It's coming on to winter in Africa

May 26, 2024

It's coming on to winter in southern Africa, so it's cool in the morning but a pleasant 80 degrees in the afternoon. And something is always in bloom! My favorite are the colorful bouganvilla everywhere, but Aaron is quite intrigued with the poinsetta trees.

Seems missionaries assigned to the 9 missions in Nigeria have been supplied from the western African countries for several years. When southern Africans and Americans were assigned to serve in Nigeria some years ago, too much robbery, kidnapping, crime and murders finally closed Nigeria to this group of missionaries. Well, the church is trying to get southern Africans back into Nigeria, and several went to the Missionary Training Center in Ghana for 3 weeks of training before entering Nigeria. But Nigeria, it seems, is rejecting them from entering, so several have been reassigned to our mission. Today we picked up our first one and several more are coming. That is keeping us busy as well as checking on the status of our new offices across the way. We'll be moving in soon.

P-Day this week was spent in a quaint wee village about an hour south of Gaborone on the one main highway that skirts the Kalahari Desert. The town is called Manyana, and it is a special place because a small river runs through the village all year round which is quite uncommon here. It's the dry season just now, so the water is little more than a trickle, but they feel quite blessed to live in such a unique environment.

We traveled to Manyana, however, for it's Rock Paintings left by the San People about 500 hundred years ago. We received a warm welcome and about a 90-minute private tour from one of the grounds keepers of this national historic site. As well, there was a small cave opening where I posed and promptly got stung by a wicked bee. The sting turned into an egg sized itchy nasty miserable welt for a week. Yeesh, the vermin around here are wicked. We couldn't wander farther inside the cave, though, because of the Black Mambas which reside there. Grateful it was only a bee that got me.

After visiting the rock paintings, our guide hopped in our car and escorted us around the village of Manyana on a personal tour. She took us to the general store where we treated her to a Coke and then to the fascinating David Livingstone Tree. Livingstone was a Scot who, in the mid 1800's, was the first European to cross the African continent from west to east and to discover the Zambesi River, the Victoria Falls, and several major central African lakes. His publications about these explorations and the slave trade brought him great fame. He was traumatised by the brutality of the slave trading he witnessed and campaigned heavily throughout Europe against it. Livingstone was also a prolific missionary for Christianity, and boldly proselytzyed his way across the continent. He was lost to England and presumed dead, and other exploreres searched for him across Africa. One of the searchers famously coined the phrase, "Dr Livingstone, I presume?" This tree is a massive wild fig tree under which David Livingstone preached and held church services. Was a lovely visit to a beautiful wee village full of very laid back and happy residents who are grateful not to have to deal with the bustle and traffic of our big Gaborone City.