The Turner Adventures: October 2018

Happy 8th Birthday, Bradyn!

Our Bradyn Hunter will be 8 years old on October 12. We celebrated his birthday in September as we have other commitments around his birthday and this boy wanted a "Fear Factor" birthday party. He helped plan out the entire party. Below were just a few of the festivities for the day...so thankful for this fella!

Tug of War

Blowing a balloon until someone's pops

Eating 1/2 a tube of Polony

Ice bucket challenge to see who can get the most marbles

Eating Mophane Worms

Raw egg and spoon race

Sack race

Eating chicken feet

Water gun war

Dirt cake complete with snakes

Happy 8th Birthday, Bradyn!

Botswana's Independence Day

On September 30, Botswana celebrated it's 52nd Independence (Boipuso) Day. The kids were so excited to get rid of their school uniforms for the day and dress up in the traditional Botswana colors and clothes. We are so blessed to live in this beautiful country!

Bradyn with his Botswana jersey
Taylor in her traditional outfit

Naledi's Awana Program

Naledi Baptist Church is one of our churches that was trained in the Awana Program. We went to join them one Saturday morning and had around 100 kids. Pray for the 2 leaders-Lame (Lah-may) and Mothusi (Mo-too-see) who lead this every Saturday by themselves. Pray that God would use this program at Naledi that many children will come to know the Lord.

My buddy for the day

Game time

Teaching time

Making Disciples

Often times when we have volunteers or when we are back home in the States, we get the question, "what does a normal day look like as a missionary?" We always scratch our head at that question as each day is completely different. Some days, we are standing in line all day to pay our bills, or driving 3 hours each way to a village with no evangelical presence to plant a church, or preparing all day to teach at the seminary in the evening, or driving back and forth 4 times to pick up and drop our kids off at school for all their extra activities. Although all of those things are great and a necessary part of life here, one of our favorite things is definitely investing in people by making disciples. Recently, Brent has had the privilege to invest in a young local artist named KG and teach him about Jesus. Please pray as we continue to make disciples in Botswana and let us know how we can be praying for you as God uses you to make disciples.

Brazilian Partners

We want to introduce you to our Brazilian missionary partners, the Carmona's-Roberto, Edna, and their daughter Khalipa. Roberto has been an integral part in getting the seminary where it is today and his wonderful wife Edna has developed a ministry called "Blessed Hands" where she teaches women to sow, etc. to give them skills to provide for themselves. Their daughter Khalipa is a great friend to our kids. We ask that you would cover this family in your prayers.

Will You Marry Me?

It's wedding season here in Botswana, and as we are attending all the weddings, it always makes me think back to the day when we were married. That day seems like so long ago yet also feels like just yesterday...how can that be? When I look at all we have done and where we have gone in the past 14 years, I really have to just thank God for giving me the exact person He knew I needed.
In September, Brent had the enormous privilege to preach the wedding of some of our dear friends-Rebo (Ray-bow) and Ndibo (En-dee-bow). Their day was filled with so many personal touches and so much love between them and their friends and family. Congrats to the bride and groom!
When I think about how we are the "bride of Christ", it makes me so excited to think of Christ as our groom waiting for us to enter into His presence. Oh, what a day of rejoicing that will be...

The grooms father and dear friend
Pastor Thokwane

The traditional wedding

Too cute!

Ok, sorry for the overload of posts on Ellie. She is just so cute right now and learning so meaning new things. Her favorite word is definitely "uh oh" and everything is "dada". Just ignore this post if you have had too much Ellie :)

Ellie's first baby doll for her birthday

Daddy doing her hair while mommy was away

Peek a boo

BOO

Ready for church

It's getting hot here so she loves her pool

Walking everywhere

This is Mmampho and she comes and helps
out with Ellie about 2 mornings a week. Ellie
just adores her!

Ellie loves going on walks in our neighborhood

Awana in Botswana

It's amazing to see how God is using the Awana program here in Botswana. We conducted a training in February for most of our Baptist churches throughout Botswana and on October 20, we will be hosting an informational meeting about Awana to about 30 different churches in and around our city of Gaborone. Please pray that God would use this so many children can come to hear the gospel.

Some of the Awana leaders here in Botswana

At Gaborone Baptist Church, we implemented the Awana program in February of this year during our Friday children's ministry time. It's awesome to see how our kids are growing in the Lord. We took a Saturday and went and visited the children's homes and got to meet a lot of their parents or caregivers.

Happy Birthday, Ellie!!

Happy 1st birthday to our sweet Ellie Carolina!

Hours to Days to Weeks to Months to Years

When we are born, our lives are measured in hours, then days, then weeks, then months, and then years. Our sweet Ellie Carolina is now 1 year old. It's amazing to see how much she has learned and changed over the last year. We love this little one and she has brought such JOY into our lives.