At the end of our month in South Africa, one of our squad leaders pulled me aside and asked if I would be a team leader. For January we would be going back to our previous teams for Botswana. I would be team leader for Intrepidus. At first I didn’t know what to think, I was definitely surprised to be asked. I had a peace about the decision and felt a sense of “challenge accepted!” But I had no idea what it would actually look like, how my role within my team would change, and what all the new responsibility would actually entail. So I was going into the new year, to a new country, with a New Years resolution, and a new role. I was excited to figure out what team leading would look like for me and to see how God would use it to grow me more.
For ministry, we were partnered up with Love Botswana, a ministry in Maun that has a large church with many different community out reaches established under it.
We were split up to shadow and assist with the different ministries that Love Botswana had already established and were thriving. William and Aleisa worked with the church’s media center having the opportunity to record devotional a that would be broadcasted all around Botswana on the radio, help create logos and proposals for their creative team, and more. Joshua was able to assist and teach in the international school on the Love Botswana property while Kevin worked with a ministry for street kids, being able to be a friend, help with homework, and share the gospel. Avi, Alison and I were able to come alongside Women Against Rape, a nonprofit organization in Maun that works to reduce the prevalence of violence against women in the community. It was a very educational at times and gave opportunity to get to know one another better and bring a volunteer at the agency into some pretty neat conversations about our faith. During the week we would work with our respective outreaches and on weekends would head out of Maun and into small villages a couple hours away. In the villages we tented under the stars of the Kalahari Desert (aka a very hot place), cooked over an open fire in a cauldron-looking pot, and saw more donkeys than I ever expected. We got to do door to door ministry, walk through the community with a translator, talking with people and sharing the gospel as well as take part in local church services.
Botswana was filled with new lessons for this point in my race. I began to learned how to lead from the front, be firm and steadfast in my word. Finding the balance of listening to my teammates opinions and requests without crossing over into people pleasing and standing firm to what I knew to be right is something that I got to work on.
Two cool adventures I got to do was to go on a mini safari on Love Botswana’s land in a mini van. And road trip across Botswana and into Zimbabwe and Zambia to see Victoria Falls- one of the seven wonders of the world!
