We saw it as an act of divine providence
By the grace of the Lord our outreach to Mababe and Motopi was very successful. We left D’Kar on Wednesday 9 June. Due to the fact that we need to apply for an interzonal travelling permit through a cellphone application, we had a hard time to process our applications. The cellphone application is blocked by die government to download it seems. Finally we managed to apply for each travelling companion and the permits were sent to everybody’s individual phone, as required. Arriving in Maun, we were able to quickly greet Dorette between her Tswana classes. She is a Tswana teacher in Maun. We therefor left for Mababe late.
Close to Mababe, it started to get dark. Arriving at the first pool of water we found a double-cab Hillux utility vehicle stuck in a mud pool. A man immediately appeared with his flashlight to get our attention. After that, the great struggle began. We tried everything to free them out of the mud, but their rope broke time after time. It was clear the bakkie had landed on its belly in the mud. The wheels spun around all the time. We decided to go to Mababe and try to borrow a chain. We arrived there at about eight o’clock. Luckily we were able to borrow a chain and went back to the people. They were a Finnish couple and with our poorly spoken English, we luckily could understand each other quite well. We struggled to get the vehicle out of the mud pool till around 11pm without any success. The poor man tried everything. Once a vehicle has settled on its belly in the mud, branches or whatever underneath the wheels no longer help. We then decided to retire for the night and rather try to help the next morning. It was a nightmare experience for the Finnish lady. They were surrounded by hippos in the water pools. The hyenas were just as troublesome, because if branches in the forest behind you crack, it’s them again. Luckily they had a good flashlight.
During the night a large truck arrived and we hoped they could help the stucked travellers, but the next morning when we arrived they were still there. Later, South African tourists arrived. Trying to assist with their 4×4 vehicle, the Hillux did not even move. We were later able to phone a rest camp nearby to come and help us. Before long help arrived and with their Toyota Land Cruiser and another vehicle they pulled the stuck vehicle backwards out of the pool of mud. When we required where they were going, the Finnish couple replied that they were on route to Khwai, but it is clear that they were driving in the wrong direction. Obviously lost. Then it struck us, the pool of water in the road is so deceptive and false, if they had not got stuck into it, we would have ended up in that situation. We saw it as directed by the Lord seeing that they should not actually have been there. What the damage to the chassis of their vehicle (rent-a-car) was we will never know, but when they were finally pulled out, the water flowed out in streams from their vehicle. With tears of gratitude in the woman’s eyes we greeted them.
Brief background
Mababe is a settlement east of Maun close to the Moremi Game Reserve. We started reaching out to the people there at the end of 2017. Every year around August, a dance festival was held on a game farm about 20 kilometers from D’kar to expose the Bushmen of Southern Africa to each other. From far and wide they are came, and then, over the course of the weekend, from Friday onwards, they take turns dancing. The game farm is then an anthill of activities as each Bushman group and language displays their culture and dances. During these activities, I met someone with whom I soon became friends. We had a nice chat and then said goodbye. So in between chatting through, he invited me to visit him. He wanted to show me how beautiful it looks in his area where he resides. I gave him my cellphone number and he started to call me frequently, inviting me time after time. An elder and I finally decided to go and have a look. It could become a gospel opportunity, we thought. It felt very much like a Macedonian call. Since then, we have visited them from time to time, conducted Bible studies, and visited people.
Many people are under the false impression that everything from day one falls into place with such an outreach point. You immediately have a catechism class or a Sunday school class and members who enroll. Unfortunately, the opposite is true. When you come to such a place, everyone is sceptical about your arrival, except of course the one who invited you. You just try to be as friendly with everyone as possible. Here and there someone laughs at your jokes, especially if you are familiar with their sense of humor. They are formal and suspicious. You try to share the Gospel and when they hear you are the pastor (moruti) from D’kar, they just sit and stare at you. Then you go away and feel very dissatisfied.
A few months later you will be visiting again, of course with the aim of making friends first. You come and distribute Bibles and they are grateful. You have the opportunity to talk about the Bible. They listen to you but nothing further. You sit down with them around the beer pots and talk about this and that until they hear you are a “moruti” and then they start asking questions. How often we sat there talking around the beer pots. There, people have more confidence to ask questions. It comes spontaneously. Many times I have tried to imagine how the Lord Jesus did the same. This is, of course, why the Pharisees called Him gluttonous and a winebibber, not because of his drinking, but because of those with whom he spent time with. At one point, someone expressed the desire to say goodbye to the drink. I replied that it is not that simple, but I know Someone who can help you. It then became the angle to introduce the Lord Jesus to him as a Person. He started to listen with more interest, especially now that he has spoken up about his problem. With each outreach, the suspicion are less and you reach a stage where the villagers are not just acquaintances. They have names and they become friends. They start to miss you. When you arrive they look happy to see you. The best example, of course, was our Lord Jesus, for whom his disciples were more than disciples. They were his friends.
Missionary work is not just about going to a place and preach to them, or going to church. In the first place, you are going to make friends, build a relationship with them. They start trusting you later with their deepest problems. They start phoning you. They want to know when you are visiting again because they miss you. The children want to talk to you on the phone. You start to be their spiritual parent. This is not something that happens in one outreach. This happens over years. It’s not about gathering a few people quickly under a tree and giving them a class or conducting a service. Your visit to them is one big life class and every conversation is a pulpit. Your deepest purpose with all of this is to bring each of them into a personal relationship with Jesus Christ and nothing else. Baptism, church membership, communion naturally flow from it, but do not use the cart in front of the horses by making instant Christians as soon as possible for the sake of numbers. It is very easy to gather 100 people under a tree and say to them, “You are now our members.”
With our outreach last week, my elder and I had much to be grateful for. When we arrived on Wednesday they were very happy to see us. My elder said to me on Saturday when we departed one cannot believe that these are the same people we met there a few years ago. It feels like yesterday when everyone still treated us with suspicion, but now they are our friends. We conducted Bible studies in the open and everyone was eager and grateful for the audio bibles. We were able to have in-depth conversations with them.
What particularly impressed me were two people in the group. One of them is the local policeman, in his thirties. He used to be quiet and withdrawn, but now that we’re getting to know him better, he’s thawed more and more, so much so that he spontaneously came to me and asked if I could send him Bible study material via Whatsapp. He would like to present Bible studies to the groupin my absence. He told me that he was devouted to keep the Biblestudy group alive he even wants to send me a phot each time they gather. For my part, I have given my undertaking to send him Bible studies from time to time via Whatsapp. In the photo, he is sitting at the very back to the right.
Then there was another man I met. After studying the Bible, I learned that he had a degree in social sciences from the University of Botswana. We talked about their Bushman language that is becoming extinct. Only the older generation speaks the language. The children talk to each other in Tswana. This is actually tragic. I do not know who convinced them that Tswana is the language of the future. The parents started talking to their children Tswana and believed that they would do better in the schools. How different is it here in D’kar. Nowhere will you hear Bushman children speak Tswana. Even if a Tswana person speaks to them in Setswana, they will answer back in Naro.
The Bushman language they speak there at Mababe is called Tsiga. It is a Khóè-related language like Naro. While we were talking and he shared his concerns with me, I asked him whether he knew which way is best to preserve a language. The answer is simple … The Gospel of Jesus Christ. He immediately agreed with me because he is also an outspoken Christian.
I gave him D’kar as an example. We have a New Testament in Naro. The Old Testament has come a long way. With that, many things had to fall into place, an orthography, dictionary ect., but above all where Jesus Christ is preached, people become free to be themselves in Christ. All of this fell into place after years of evangelism. We have now come so far that the government has given Naro the green light to be offered as a subject in school. For the past few years, the government has appointed Bushman interpreters in the schools to help the children understand the work. Furthermore, I said that it is never too late to start and suggested to contact the ‘Naro Language Team’ in D’kar. Because Tsiga is a Khóè language, the orthography of both languages should not differ much from each other.
The next morning I went to see him again. I asked him if he might not be interested in being trained as a minister, because we have a church in South Africa that is willing to pay for someone’s studies. His answer was that he was rather interested in Bible translation and that it was his wish to translate the Bible into his language. Then he told me that from time to time he goes to Gaborone, but when he is in Mababe, he will be more than willing to offer the Bible studies. I just need to send him the Bible study material, and he gave
me his email address.
On Saturday, after our morning Bible study, we left for Motopi. The people in Mababe were very excited about their audio bibles. One of them told with great excitement what he was listening to yesterday. We encouraged them to listen to Genesis and John. If we come again we’ll talk about it. They can just listen to the books over and over.
In Maun, Dorette offered us to over night at her place, but my elder, Frits, and one of our members, Abdul, felt that we should rather go camping on the churchyard in Motopi.
The next day I was able to conduct the church service at Motopi and the words of David in Psalm 37 appealed to them quite a lot. In Psalm 37:25, David says, “I have been young, and now am old; Yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging bread.” This brought us to the question: What does it mean to be righteous? David himself had many sins, and no one is righteous before God. In Psalm 51: 7, David acknowledges that he was conceived and born in sin. When you are righteous, you stand without blame before the Lord. Your sins are then forgiven. How was that possible at that time? How could one stand righteous before God? In the Old Testament you had to repent in your deep remorse as David offered a sacrifice to the Lord. This is all how you could settle your case with the Lord to stand before Him as righteous. Repentance for your sins was crucial. In Psalm 51:17 David said: “The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; A broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.” Then the time of the New Testament dawns and repentance is still crucial, and all the sacrifices of the Old Testament then become pointers to the final sacrifice of our Lord Jesus Christ. The example of the publican and the Pharisee was presented to them and the publican who pleads in deep remorse that the Lord will have mercy on him as a sinner. After his prayer standing there he could walk home as a righteous man.. Of such a righteous man the Lord then promises in Psalm 37 that He will never leave him. The Tswana translation states that even his children will not beg for food. This brought us all to the question: “How do we stand before the Lord? Is not our affliction due to the fact that the Lord can not regard us as righteous according to Psalm 37:25?” We make the right church sounds, baptize, profess faith, go to church regularly, but we have never really gone to the Lord in deep repentance for our sins. Very simply I explained it to them. Afterwards, one lady expressed her appreciation and said that she learned a lot today.
That evening Hendrik Keitshokile, a local resident of Motopi, and his wife came to visit us. For years he no longer came to church. At one point we considered to install him as an elder, but unfortunately, the marraige between him and his ex-wife ended. He now intends to return to church.
After a busy week, we ventured back the next day. Our fervent prayer is that the Lord will bless Mababe and Motopi as a light in that dark part of Botswana. My biggest challenge is not just to visit them but also to provide them with the material to continiue even if I am not there.
Greetings and blessings,
Hendrik du Plessis.