Lobatse Orphan Care Center

Several of us missionary ladies get together each month for either a time of prayer or a time of ministry. For September, we traveled about 1 hour south to meet with volunteers, Kasey Ambrose and Allison Hunter, to hang out with them and their amazing ministry at Lobatse Baptist Church. They have started an after school orphan care ministry and have 10 children right now who come every weekday to be helped with their schooling and to learn about the gospel. These children have lost either one or both of their parents and have very hard lives to say the least and coming to the orphan care center is a ray of light for them.

Kasey and Allison have trained up three national ladies to help at the Center and they will take over when Kasey and Allison leave after their 2 year term is completed in 2014. If you would like to read more about their ministry go to http://www.mc.edu/beacon/feature-stories/ray-of-light 

Love how they wash their hands

One of the ladies brought a parachute and we all had so much fun. When your color is called then you have to run to the other side.

Above: The Lobatse Care Center workers and kids

Merapelo

Maria is 20 years old and she and her mother hosts our bible study on Saturdays at their house. Below is a picture of Maria with her mother, Mma Josephine, back in November 2011 when she was pregnant with her baby girl, Jennifer. Jennifer was born in December 2012 and since then, Maria’s mother became very ill. Doctor’s could never really pinpoint what was wrong and she was in and out of the hospital the past few months. This past Sunday (September 16), Mma Josephine passed away. Maria is now left to raise Jennifer on her own, so please be in prayer for her.

Funerals here are conducted a little differently than in the States. For an entire week they hold prayers (also called a Merapelo) every evening at the home of the deceased where tea and bread are served after each service. Brent was able to share the gospel on Tuesday night with a crowd of about 100 people. At the end of the week usually on Saturday or Sunday morning (about 6am), they then have a viewing of the body and will take her to be buried at a cemetary. A cow is always killed for the funeral day and everyone comes back to the deceased home to eat together. Maria’s situation has been very difficult. The elders in her family (the aunts and uncles) have not been supportive to help her so there has not been money to have tea/bread after each prayer service. They are now trying to raise enough money to purchase a cow for the funeral which cost about 3000 pula (about $500).

Above: Mma Josephine and Maria

Below: Maria with her baby, Jennifer

Mma Josephine’s merapelo

Here is a short clip during the merapelo. Normally the women sit on one side and the men on the other. Ladies have to wear a scarf and a wrap to go over their arms and men have to wear a jacket of some sort.

Lerucama

As most of you know, Brent loves to hunt. He has been out to a hunting farm on the western side of Botswana near the Central Kalahari Game Reserve many times and he kept saying how much he wanted us to go with him. So we finally gave in and took a family trip out to the farm and we had such an amazing time. The family that runs this hunting farm is from South Africa and they are the most hospitable and kind family we have ever met, seriously! They love the Lord and they use their hunting ministry to tell others about Christ as well as visit the neighboring villages to spread the gospel to those around them. We had an amazing time with the family and our kids had so much fun playing with all of their animals.

If you are a hunter and would like to come to Africa on a mission trip, we would love to have you. We are partnering with this farm so that hunters can hunt but also visit some of the neighboring villages to share Christ.

Taylor has always wanted to ride a horse and her dream came true finally. In the below picture she took her hat off and yelled “Yeehaw”…she has watched a few too many cartoons.

The kids also got a chance to milk a cow. Below Taylor got to taste some fresh milk.

Yes, this is a Brahman Bull. He was the most gentle bull ever and even let Taylor sit on his back.

They also have 2 camels on the farm. Lulu the camel was so friendly!

Above: Taylor hanging out with her jack russell buddy on the back of the truck as we do a game drive.

Below: The road inside of the farm, this is the outer edge where they have their game fence to hopefully keep their animals in and the lions out.

We drove for about 6 hours to get to the farm on the western side of Botswana. 5 hours of our trip was on a paved road (below) and the last our of our trip was on sand (above). We saw at least 150 ostriches on the side of the road during our journey.

On our trip home we stopped to get diesel and couldn’t pass up this picture of Bradyn hanging out the side of the truck and smiling at his own reflection.

Life

Just wanted to share a few pictures from my camera phone.  Below are my good friends Maria, Onalenna, and Kelly, we do bible study on Saturday mornings and we have a great time together.

Below are pictures of a visit to two of our kids from Friday children’s ministry. Below is Banti (the girl) and Dintle (the boy) with Taylor holding their new baby brother. Our goal is to get into homes of the children who attend our children’s ministry so we are going in the right steps.