Botswana Day 6-Alex White

Today did not go as expected. That’s really been the story of our time in Africa so far, but this day was truly exceptional. For this past week, we have been working in a diamond mining town called Jwaneng. Our focus there has been on jump-starting a Baptist church one of the locals is hosting in their house. This means prayer walking, passing out tracts, and spreading the word about the church. Jwaneng is about two hours out from Lobatse, where we are staying. On a normal day, we would be awake and ready by eight in the morning, and piling into the truck or Combi by about eight fifteen. That would put us in Jwaneng before ten thirty. Today, though, we didn’t have access to the truck, and the Combi, while it can hold fifteen people, was not enough for our entire group to fit. To make up for the lack of space, two of the summer missionaries took Beth, Mary Beth, and me via a different route—the public bus system. Buses in Botswana are much like those in America, except that people here believe that there is always room for one more person—them. Once all the seats are filled, people just line the aisles, packed together like sardines in a tin, and we were going to ride it for almost two hours. My friend Brett and I had a plan for today’s work; throughout these last few days we’ve been making contact with a bunch of different people, and some of them had invited us over to do an introductory Bible study with them. We were going to get over there early and meet up with them before lunch. That didn’t happen. To make a long story short, God took over. The bus group arrived on time and in grand style, having never been as packed as expected, but the Combi, which was coming late today anyway, didn’t get there until almost one. Brett and I never made contact with the people we knew, but God continuously opened spontaneous witnessing opportunities to us. Instead of doing Bible study with the two men, we witnessed to a Combi driver who was idling in the lot, evangelized two construction workers who called us over out of curiosity, met a local born-again Christian who later joined us in our ministry, passed out tracts to a group of half-drunk Batswana, scheduled (and played) a soccer match with some of the town’s kids, prayer walked the neighborhood, met the house-church leader, got mobbed by a mass of drunken Batswana who were all promising to come to the service tonight, shook about a hundred hands, wore out our tongues saying “Dumela” to random people on the street, and finally conducted an intense Bible study with a family we met on Monday. God is great. Instead of allowing us to complete our perfectly reasonable but human plans, He substituted His own designs and did amazing things today. I guess the lesson is simply that:

⁸ “For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
       neither are your ways my ways,”
       declares the LORD.

 ⁹ “As the heavens are higher than the earth,
       so are my ways higher than your ways
       and my thoughts than your thoughts.

Isaiah 55:8-9

 Anyway, know that we love and miss you all. Keep loving and honoring Jesus Christ, and, God willing, we’ll be home soon. God bless. -Alex