Life is but a breath

Friday October 9^th

At 3PM today we heard loud wailing coming from the home of one of neighbors across the sandpath from our yard.  Upon further investigation we found that Maria, the ten year old daughter of the family had died.  At this point it is hard to understand what happened due to the language barrier, but it seems that she broke her arm and had some sort of secondary infection.  She was taken to a hospital in Gaborone 450 km away but did not survive.  It is a stunning loss for the family and community.  This little girl had even been to our home to play with Katherine and our other friends and so the loss is somewhat personal too.  There are so many things at play here – the reality that medical help in Botswana is still a long way off from the standard we are used to, the fact that the girl would probably had survived just fine if she had access to the same healthcare we do.  A lot to process and think about.

Communicating Clearly

Saturday October 10^th

I learned an important lesson today after a lengthy meeting with our landlady to sort out some issues with the home.  The most important is being clear about what we want instead of assuming that the indirect ways of communication that we are able to use with some measure of success in our culture will work here.  When we were first moving in a month ago, I expressed concern that the guest house on our property, which is currently full of junk from the last evicted tenant, has broken windows, no plumbing, and no electric, needed some work.  Specifically I said that it was important that it get worked on because we have a teacher coming to live with us in March and she will live there.  So, from our perspective, that last statement means we need to ramp it up and get to work because March will be here before you know it.  But to her it meant that there was no rush because the teacher is not coming until March.  So a month goes by and absolutely no activity and I was getting irritable and she could not understand why.  So we communicated specifically that we are paying rent for the whole property including all buildings and we want that one cleaned out and completely renovated by December.  I should add that we are incredibly blessed to have a landlady who believes that it is her responsibility to do all the renovation work on the property and pay for it because it is her property.  This is not normally the case in Botswana.  So hopefully, our guesthouse can be renovated properly for our teacher to come without a huge additional expense to us! 

Being Moruti     

Sunday October 11^th

This evening we went to visit our neighbors whose daughter Maria died.  Every evening at 5PM people gather in front of the house to sing and pray (they are Christians).  We were recognized (of course) and I was made to sit up at the front with other pastors (Moruti) and then was asked to pray the service (literal translation the woman said, ‘we cannot leave until this brother prays for us.’)  I am constantly astounded by the honor and reverence afforded to pastors in this community.  What an exciting and yet heart rending opportunity to share the gospel with others in the face of such tragedy.  Then of course there is always the kibbutzing and camaraderie between all the pastors which is fun too.  Inevitably, I am asked if I know Barack Obama and if I voted for him – and generally glee is expressed that, as they say it, an African is president of the United States.  Anyways, back to Maria’s family, the date of burial is still up in the air, the body is still in Gaborone at the hospital and there seems to be some complication in getting it back here.  Which of course goes to prove that nothing is simple here. 

Yep, that was a cow

Wednesday October 14^th

The funeral for Maria will be tomorrow morning.  Normally burials are on Saturdays but Friday is the national election which is shutting down the country for a long weekend, so it is tomorrow.  The body will arrive for viewing at our neighbors’ at about 10PM tonight.  We will likely go to pay respects early in the morning tomorrow (like 6AM – there will have been people there all night).  We have a scheduled trip that we must keep so we will be unable to attend the burial – which I struggle with but it is a crucial trip.  Meanwhile I glanced out of the window at about noon and noticed what appeared to be a large red and white sheet hanging on my neighbor’s fenceposts.  I quickly realized it was the skin of some animal and figured that they had slaughtered a goat (I had seen one of the young men of that yard chasing down a goat yesterday and figured it was just a matter of time).  So I did the only thing one can do when one suspects a goat has been slaughtered – I went for a closer look taking Matt, Josh, and Becca with me.  As we approached I should them what had been the pelvis of the animal, the torso, the hoof, a stomach, and before I realized it I was checking out a part I couldn’t tell what it was and then I saw the horns and the eyeballs and realized it was the head of a very large cow.  Which made the huge torso and pelvis make a lot more sense.  The contents of the stomach, grass in various stages of rumination, had been dumped in a pit in what normally is the road going by our house.  So, not every day that the old cow gets slaughtered right outside your front gate but there you have it.  There will be a feast tomorrow for the many people coming to pay their respects to dear Maria and to praise God for the salvation given her in Jesus.  There are still a number of traditional superstitions related to death that we don’t yet understand too, so pray that the message of the gospel will be made clear.