Saturday, March 14th, 2009
It has been six months since I returned from my amazing mission trip to Botswana with ten others from my church. March seventh it was six months since we eleven stepped off the plane in Columbia as changed people.
Our mission trip to Botswana was my very first (and NOT last) mission trip. I can honestly say that I was NOT ready for it. I didn’t do the things I was suppose to do to really prepare for the trip. I did not spend enough time on my knees in prayer about the trip and I didn’t study the Bible stories enough.
What I saw and experienced in Old Naledi changed my life forever. It may have taken a few months, but man oh man has God done a MAJOR work in my life!
Everywhere I go, I am STILL telling everyone and anyone who will listen about our trip to Botswana, to Old Naledi and how God took this emotional woman and totally changed my view on my life. I NEVER, EVER want to look at people, situations, circumstances or life the way I did before I went to Africa.
God has brought me closer and closer to Him since I have been back. I have made an honest effort to stay close to Him in prayer, Bible study and in giving Him my problems daily. (Sometimes more than once a day)
I am so very excited about what God has done in Old Naledi since we left also. To see the pictures of the new church astonished me. I can’t believe that it was completed so quickly. God is so good!
I love to hear the updates from Moruti James on the people that are coming to church there. It fills my heart with so much joy to hear how the teenagers and the children are going to church there. Then I found out that they were able to buy a bus! How fantastic is that?! Amazing. I cannot wait to return there one day … in HIS time.
There is a wonderful Christian song by Brandon Heath called “Give Me Your Eyes,” that sums up how I feel since returning from Africa. I want the Lord to give me HIS eyes so I can see people’s needs around me.
I can’t wait to hear the news from Nathan and his group when the go back to visit our family in Old Naledi. I am so thrilled for him that he gets to go back so soon. I am a little envious though, I would love to be able to go back this soon; but I know it will have to be in HIS timing.
I pray that the other ten have been as blessed as the Lord has allowed me to be.
Learning to walk in HIS grace,
Kim
“… as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.” Joshua 24:15
Saturday, February 21, 2009
The letter below is a letter I sent out to family and friends RIGHT after I got back from Africa on my very first Mission trip. It was an exciting trip. I wanted to share with you all about my trip.
What I am more excited about now, is how much God has changed me since then.
Have a blessed weekend.
Blessings,
Kim
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September 15th, 2008
Dumela! (Hello in Setswana)
Good afternoon,
I got home a week ago from my first mission trip to Botswana (Africa). I was part of the team of 11 from our church that was gone from Thursday, August 28th through Sunday, September 7th, 2008. We went to help a church we have partnered with in a village called Old Naledi. This is our church’s second trip to help and fellowship with our Brothers and Sisters in Christ at Old Naledi Fellowship church. We will continue to go back there to Old Naledi Fellowship church in Botswana each year.
It is so good to be home, I really missed Tommy and the kids while I was gone. But it is kind of bittersweet to be back here in America because I am really; really missing all the children and people we all formed suchstrong bonds with in Old Naledi.
Old Naledi is in the city of Gaborone (the G sounds like an H). Gaborone is the capital of Botswana and is a pretty big city. A lot of the city of Gaborone is pretty modernized, but not in the village of Old Naledi. You pull off the paved street into Old Naledi and you are in a village that has no paved roads, tiny homes, many with no doors and dirt floors. If your home had a door, then your floor inside your home had a cement floor. The homes have no electricity, and no indoor plumbing. You used the bathroom in the outhouse outside. To wash dishes, cook, or wash your clothes you had to heat up a pot of water on the small fire right outside of your home. Everyone had these little fires in their yards.
The kids there broke my heart the most, in the fact that they all have so very, very little but they are so joyful!. Most (95 %) of the children did NOT have shoes or underpants. They are walking all around the dirt streets and yards with glass all over the place, and thorns from bushes. These kids were constantly picking glass, thorns or stickers out of their feet! They wore the same clothes for days upon days and were always filthy. But none of us cared! We were there to show Christ’s love to these children and form relationships with them and the church members.
It was instant love for me when I saw them and played with them. We all came back to the hotel each night dirty from playing with them, but none of us cared. It was a lot of fun, and we loved it. We all loved seeing the joy on their beautiful little faces when we held them, played with them or just walked with them, holding their hands.
We left for Africa from Sumter last Thursday, August 28th. We started our trip out kind of on a strange note. We got to the Columbia airport, via the church bus. We unloaded and the church bus took off.
Scott, our team leader gets to the Delta ticket counter to start getting us checked in and told them we had e-tickets. Well, guess what? We DID NOT have e-tickets! We called the church and they found out that our PAPER tickets were locked up in the safe there. Good thing we arrived with about 3 hours to spare.
The ride from Sumter to the airport in Columbia is almost an hour. A church staff member arrived a short time later (after driving 110 he said, who never speeds) with the tickets. By the time the tickets showed up we had already gotten all processed except for our boarding passes. So, we were just hanging out near the ticket counter until the tickets showed up.
Now it’s time to hurry up and get through security. Well, after waiting all that time for our tickets to be delivered we didn’t have but about 30 minutes to wait before our plane took off out of Columbia to Atlanta, and we still had to go through security with our carry on. I brought over two items I had made for the church in Old Naledi. I put them in my carry on. I had made a stepping stone of a cross with stained glass and cement and a small wall hanging of a cross, also made with cement and stained glass. I didn’t want those going in the checked bags.
Guess who was always at the end of the line and last everywhere? You guessed it …. Me! I was the last to go through security from our group and wouldn’t you know it, but they decided to hand inspect my bag because of “something” the security guy saw on the x-ray. He took out all of my clothes (we put all our clothes in our carry on in case our bags got lost) and then checked every inch of my bag with these little cloth like things, that he kept changing out. It took awhile! In the meantime the rest of my team is staring at me wondering what the heck is going on. It was the “plastic-Wal-Mart-type” bags that I had wrapped the stepping stones in that alerted him to search my bags. Then after he saw them, he wanted to buy them from me!
So, before we got to Atlanta, I got rid of those bags so I wouldn’t have to go through that search again!
We made the plane, got to Atlanta and had about two free hours before our plane took off for Africa. The first leg from Atlanta to Dakar, Senegal was almost 9 hours. We all had to get many shots, just because we were ONLY landing in Dakar. (Yellow Fever, Typhoid, etc.)
We landed in Dakar, and were not even suppose to get off the plane. We were only supposed to be there for gas and then leave about an hour and a half later. Well, I fell back asleep after we landed and woke up to find out that the plane’s weather radar had broken and that we would have to get off the plane and stay the night in Dakar. Dakar is not a city you want to stay the night in! It is a dangerous city. Delta airlines paid for all of us on the plane to stay at a hotel, meals, calls home, bottled water, etc.
We flew out the next morning and the next leg of our trip was from Dakar to South Africa. It also took about 9 hours. We get to Johannesburg, South Africa and we had already missed all the flights out to Botswana (where we were going) so, Delta AGAIN had to put us up in a hotel, pay for our meals, and calls home. We left the next morning for Botswana and arrived about an hour after we took off.
We get to Gaborone in Botswana and try to load all 32 of our bags (22 checked bags and 11 carry-on bags) in the back of one Toyota pickup truck. (Not a big truck bed) Well, some of the men from the church in Old Naledi were there to drive us to our hotel we were staying at. These men got it all stacked up and tied off. I CAN’T believe that they got all those bags in that truck. We looked like the Beverly Hillbillies! It was funny. I just thought it was all going to fall.
We arrive at the hotel a few minutes later and nothing had fallen out. Guess what? They also drive on the other side of the road there and it was SO weird! They also have a lot of traffic circles, and driving around with these guys was so strange to me.
The week was LIFE CHANGING with time getting to know all those beautiful,loving children and people from Gaborone. Our men that went helped dig holes for the footings for the metal beams for the new church we are helping them build. Our men said that digging in the dirt was like trying to dig in cement, and the first time they tried to dig some dirt out, it was like hitting rubber because the shovel came right back out. Our church this past December raised $200,000 to build the church in Old Naledi. So, we were so excited to see it start to take shape as we were there.
They eventually got all 30 holes dug and some of the steel frames up before we left. They now have a construction crew there almost finished with the main part of the building. They even have the roof up! They are going to send us pictures when they can.
Some of our ladies showed their ladies to make certain things with fabric and they made jewelry also. I was amazed at these ladies creativity once just shown the basics. We brought over much extra beads and fabrics for the ladies so they could learn this craft and then go to the market and sell their items.
Some of the other ladies played sports with the beautiful children. Our kids at our church during our VBS raised enough “change” (during a competition between the boys and the girls) to buy 192 soccer balls to bring over. These kids did not have anything to play with in this village.
We also brought over tons of hula hoops, jump ropes and small whiffle (sp?) balls. These kids who had never seen a hula hoop got the hang of them right away! They LOVED the soccer balls!
Some of the other women (like me) helped out at the feeding station that the church helps to run. It feeds a certain number of orphans and destitute children. It was heartbreaking watching the children that were not part of the “program” not be able to get this ONE meal of the day. There were only a certain number of kids allowed to eat that were part of the program. The rest were turned away and tried (and many succeeded) eating off of other kids plates. It was very, very hard on us all to watch.
This trip was one of the best things that the Lord has ever allowed me to be part of, and I want to say thank you so very much to those of you that helped me financially go on this trip. I am so blessed to have gone.
I cannot wait to go back sometime soon. It will most likely not be until 2010. The next group going is in June of 2009 and it is our youth minister, a handful of his teens and our Pastor. Then I believe the next group will not be going until 2010. I will start saving very soon to go back as soon as possible.
This trip was such an awesome, EYE opening, LIFE CHANGING trip for me, and for those in our group. There are NOT enough adjectives, not enough words, or time to describe what an impact this trip has had on my life! I pray that God will allow me to never look at people, things and situations the same again.
We here in America have SO much, and many Americans are always looking for that “next thing” to make them happy or happier. A bigger, newer TV, a new car, etc. The people and children in this village were some of the nicest, joyful people I have EVER met and spent time with, and they have VERY, VERY little! We can all learn so much from these beautiful people!
Before I left for Africa, I always thought about Africa as this big continent with beautiful animals. I DO NOT look at it that way anymore. The people I met not only in the village we worked in, but out in the community were some of the nicest, loving, caring and nonbiased people I have ever met. They didn’t see color. The people in the village we met and worked with were so nice and caring, even if some didn’t speak English. (But a lot DID)
The Pastor there (called Maurti for Pastor in Setswana) encouraged us to greet people we met there with their greeting of Dumela (Like our greeting in America for hello). You could also add Dumela Mma for a lady or Dumela Raa for a man or Dumalong for a group of people. When we did this, the people’s expressions and body language changed and they opened up to us and were so very friendly. It was such an amazing adventure and I pray that I will NEVER, EVER forget it! I am amazed at how joyful and happy these people and children are, even with so little.
I cannot wait to go back. The next time, Tommy will be coming. In the meantime, I am still feeling so blessed about what the Lord did in my life while I was in Africa. I allowed Him to break down some huge walls in my spiritual and personal life and He really did some awesome work on me while I was there. Now, I just need to continue the journey with HIM!
Thanks again for helping me to go on this trip. I really, appreciate what you allowed me to experience!
In HIS Steps,
Kim
“As for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.” Joshua 24:15
** This music video, by Brandon Heath sums up how I feel since my Africa trip. I want to see things, I want to see life and people the way that the Lord does! 2-21-2009
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In August of 2008, a team of eleven from our church went to Gaborone, Botswana in Africa. We stayed for ten days.
Our church has a partnership with a church in the village of Old Naledi in Gaborone. We went to the village to help start building their new church building, do sports camps, crafts and Bible stories with the kids and show the ladies there how to make jewelry.
It was an awesome, LIFE CHANGING adventure! I cannot wait to return. Below are some links you can visit to find out more on our trip, along with some of my pictures.
In HIS Steps,
Kim
http://adbcinafrica2008.blogspot.com/
Our Trip’s Blog Page
http://oldnaledifellowship.org/index.html
Naledi Baptist Fellowship Church in Gaborone, Botswana in Africa
A slideshow of some of the pictures I took in Africa.
A short slide show of my pictures and a message from Moruti James, the Pastor of Naledi Baptist Fellowship Church.
The children of Old Naledi singing praise songs.
The children of Old Naledi playing.
The ladies of Naledi Baptist Fellowship making jewelry with some ladies from our team. The things these ladies made were beautiful.
THIS PAGE UPDATED : Tuesday, June 16th, 2009
