Sandals Was Here!

Thank you all for your prayers for the Sandals team! They were here March 9-17. They did an amazing job! The Lord worked in and through them in incredible ways. They arrived Friday night at 6pm in the Gaborone airport after traveling for a day and a half. Unfortunately we couldn’t let them rest, the leadership conference that they would be running for local church members started the very next day at 9am.Those attending the conference split off into four groups for training - evangelism, prayer, worship and teaching/shepherding. Though the schedule changed several times through the course of the conference, the team stayed flexible and did a wonderful job. After church on Sunday (where Dean preached and David gave a testimony - good job guys!) the village visits began. The goal was to visit each of the five daughter fellowships in the surrounding villages of Kanye, Lotlhakane, Tswagare, Molapowabojang and Digawana to model for the local church members the things that had been taught at the Saturday conference. For two hours we split off into three groups - one group went prayerwalking, one group did door to door evangelism, and one group made pastoral visits. At the end of the two hours we all came together for a short worship service where one of the guys gave a message and we sang and shared testimonies. So many amazing things happened during these village trips! One day as we were prayerwalking in Lotlhakane one of the national church members who was with us suggested we go into the clinic to pray.
It was packed with people and very noisy. We asked permission to go in and pray, which they gave us without difficulty. As we walked in we drew a lot of attention, but the amazing thing was that, as we began to pray the room became completely silent... even the babies stopped crying!
People just sat there, some with heads bowed also, listening to us pray. When we finished many said “Amen”, it was an incredible experience. That same day as we were walking back to the church for the worship service an old man stopped us by the side of the road and told us that he wanted to be born again. Later we learned that this was one of the headmen of the village!
To say the least, it was an amazing week of seeing God working. It was also wonderful hanging out with some fellow Sandalites for a week!
For other stories and photos please check the Sandals blog (http://www.thesandalsblog.com/).

Photos (from top to bottom):
*Everyone gathering for evening dinner in my living room.
*The evangelism team at the Saturday conference.
*At the Baptist church building in Tswagare.
*Sandals team member David surrounded by children after the worship service in Digawana.
*The worship service in Lotlhakane.
*The team after having lunch at Mma Adom’s house, one of the Lobatse Baptist church members.
*Sandals team member Lauren giving a testimony of abstinence to one of my classes at Itireleng Junior Secondary School. Since my morning classes were over before we left for the villages I asked some of the team members to come do this. It’s an awesome encourager to the students to wait until they’re married to have sex.