Week 1, August 30

We started our first full week in country with an orientation during which our team gave us information on culture, language, and the Cru movement. Taffy told us one in four students who hear the Gospel here accepts Christ, but only about 40% of those new believers stay connected and begin to grow in their faith. Within my first three hours on campus, five of the five girls I share the Gospel with came to Christ! FIVE girls moved from the kingdom of darkness to the Kingdom of Light! My prayers to see fruit were immediately answered. I spent some time reflecting on the seven years I spent tilling hard soil in Pittsburgh without seeing the fruits of my labor and rejoiced at the Lord’s kindness in allowing me to see fruit on my first day on campus in Botswana. I have been reminded that our God is big and the prayers I pray are too small (like when I asked the Lord to let me see 20 students come to Christ this year). I am so excited to see what the Lord will do as I step out in faith and trust Him.

We walked home from campus one day, as Taffy had our van, and it was quite an adventure. The University of Botswana is fully enclosed by a gigantic wall (like every campus, business, church, and home here), with access only through a few gates. We walked the whole way to the edge of campus near our house only to find the gate closed. We retraced our steps and found another gate near the center of campus (near where we had started). This gate led us to a “road” on the back side of campus. We trudged through thick mounds of dirt/sand with the campus wall on one side and bush on the other side. It certainly did not feel like we were in the middle of the biggest city in the country. We saw cow tracks, dog tracks, and what might have been the tracks of a big cat. By the time we made it home, sweaty and covered in dust, the sun was beginning to set. While it was only 3 ½ miles, I don’t think we will be attempting that adventure again any time soon.

The back side of campus looks an awful lot like the bush

We have all driven the van a few times. Because I drove every day last summer, it was just like riding a bike for me, but Steph and Sarah found driving a very large vehicle on the left side of the road a bit challenging. I laughed a knowing laugh when they flipped on the wipers instead of the turn signal. “Oh, I’ve been there.” There were several instances of people running over curbs, and one person did a doozy on the van by scraping a gate as we passed, leaving giant scrapes down the full length of the van. I reminded her that dumpy looking cars are rarely the target of thieves, and jokingly told her it was a great security feature. There have been many near misses and lots of backseat driving as they figure it all out.  I am so grateful for a vehicle, as it gives us a lot of freedom. We will be using it to transport other staff members to and from campus, and we will drive students home after BotsCru weekly meetings. We are already spending lots of time giving rides, as most people here take public transport. The vans, known as combis, are crowded, smelly, and unreliable. In addition to all that, it’s unsafe to stand at combi stops at night. During one such shuttle run, I took our teammate Mpho to run an errand. The distance and rush hour traffic (called “prime time” here) gave us plenty of time to share our stories and get to know one another better. I cherish that time. And though driving students home after BotsCru makes for a really long day, I think we’re going to enjoy it.

We spent a lot of time (and money!) on settling in this week. We bought things for our flat, like sheets, lamps, towels, a night stand, and dishes. I bought a local phone and the other girls had their US phones unlocked so they could use a local SIM card. We can finally communicate!  All we really need now is a washer. That will come eventually… hopefully before we run out of clean clothes!

I got to check out two of our student-led small groups this week. One of the groups listens to a podcast from Marian Jordan Ellis and discusses it. I immediately recognized her voice, as she does a lot with Cru in the US, and I spent three days with her when she came to speak in Western PA way back in 2009. That day at the small group was my first time inside a local dorm room, and I took it all in. Most things are similar but different; familiar but foreign.

We have quickly found that the immigration process will be difficult and slow-moving. We have already gone through the formality of meeting the Chair of the Board for Campus Crusade for Christ Botswana, a local pastor. Our agent, Colin, came to the office today to check on us. We gave him the piles of papers we brought with us – birth certificates, passport photos, transcripts, letters of recommendation, training certificates, and letters from Cru in the US – and had him look over our applications for residency. We naively thought we’d be able to submit our packets that day. Then we found out we needed several letters from BotsCru, to be signed by the Chair. So we spent hours on the letters and visited the pastor a few times to get his signature. And then we found out we need to go to a local doctor to be checked out and have him sign an official form. I’m thankful our partnership coordinator, Lois, told us we should expect the process to take a very long time. Since we started it so early, we should have plenty of time to submit and get approval before our 90 day tourist visas expire. Please join us in praying for smooth sailing!

This week, the student leaders decided to do a movie night during the weekly meeting time, and we scrambled to do publicity, gather the tech equipment, and find a new room. Though it was definitely less efficient and less organized than a US event, sixty students made it by the end of the movie. We had lots of tech problems – from sound to lights to the playing of the movie, but none of the locals seemed to mind. We watched “Do You Believe?”, a (cheesy) Christian movie designed to get people talking, and we finished the night in discussion groups. I’m not sure how the students think it went, but lots of people heard a clear presentation of the Gospel. By the time we dropped everyone off all over the city, it was after 10pm. It was a great night in the end.

Our teammate, Taffy, and his family are from Zimbabwe. They have been here in Botswana for five years, and they have been fighting to get their residency permit renewed for over a year. It has been a long and stressful process, but we are thankful they are still here! They will be moving to South Africa in December to serve with Cru’s ministry to executives. Next week, Taffy has to travel all the way to Harare, Zimbabwe to submit his family’s paperwork for their residency in South Africa. It’s a twelve hour ride on a crowded, hot, smelly bus (each way!), and he’ll have to wait in line at the embassy. Pray with us that his travels will go well, and that they will accept his application without any problems. In his absence, the STINT team will be shuttling his little boy, Zayne to and from school. Please also pray for us, as it will mean early mornings and hours of driving each day. We are honored to help! 

We were more than happy to spend time with the littles

Taffy and Gracious celebrated nine years of marriage this week, so we volunteered to watch their kids so they could have a date night. Babysitting is viewed quite differently here, as the only people who babysit are uneducated and unable to find other work. Asking someone (even a student) to watch your kids is a deeply cutting insult. As a result, Taffy and Gracious miss out on what is a clearly advantageous connection to college students for Cru staff in the US. The pool of possible sitters is great, but the opportunity to employ is non-existent. We excitedly welcomed their littles into our home for a few hours Friday night. Heidi (6), Zayne (4), and Anyssa (nearly 2) are such sweet kids! We had a dance off, they showed off their beatboxing skills, we ate dinner, and we watched Despicable Me. Before we knew it, their parents were at our door and we sadly had to say goodbye. I have fallen hard for those little ones. It will be really hard to say goodbye. (It will also be really hard to say goodbye to their parents, just in case you were wondering and feeling offended on their behalf.)

We had the amazing opportunity to attend a traditional wedding in a village called Mmankgodi this weekend!! Our teammate, Mpho, invited the entire staff team to her cousin’s wedding in their home village (about 45 minutes from the city). 

Traditional Dresses (from left: Kirstin, Stephanie, Sarah)

It is apparently completely acceptable to invite people who know neither the bride nor the groom, and we were welcomed with open arms. All three of us STINTers wore our pretty, new traditional outfits. 

Side Note: buying my skirt was quite an ordeal. The seamstress I went to promised it by Wednesday. After a few days of many failed calls, I had some teammates come to the shop with me. Friday afternoon (less than 24 hours before we were to leave for the wedding), my sweet teammates talked to the seamstress in Setswana and pressured her to make good on her promise. I picked it up the morning of the wedding, less than an hour before we had to leave. Apparently, this is totally normal. Phew!

The wedding reception was again similar but different, familiar but foreign. The gigantic tent stood above lots of nicely dressed tables, and a sound system provided music. The floor of the tent was outdoor carpet, which covered the dry and dusty ground. The bride and groom and their wedding party arrived in honking vehicles as people gathered. But it seems the entire village joined the festivities, some in traditional dress, some in wedding attire, and some in sweats. The bride and groom danced their way from the family’s compound to the tent, doing a traditional dance that everyone knew. They were flanked by their many bridesmaids and groomsmen, wearing outfits you’d find at any wedding in the US. And along the edges of the processional, old women dressed in traditional dresses, headscarves, and shawls danced too. 

The old women were ululating (a pretty familiar celebratory sound. You should Google it.) The processional took a very long time, with the song replayed many times. After they had been seated, family members made speeches and offered lengthy introductions (all in Setswana). Our team had a table in the back, and we laughed and joked and made memories together. Then a dance troupe of little girls started to do a choreographed dance beside the tent. They were really good, and their hips moved in ways mine never have. The little dancers kept us entertained as the dinner was served. 

Dance Troupe in yellow. Old women in foreground.

A traditional wedding meal, complete with pap (a mealy, porridgy starch, beets, coleslaw, seswa (pounded beef), rice, and chakalaka (something resembling cold, spicy baked beans with veggies). 

Taking turns at the outhouse.

We later walked through the family compound and took a few pictures for you. 

The wedding kitchen.

As we walked, the old men gave us drinks and the old women taught us how to ululate (and laughed when we tried it). Steph eventually jumped in to join the little girls in the dance troupe. As a professional dancer, she had no problem picking up the steps. The crowd quickly grew as the Lekgowa (White Person) danced like an African. There is a pretty big possibility that the couple’s wedding photos and videos will include just as much footage of us, the white strangers, as it does the family and wedding party. By the end of the wedding, people were no longer sneaking shots of us (which we clearly noticed) and had become bold in taking photos inches away from us. We loved it and laughed about it. 

We watched the sun set as we traveled home.

What a day! What a week!