Dumela Botswana

Part of the beauty of our calling is the love engendered in our hearts for our missionaries, seniors and juniors alike.  These four senior missionaries celebrated January birthdays together.  We continue to hemorrhage missionaries as our VISA concerns persist.  It seems the Botswana government is in no hurry to resolve the problem, so the time continues to click away with all of us having an expiration date on our foreheads.  We just keep sending them out, some to go home after their 2-yr commitment, some to reassignments elsewhere in the world.  It rips my heart out each time someone leaves.  It's also quite unsettling for everyone left, somewhat like having a guillotine above our heads.  Our expiration date is 9 March after which we hope to find safe haven in Namibia.  Tomorrow we will send away 5 young African sisters to their reassigned missions in Zambia. It just tears me up. Miraculously, we did receive our first new missionaries in 3 months...

The holiday season here in Botswana doesn't feel much like Christmas at all.  It's hot and muggy with the summer rains having finally arrived, there is no holiday music on any radio station, and what few decorated trees there are in the malls are cheap tinsel trees which look beat up and so very out of place.  This is a Christian nation, but seasonal holiday festivities such as we have at home are quite uncommon.  The closing down of most business operations for a couple of weeks, the emptying out of the capitol city of Gaborone as folks return to their ancestral villages, and the cooking of traditional food as families unite is the extent of holiday traditions here.  One huge highlight, however, was the reenactment of the Nativity as portrayed by our junior missionaries. They love putting on this pageant which was well attended by the community.                                   ...