Archives for 2008

Pastor Dube, our music minister from Zimbabwe, sent this photo of a Zimbabwean Lady who was seen carrying a basket of money en route to purchase bread. In Zimbabwe it costs about $4 or $5 (US) just to buy a loaf of bread! The people are borderline famine and many are already in horrific condition as they have nothing to eat. President Mugabe will not allow them to plant their gardens as well, if they did not vote for him.

The inflation rate is now somewhere close to this: 45 million percent to US $1.

I have a $50,000,000,000 bill (50 billion) bill in my wallet!

We are just sitting here on the veranda having our cup of coffee and rusks this Saturday morning. The air is brisk as the rainy season has come in, so the temperature has dropped dramatically. It is now 72º F, so we’re in paradise. The temperature was setting in at about 90º by this time of morning just a couple of weeks ago! I get up at about 6 AM to make coffee and prepare the sitting area out on the veranda before Christi joins me for a quiet beginning to our day.  She puts out crumbs on the railing around the veranda for the birds. In the course of the hour we sit here, we generally have about ten different species of birds drop down to eat the crumbs. Each morning we have so many kinds of birds it is absolutely entertaining; from Hornbills to unique little yellow birds, navy blue birds, sparrows and queleas. Then the little dog, Cleo, comes up to scare them off and the big dog, called “Big Man”, comes up, and then we chase them both off, because what we really enjoy is the number of birds that come! Amazing.

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Today, Friday, is a very great day for Love Botswana Outreach Mission and the Village Church.  Pastor Jerry Lackey is returning to Botswana today.  He has finished chemotherapy and radiation treatments and by God’s wonderful grace, he is totally cancer free.  So at 12:00 today we are going to the Maun airport to join his family, and many of his friends from the church, in welcoming him back to Maun. Jerry and Jana have been in Maun, Botswana for many years and he is known all over town.  Everywhere we go, they have been asking about him. His return will be a testimony for this whole area.

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Everything is going well. We had a great service last night. Today, we have a march from downtown Maun to the Tent (about a 45 minute walk).  There is a worldwide organization called Reach For Life that promotes abstinence from Pre-marital sex… Love Botswana has helped promote this and has helped organize abstinence clubs in all the schools.  The march today involves the youth in these clubs.  We get to ride in the Landcruiser… they are going to decorate it this morning at 10.  We are happy about riding as its been over a 110 degrees here in the sun!

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Excerpt from Christi’s Journal:

Last night we had quite a bit of excitement.  About 11:00 we got a call from Sarah that the men were out in the field directly in front of your swimming pool fighting a wild fire so she asked if Ron would join them and if we would all pray.  Ron said it was really a big fire less than half a kilometer from the back fence, and that it was moving very fast and looked like it stretched from horizon to horizon.  One of the missionaries said he used the radios to call the Maun 911 Neighborhood Watch and at least 20 responded straight away.  Ron said they really knew what they were doing.  They created a fire break and the fire was out by midnight.  But in the short term we were all really praying.  We even went over and woke up all the women and children on the mission campus. Everyone was up and praying and on the alert.  The fact that there was very little wind and it was blowing in the opposite direction saved the day or it could have been a very different outcome.  Just today we heard that the Nata Safari Lodge, 3 hours from where we live, was burned to the ground. It is huge and quite a loss to this area. This was as a result of a similar bush fire.