Dear Ladies,
Greetings from Botswana! I can tell that winter is almost here. The days are much shorter now. The last few days have not gotten as warm, and the nights are dipping down to around 4 degrees Celsius. For all you Americans, that is about 40 degrees Fahrenheit. So the house is cool and doesn’t warm up much during the day. We dress in layers in the morning, and then take off layers as it warms up a bit or if we go outside. This is also our dry season with no rain and very low humidity. So we keep a good supply of lotions and creams to soothe dry, itchy skin. But we also look for the blessings—cool and crisp mornings, a beautiful, blue, cloudless sky each day, warm sunshine to bask in, and spectacular sunsets each evening.
It has been a busy two months. The Sunday after Easter we had our first baptismal service with 13 baptized. These are people from the work here in Francistown and also from Makobo village. What a blessing to hear their testimonies of salvation and then to see them follow the Lord in baptism! Some of those that have gotten saved were not able to be there for that baptismal service, so we have another one planned for the month of June.
In April we had a group of 3 men here for another Missions Module. During their time here, they have classes in the mornings, then after lunch they head downtown and pass out literature, trying to find those that are interested in studying the Bible. Then they meet with those people to do Bible studies and hopefully to see them saved. This group was only here for 3 weeks, so the time passed very quickly. We enjoy having others here and seeing them experience Africa for the first time. Our prayer with all those that come is that their time here will be profitable to them and it will impact their lives to serve the Lord.
During the month of April we also began working with a group of people in Palaype. That is a town about 160 km south of us, or about a 2 hour drive depending on traffic and how many donkeys and goats are on the road! The church in Fargo had a man there until March and he had to go back to the states, so we have started working with some of his contacts. It is a smaller town and the people seem to be even more interested in the gospel than the people here do.
One of the ladies I have been working with there is named Janet. She is very interested in learning what the Bible says. She told me she knew that she needed to be born again, but no one has ever told her how. Another lady that I am doing a Bible study with is named Kelebogile. This past week she told me, “I am tired of living in darkness. I want to be born again.” Please pray for these two ladies and others that I am doing Bible studies with there in Palaype.
We now have 14 testimony tracts printed and I am working on 3 more at present. They have made quite an impact and several people have started Bible studies after receiving the tracts. One of the tracts was even featured last week on Radio Botswana. The announcer read the tract on the radio and then urged the people listening to contact the man to find out more about how to be born again! We don’t know how they got the tract at the radio station, but what a blessing for them to read it for all the listeners to hear. Mr. Ncube (it was his testimony story that was read) has gotten several calls of people that are interested.
When you are living in a foreign country, you can always see interesting things if you keep your eyes open—and your camera handy. I saw this truck 
when I was in town a few weeks ago. It is not unusual to see trucks loaded down like this, but this one gets the prize for being stacked the highest I have seen! And see the pile of stuff on the ground? That was still going up on top! I didn’t stick around to see the job finished though. Sometimes I wonder what keeps the trucks from tipping over. You might wonder why this man has such a big load. People buy goods here, load them on a truck or a bus, and then take them over to Zimbabwe to sell them for twice what they paid for them here. Quite a resourceful way to make money!
Until next time,
Bev
Beverly is a wife, mother, and grandmother. She and Doug Hammett have been married for over 35 years. Since her father was a pastor and her husband was already a pastor when she married him, she is well acquainted with the blessings as well as the problems of the ministry! Bev’s favorite things to do are read and spend time with her family.
In Autumn of 2010, Doug stepped aside from his position as senior pastor at LVBC to reach and train men in Botswana and South Africa. Beverly continues to write for our ladies publication, giving her unique perspective of life in the ministry, and now life on the mission field. You can read more about their ministry here.
Read Beverly’s articles here and her salvation testimony here.