Dear Ladies,
Greetings from Africa! As I am writing this, today we have completed 6 months here in Botswana! The time has flown by and as I look back on these months I can see that the Lord has been faithful to us in so many ways. We are feeling a lot more settled and our lives have taken on a familiar routine. We are very thankful for the house that God provided for us even before we left the States. It has met our needs in so many ways. The kids have been able to make some friends here in the neighborhood and the Lord has given me some neighbor ladies that have been a real help to me in learning the culture and where to find things. There are 12 houses here in our complex and we are truly an international neighborhood! The countries of South Africa, Zimbabwe, Ghana, India, and the United States are all represented with English being the common language. You can also hear Setswana, Afrikaan, Indian, or several other African dialects being spoken time to time! Life is never dull!
I am also very thankful to the Lord for my children. They spent the second half of the school year traveling in the States and then moving to Africa. I really wasn’t sure when we would finish this school year with all the changes, but today Joshua finished 3rd grade and by the first week of June Hannah and Timothy will be finished as well. Not only will we be done but all 3 will have finished with good grades! That is something that only the Lord could have done for us!
I think that many of you know that our vehicle was broken into during one of our trips to the capitol. Almost all of our electronic devices were stolen. Many of those were gifts that we had received while we were in the States. Along with the electronics, our passports and other important documents were stolen. Within 24 hours we had recuperated the passports and important documents! And within a month’s time, we have received several special offerings of money or replacement electronics to replace everything that we lost!! God is truly faithful!!
After 5 months of being here and several nail-biting experiences in Immigration, we finally have our work and resident permits! Hannah and I also had to renew our Chilean resident permits and we were able to send everything to the Chilean embassy in Pretoria, SA and got it all back in the same week! God is good!
The biggest blessing of all has been the souls that have been saved and the Bible studies that have been started and on-going! That has made all the nail-biting experiences worthwhile! We have felt the prayers of so many people and seen the Lord work according to those prayers. It is an experience that is hard to put into words on paper. If you have been praying for us, God has been faithful to answer those prayers!
We are thankful for our home church and all that they do for us. We have had several birthdays, Mother’s day and other special days and we have received a lot of cards and messages to encourage us. Many of our supporting churches have been faithful in these areas as well. We have a lot to be thankful for! We are looking forward to a visit from Kristin Nadaskay in July and we hope to see some other visitors throughout the year! Thank you for the opportunity to rehearse what God has done for us!
Love,
Michelle
