Botswana Mission Trip
by Calvin McElroy
Calvin is a member of Grace Family Church in St. Albert, Alberta. Calvin also leads the Baptist Student Ministry program at the Jasper Place campus of Grant MacEwan College in Edmonton, Alberta.
Calvin at the Botswana border.
This past spring I got to embark on a mission trip that took me to the other end of the world, to a country called Botswana in the southern part of Africa. I was invited to Botswana by Todd Jones, a graduate from our CSB Seminary. Todd and his wife Lisa and their two boys, Landon and Kendall have been serving there in the capital city, Gabarone, for two years. Over the past school year I found that god was calling me to give part of my summer to do missions, but I have to admit I was reluctant to think that meant serving internationally. This being my first mission trip, I wasn’t sure about going over seas and giving up and entire two months of my break but God’s plans are always bigger than our own. I kept reading the emails Todd had sent me and decided that’s were I felt God wanted me to go.
Botswana, unlike some of its surrounding countries, is a relatively wealthy, peaceful country. Its wealth lies in it’s abundance of diamonds that are mined on its soil. It’s estimated that 30% of the world’s diamonds are from Botswana. Unfortunately they were a little outside of my souvenir budget. The official language of the country is English although Setswana is the native language of the Tswana people and also what you’ll hear when they talk to each other. The government is quite good at making sure the needs of the people are met. More than half of Batswana (citizens of Botswana) work, 
in some way or another, for the government and it’s always looking for more jobs to give out. College students get their education paid for in full from sponsors. Despite the country’s appearance, it’s a shocking reality that Botswana has one of the highest aids/HIV rates in the world. 35% of the country is infected with the disease. Of college students, it’s estimated that the rate of infected is over 60%. The life expectancy is around 37 years of age. Botswana is said to have one of the best programs for dealing with aids in the world. There are lots of campaigns and organizations addressing the issue and schools have teachers and guidance counselors to inform students and help with there needs but still the disease is continuing to spread.
Todd Jones works primarily with secondary students in the public schools in Gabarone. His participation with the schools is diverse and requires a lot of flexibility. Our main objective was to be in the schools as much as possible to build relationships with the students, teachers and administrators and assist them in whatever needs they had. Since I was there only for a limited time we decided it would be most effective if I focused on 3 or 4 schools and spent most my time with them. The four schools I chose were Motswedi Junior, Marang Junior, Ledumang Senior, and Gabarone Senior (GSS). Since I had some experience in art many art teachers had me come in teach and participate in their classes. I was amazed at how easy it was to get into the schools and how much trust the schools had in letting a stranger come teach there students after such a brief meeting with me. Being in schools I was able to get an inside view at what these students lifestyles are like. Most students start school a couple years later then here so a lot of the senior students were only a year younger than me or even the same age although they all thought I was older than I really was. School starts at 7am every morning and they go until 4pm and then if they are involved with sports or clubs they are there until 5:30. It’s not uncommon either that students come in on the weekend for projects as well. Despite the amount of time the students spend at school the work ethic is very low and they are very slow in doing there projects. The school system is very different then here. Basically nothing the students do are they ever marked on or tested on other than the occasional practice test. At the end of junior secondary they receive an exam that covers three years of material. Those who pass go on to senior secondary school. Most don’t pass. At the end of senior secondary they are tested again on two years of material. Again very few pass this test and go on to University.
Calvin (right) and friends from Botswana.
When I went to the art classes the teachers usually had me either teach a special lesson or assist them with projects. I preferred to assist since that meant I could get to spend time one on one with students. One of the best icebreakers was a little Setswana/English dictionary that I would carry around. When the students saw it they’d want to start teaching me all these words and sayings and they’d help me to pronounce them. They got a real kick out of me trying to address the class in Setswana. I think they really like the fact that they had something that they could teach me. I learned a lot from spending time with and talking to students, about there lifestyle and attitudes. In one of my form 4 classes (grade 11) a girl by the name of Emeldah came and sat beside me and we talked for a while. At one point she was telling me how she likes to go and drink with her friends on the weekend. I told her that I didn’t drink and that alcohol can sometimes cause people to do things they wouldn’t usually do like fight or do drugs or have sex. She asked me, what’s wrong with having sex? Well, I said, you could get aids couldn’t you? She looked at me kind of funny and said you mean you actually believe that? I was a little taken back by her statement since I knew for a fact that she had been informed a great deal about HIV and aids. They had classes and teachers dedicated to inform students about the seriousness of the disease. She probably knew more about it than I did. Emeldah told me that people just tell them not to have sex just so they won’t have fun. One unfortunate thing I was informed about the culture in Botswana is that a lot of people lie and people often feel lied to. Especially if their being told something they don’t want to believe. Tswana people are also very social people and relationships are very important to them. Trust is a huge requirement for a close friendship. When the teachers come and teach about aids, they often have to rush on from class to class. The relationship never goes beyond teacher-student. For most these students, that’s not enough. To be believed you have to prove yourself believable which takes time. Witnessing in Botswana is a very lengthy process.
Children on the way to school in Botswana
On the school campuses, they had student led Christian groups called Scripture Unions. We often went and participated with them and encouraged them any way we could. The school administrators didn’t always have the best opinion of the S.U. groups. They would tell us, “they’re good kids and don’t cause trouble but they stick to themselves and they don’t really do anything good for the rest of the school.” We really wanted to help change this attitude people had towards the Christian groups. When we would meet with the S.U. we tried to encourage and also challenge them to reach out to their school community and have servant hearts. One group from one of the schools decided they wanted to sing a worship song during morning assembly and asked if I would bring my guitar and play with them. This may seem like such a small thing to us but in Botswana singing is an excellent witnessing tool. People there love to sing and love hearing others sing. Even when we were practicing at lunch hour we would draw a crowd of students listening and cheering when the song was over. After we sang at assembly the teachers liked it so much they asked us to sing again the next week. It was really great to see the Christian students rise to the challenge we gave them and even take there own initiative in find ways to evangelize. Students reaching out to other students I think is one of the most effective ways to see attitudes being changed among the young people of Botswana.
I was able to make a lot of relationships in the schools were I taught. The closest ones were probably with some of the teachers since I spent most my time with them. One teacher I became especially close with was an art teacher by the name of Manu Lal. Him and his family were actually from India, they weren’t native Botswana. When I first met Mr. Lal, we were figuring out when I could come and teach one of his classes. I told him that I studied music in college and his eyes lit up. He asked me, what instrument do you play? I told him guitar. His eyes lit up even more and then he rushed into his office and came out carrying a Fender acoustic guitar. He said, I’ve been trying to learn how to play this, can you teach me? The next day I went to his house and met his wife and son and we played guitar. Over the course of my trip I was invited to his house on number of occasions to teach him guitar or to have dinner and visit. Manu is a Hindu although he told me he wasn’t a conservative Hindu. I wasn’t sure what he meant but I got the impression from our conversation that he didn’t agree with parts of the Hindu religion. We talked sometimes about spiritual things and he was always very interested in what I had to say. Hindus believe that God is an impersonal God so I tried to tie everything into my own personal relationship with Christ. I soon found out that there were others planting seeds in Manu’s life as well. He was asked by someone at a local Baptist church, which I had attended, to paint a backdrop for their Church’s stage. I realized God gave me this relationship to plant another seed and bring him one step closer to knowing Christ. We’ve continued to keep in touch through emails since I’ve gotten back. He keeps trying to convince me to visit him sometime in India so he could show me his home country. Maybe next summer.
One thing that amazed me was just the way God would use the simplest everyday circumstances to orchestrate his work. To get around town, I was often on my own and didn’t have a car so I used the public transit, which were small vans called kombes. For two pula (about 40 cents Canadian) you could get a ride across town. The different routes were quite confusing and you could very easily take the wrong one which I learnt the hard way, on more than one occasion. I started asking people standing at the bus stop which route to take for were I was going. One weekend one person that I had asked for directions spotted me in a restaurant a couple days later. We talked for a while. His name was Judges and he was going to school in South Africa and happened to be in Botswana for a couple weeks on his break. Later he admitted to not really being “too much of a Christian” but was really interested in what I had to say about being a follower of Christ. We exchanged contacts and he offered to show me around town some time that week. The next weekend we went to go see a movie but arrived a little too late (probably because we took a kombe). As we were just walking away from the theatre I spotted one of the missionaries on the Jones’ team, Robert Fortinberry. He was actually from another city called Labotse which was about an hour away from Gabarone and he happened to be in town for the evening. We went and talked to him and Judges really took a liking to Robert since he was an older pastor and Judges was eager to learn as much as he could about what being a Christian really meant. Judges studies archeology and often visits Labotse to survey and do some digging. Him and Robert exchanged contacts and Judges was really eager to meet up with him next time he was in Labotse. I continued to talk to Judges and answered his questions although he was still hesitant to become a Christian himself. If we hadn’t met Robert the ministry to Judges would have ended when I left but now God can continue to speak to Judges through Robert. I thought about how this all started because we just happened to be at the same bus stop at the same time. Then how we were at the same restaurant at the same time and just happened to run into Robert after missing the movie and how Judges just happened to visit Labotse all the time. I thought to myself, these circumstances are just way beyond me and anything I could have planned for. I realized how much ministry is a team effort even when we don’t realize it and God, our couch, has a brilliant strategy.
Two months went by too fast. By the time I was leaving I felt I was just getting started. It was definitely an experience that taught me a lot of life lessons and gave me a lot of memories. And also some friendships that I hope are life long as well.
