First UPDATE

Hey friends,
Well the internet has been down for these first few days and will most likely be spotty throughout my time here, but I will do my best to keep in touch.

I’ll say this, if you ever fly overseas, fly delta. The 15 hour flight from Atlanta to Jo’burg was not that bad at all. You have your own little touch screen in front of you that has tons of movies, tv shows, games, etc. Unlike other flights where you have a choice of two movies and you can only watch them while they are showing them. So, in other words the flight wasn’t that bad, I watched a few movies, slept, and had some good personal time. There are 5 other interns with me. 4 of them are from Christ for the Nations Institute and are doing this internship to complete their degree in missions.

Our first stop was in Johannesburg South Africa. As soon as I got off the plane I had the familiar smell of Africa. We stayed at an amazing guest house and had a great host from Greece. He grew up in Athens and then moved to Tanzania, he returned to Greece, and has now retired in Jo’burg. I enjoyed talking to him about his life and views. He told a great joke!!

What do you call a person who speaks two languages?... bilingual
What do you call a person who speaks one language?...

I’ll give you the answer at the end of the blog
After a night in Jo’burg it was on to Maun, Botswana.
The first thing I will say is it is HOT. HOT. HOT. I have certainly learned to drink a lot of water, I’d say I’m drinking more water here than I drink sweet tea and coffee put together back home haha. I am glad I cut out the sweet tea and cut down on the coffee before I left, because so far I’ve had NO CAFFEINE HEADACHES!! Praise the Lord. I have been utterly exhausted and am ready for a full nights sleep, jet lag has hit. Our internship director Ashley said she is going to keep us busy all day so that we’ll sleep at night.

We are blessed to have a little house to stay in. There is not air conditioning, but there is running water, electricity, and internet which we’re told goes out often. Still I feel so blessed that I can take a shower everyday (short, but still!!) and unlike Rwanda I don’t have to go to an internet café and pay for internet that is slower than Christmas. They told us our internet here is slow, but one girl was able to get a signal yesterday and it’s definitely not slow compared to the internet café or even dial up back home. The whole plot that LBOM is on including the missionary houses reminds me of a big camp ground. All bush and trees and dirt roads cut out that lead to everything . So far I have not seen a snake, LOTS OF BUGS, but my grandmother prayed over me as she dropped me off at the airport that the snakes would be afraid of me, please join me in that continual prayer! I don’t mind roughing it, sleeping on the ground in the dirt, w/o showers, I’d do it all if it meant I never saw a snake!!!  However I feel rather safe when one of the dogs is around. There are 4 dogs on the plot. One of them is named Livingston, he is 11 years old, battered scarred, limps around, has a cancer tumor, but dang he is a fighter. Livingston has been bitten by many varieties of snakes but we’re told he’s still the best snake killer. Ashley our internship director has seen spitting cobras and puff adders. Ahhhh!

We went to the Lackey’s church this morning and I did enjoy it. There wasn’t near as much dancing as I expected from the other African churches I’ve been to, but it was still great. Half of worship was in Setswana and half was in English, which was a delight!!! Chruch is held in a large what we would call “revival tent”. They have around 200 kids that come to the children’s church which is held outside in various tents. The kids here are used to white people from South Africa so they don’t just circle around you like in Rwanda, I missed that. They still come up to you and want to talk and hold your hand and such, which of course I love. I love picking the children up, praying over them, talking to them, making them laugh!!! Church started at 8:30 and ended at 10:30 which compared to Rwanda 5 hour church services was great, I mean we even got out quicker than at Cornerstone haha!!! We’ll have opportunities to help out in church services by prayer, discipleship, kids ministry etc. and Sunday afternoons are supposed to be our Sabbath! Which means no work, but it doesn’t mean we won’t be busy.

This afternoon we’re taking spiritual gift tests and personality test, which I can’t wait to do! I’ve already had a chat with Mrs. Lackey (One of the owners of LBOM) who said that after looking at my resume’ they were hoping I’d want to help out in the women’s shelter!! Which was exactly what I wanted to do!! Linda the head of the shelter is an LPC and they constantly need help counseling women and children! I thoroughly enjoy teaching and ministering, but if I can’t do that I’d definitely want to counsel and disciple. We’re going to have so many opportunities to do ministry while here and I can’t wait to get involved. I’m definitely excited to be helping with Fire by Night the Friday night youth service, Saturday morning prison ministry. We’ll be shadowing different ministries over the next two weeks while we figure out where we’ll best fit in and be able to help. After the shadowing we’ll work with that ministry from 8-1 everyday. Then in the afternoons we have an intern bible study, Setswana classes, cooking classes, stick driving classes, other ministry opportunities, etc. In other words we’ll be kept busy. There’s so much more going on, but it’s probably best if I just update as things happen rather than trying to foreshadow the future. I know we have a bush trip coming up and we’ll be learning more about acclimating to the culture. We’ll be cooking all of our own meals which means going into town and buying groceries etc. I am ready to interact with those off the base more and just be more involved.

Well I’m sure you’re getting weary from reading so I’ll end this, more to come of course.
As always Be blessed,
J. Tate
The answer to the joke is: An American