Newsletter: We Have Arrived in Maun, Botswana
Dear Friends:
We greet you in the precious name of our Lord Jesus Christ.
We thank you so very much for remembering us in your prayers and giving! We are humbled by your faithfulness.
We arrived in Maun, Botswana, Africa on Thursday, July 17, 2008. We had a long flight, San Antonio to Atlanta, Atlanta to Senegal, Senegal to South Africa (about 24 hrs. of flying). Then we spent the night in Johannesburg with old friends and flew on Air Botswana to Gaberone, Botswana (the Capital city) and finally to Maun.
It is great to be back in sunny Botswana. It is winter time here which just means it’s a bit chilly at night, and perfect temperature in the daytime. For those of you who may not have heard the news, we are here because we are “standing in the gap” for our friends, Jerry and Jana Lackey who are the founders of Love Botswana Outreach Mission. Jerry has had a medical problem arise that needs attention so they will more than likely be in the states until the first part of December. We feel privileged that they called on us to help out. We want to express our appreciation to those of you who arose to the challenge financially and helped us with the expense involved to get here. On Sunday we had a great re-introductory to the Village Church. They have moved into a big new tent and there were lots of new faces. We will be writing you more about the happenings in Maun in the next few months.
Now I would like to digress a bit and tell you some of the exciting events of the earlier part of this summer before Botswana came into view.
In June we had the wonderful privilege of going back to Iquitos, Peru to be with our Missionary Friends, John and Cindy Mortimer. We had Chris Ranalli, Missionary to Ecuador, as part of our team. We had two wonderful leadership conferences, one in Iquitos (leaders from 60 churches attended) and the other in Esperanza. Esperanza is a village on the Amazon. It was such a pleasure (no matter the pouring rain) to ride in their hovercraft up river. A team of dedicated Christian workers, mostly young people, came along as well. They rode in the speedboat captained by John Mortimer’s son, Vince. What an experience for all involved. Teaching the word of God to the hungry hearts in this remote place was most fulfilling even though we ended up with lots and lots of chiggers. Thanks to those of you who helped fund this project. It was nice to be able to provide good meals to the folks that came. And John and Cindy Mortimer were so great with all the logistics.
After Peru, we accompanied Chris Ranalli, and his son Tony home to Ecuador where we held another Leadership Conference. There was great participation among the leaders from many different churches. Including the two conferences in Peru and the conference in Ecquador we had a total of about 800 leaders attending. We really were encouraged by the great work our missionary friends in Ecquador and Peru are doing and were glad we could have a part in it.
The next event we want to tell you about took place in Mission, South Dakota. We went to the first conference of the Full Gospel Fellowship of Native Americans on the Rosebud Indian Reservation. Our good friend, Jack Moore is the President of this fellowship. We are happy to be charter members of this new and needed tool for native Americans. We were encouraged to hear the good report of how suicide is way down after the strategic prayer walk they had in April. We encourage all our friends to pray for the native Americans. Recent statistics show that only about one per cent of Native Americans are Christians. There are over 500 tribes in the U.S.A.
Well we will sign off for now. Please pray for success during our time in Botswana, and thank you in advance for your continued giving which makes our ministry on the mission field possible.
Sincerely,
Ron and Christi Bishop