In Seronga, Botswana, I discovered a culture where most people who claim to be Christians believe wholeheartedly that they are Christians because they have a baptism certificate and they can quote Bible verses, while in reality they have no concept of what it means to have faith in Jesus Christ.
The Gospel is so much more intense than any of these perceptions. This is a message of life and death. It is life changing. There is a God who is seeking us, offering us the gift of complete forgiveness and everlasting life with Him. He loves us so deeply that He sent His son to die in our place, covering our sins with His blood. We cannot operate throughout life thinking that being a good person is enough—regardless of how many good things we do, it is only faith in Jesus Christ that is going to give us eternal life. We are so sinful—I can even sin in telling God that I doubt His plan for an instant—and the only way we can escape the chains of our sins is through Jesus Christ. Check out God’s anger towards sin in the Old Testament—this isn’t something we want to experience! Because God loves us so much He sent Jesus to cover our sin for us.
This isn’t some cheesy call to just invite Jesus into your heart, like many of us were brought up doing, and then think that the decision is over. It is a daily call to sacrifice yourself and your human desires and to invite the Lord into every aspect of your life. It means inviting God to mold every part of us into who He wants us to be, even when the process of molding is painful. It means enduring persecution and uncomfortable situations. It is far from the happy-go-lucky perception many people have of Christians. But it is also marked by immeasurable joy, a joy that is very different from happiness. It is joy in the freedom that Christ brings, and joy at the constancy of God’s loving character, even when trials come.
Botswana taught me about the weightiness of evangelism and the weightiness of the Gospel. It taught me about the constancy of joy from the Lord even when external circumstances look less than thrilling. It taught me about how to enjoy the constant presence of God by taking me completely off the grid, removed from the usual escapes. I am beyond grateful for this month of growing deeper in intimacy with the Father.
Want to know more fun facts about the crazy adventure of living in the bush? For some laughs, check out my next blog:
