Zambian/Botswana Trip 2025

Look at these beauties!  Baby didn't even cry at my shocking white face, but she was rather amazed. 

May 5th we left Cape Town, driving, for Zambia. The trailer had books and tracts as well as chalk equipment.   It took us 4 days of driving to get there.  We left ourselves one day to get organized and one day of rest before Paul started in preaching the first Sunday.   

Joseph Phiri, our pastor friend, scheduler, translator and all-around helpful guy had us at three churches that first Sunday.

Things went well, though I nearly crashed myself sliding on the polished cement floor in this church.  

Then, that night, our trip took a turn for the worse. Paul fell in the bathroom in the night.  He reached for a door frame, missed, and fell on the hard cold tiles.  I found the light and ran to find him with a puddle of blood under his head.  He said, "Forget the head.  It's my back."  

I cleaned and patched his head, and we went back to bed, but the agony had begun.  He was so sore!  And we had a school in just 7 hrs.  

He was able to speak and draw.  Pastor Joseph and I did all the lifting of chalk equipment and he made it through the two services, but the driving was torture.  Between potholes and speedbumps, his poor back was jostled a lot.  

Tuesday was a little better, but not much.  He was able to do everything scheduled but he was so uncomfortable.  He would wince at every bump, and I would wince at his wincing.  Driving was no fun, never mind the fact that it could take a whole hour to go 8 kilometers/about 5 miles.  Lusaka traffic is wild.

 On Wednesday our son Timothy flew in from America and I was so glad.  Thursday Paul stayed home to rest, and Timothy and I did the schools.  Friday and Sunday Timothy came, and they split the preaching.  Monday Timothy paired up with Pastor Joseph and his friend Mr. Meeti who would drive to their schools, and Paul and I were on our own.  He was improving each day, sleeping a little better each night.  

I have very few pictures of Timothy though Pastor Joseph might send us some.  

This school had an unusual assembly place, all marked out with bricks.  Each class could file into their row to stand.

This is the assembly, at dawn, with temperatures of 3 degrees Celsius, or 35 degrees Fahrenheit.  Brrr!!!! 

 

 

In Nata, Botswana, we had a huge school!  Most of the schools were having a holiday, I think, but this is a boarding school so we had 960 students in spite of the holiday. 

They sang a song so beautifully that I got all teary eyed.  I wish I had a good video.  

This school is something of a shock.  It is a drive through sandy roads and bush to find a huge, elegant facility, built to accommodate not just the students of Nata, but surrounding areas.  

At this school, a funny thing happened.  A little boy, I'd guess about 7 yrs. old, came to me and said, "Do you know what they're saying about you?  They're saying you're a grandmother."

"I am a grandmother!"  I told him, and he went back to his seat.  

Noth only did it make me laugh, it left me with questions.  

We raced down the highway in northern Botswana to try to get to Nata before dark, but we did see elephants and try to snatch their picture in the setting sun.  Or a little after?  

Interesting statues in front of a school.  

A challenging school because the kids were facing into this walkway.  So Paul would draw one of his quick silhouettes, then walk a little holding up the picture.  He also couldn't hold it too high or he'd crash into the ceiling, and he had to duck under beams.  And it was CHILLY!!!!  Somehow enthusiastic kids make up for a lot of the hardships, and these kids were friendly, eager and enthusiastic!  

 

Paul called this the leafy school as the trees were thick over the meeting place.  He had to do a lot of swiveling with the pictures, but not walk so far.  

The picture angle can give you an idea of one of my jobs.  I am the paper holder if it's windy so I snatch pictures from my place behind the board.  

I'll call this the hungry school.  I don't know how many were hungry, but I was!  We went without breakfast because it was so early, but intstead of being just two times speaking, they split the school by classes and we had five.  Notice Paul is the only one with his jacket off.  It was a little warmer because we were indoors.  They told us "the weather is unfriendly" so we had to be indoors which was better for the paper, and my stomach did survive.  

Also at this school, with one of the grades, the teacher was lecturing them about being good listeners and a boy very deliberately rolled up his stocking cap to uncover his ears.  It was so cute.  

The kids were memorably friendly at this one.  We love what we do!  So many agree with us to make decisions to follow Jesus!  

I got my jollies out of listening to the GPS read off some of these Setswana names like this one that is 13 letters long.  Mog O Rog O Wane, she said.  I don't think I could have done much better.  

We saw 3 giraffes!  With the fading light, this is the best picture I could get.  

A typical travel breakfast:  soft-boiled eggs made in the tea kettle along with tea made in the tea kettle too.  

Canned chicken sandwiches is another good traveling lunch.  

About once a day we buy something for a good, hot meal.  

Timothy was such a great help!  He was all grubby with chalk and the labors of the day, but happy in his successes.  He had some unusual trials on this trip with visa problems, but we prayed and the Lord intervened and it looks like those problems have cleared up.  Phew!  They }or their website?} were trying to charge him 22,000 kwachas with is nearly $1000.00.  

Suspense:  We ran out of tracts before our time in Lusaka ended so Paul called James in Cape Town and asked him to ship more to both Lusaka, Zambia, and Francistown, Botswana.  We expected them a whole week sooner than they arrived, and the suspense was terrible.  In each school, Paul would talk to the kids about leading others to the Lord and he would say, "I have something that can help you.  I have a paper that tells how people can ask the Lord to save them, and, if it comes, I'm going to leave enough for all of you."  

They came!  On our LAST school DAY in Francistown, they were delivered!  We loaded them straight into the car and set off for the nearest school.  It took close to 3 hours to retrace our steps through the nine schools we had been to that week, but we got to them all.  We'd have to track down the right person, often the guidance counselor, and find out how many students there were, and then we'd leave our precious cargo with them.  We had one more school that afternoon, and we were able to give those tracts straight to the students.  

After many of the schools and churches, we had to have a group picture so I'll end with one of the dozens of these I have in my phone.  

Christmas Eve in Quarantine in Namibia

In August Paul preached over Zoom to a church in Pakistan. We began to be flooded with “friend requests” on Facebook. We got hundreds, and then thousands! It was hard to deal with them all. Paul tended to say “yes” to most of them, to edify or win them. I was picky and tried to read their profiles and make sure they were OK.

If we accepted them, many wanted to talk on Facebook Messenger. It was too much! Hundreds of messages, mostly from people we didn’t know, and many were hard to understand. But we tried. We spent hours on there, though we’re not usually Facebook junkies, especially Paul. Some of the people invited him to preach for their churches. He prayed and asked the Lord where he should go, if he should go, when, and how. He got guidance to DRIVE to Kenya, and be with several pastors and other ministries, and then go on to Uganda to be with a good many more pastors.

All but one of the pastors worked out! Paul had to use a translator a lot, which is different from South Africa, but still we had good meetings. We saw people come to profess faith in Christ. We loved meeting the pastors, and many other people. One pastor told the people, “I met this man on Facebook, and he chose me for his friend!” with so much emotion. I instantly felt so guilty for the people I had deleted. It meant more than we knew.

One pastor, Pastor Jonathan near Kampala, was beat up, perhaps because of being with us. A group of men broke into his home yelling, “Where is the money?” Maybe they assumed we had given him money. They cracked the bone in his forehead with a thick hoe. He was in a coma for over 24 hours, until the doctor operated to relieve the bleeding on the brain. We went to see him the last morning before we left Uganda and were so thankful that he could see a little, and recognize us, and was thanking God for sparing his life.

Another pastor had the most enthusiastic church worship team we have ever seen. It was good and inspiring to be with them in Kamuli, and again at a more rural church. We learned that we do like savory bananas for breakfast, though I didn't get the recipe.

I'm sticking in a "surfer dude" picture of our Grandson Cyrus and a monkey to give some comic relief, and a dose of sweetness.

When we stayed with Lois, we visited a few of her “sons’” churches and saw people we had met back in 2018. Only one is not going on with the Lord, but the others press onward, leading churches, managing a children’s home, and planting new churches.

We had many little crises which kept throwing us back on the Lord. One time a police lady kept my driver’s license after a police check in Kenya. It was quite a procedure to go through all the hoops, and we drove away without noticing she kept my license. I slumped down for a nap, tired from the ordeal, while Paul struggled with the traffic of driving through Eldoret.

As I woke up, I was reliving the whole annoying police episode in my mind, when I suddenly realized she hadn’t given me back my license. We were like 5000 miles from home! NOT a good time to be without a license. I was panicking. And praying! And calming, then thinking, and beginning to panic again. It was a long, slow hour of driving back through Eldoret to try to get it back.

We finally got there, and the police lady was gone from her post. Others kept pointing until we found her. She immediately called out, “You forgot your license.” I didn’t trust myself to speak, but then she said, “I’m so sorry I didn’t get it back.” It’s amazing how an apology takes all the sting out of the mistake! It was “above and beyond” what I expected, and I’m so grateful. I got my license back, and I didn’t say anything wrong! I was grateful for both.

That same day we had a scheduling glitch with our next appointment being impossibly far to make it to on time. We couldn’t get the pastor on Facebook or on the phone. Paul was driving, I was checking the maps, looking for a plan, and we prayed. Then I got the idea to call Gideon, one of Lois’s “boys” who is nearly my age, and ask him for help. He sorted us out in about two sentences! We were heading the wrong way, and the right way was much closer! And also closer to the Ugandan border where we needed to be the next day! We were so grateful!

While we were near Nairobi, we took the Jeep in to be repaired. The place had no parts for a Jeep, but they told us we needed a new cap on the radiator. From the time they looked at it, we began to have problems with that radiator. About the third day, it boiled over three times, leaving us on the side of the road or the middle of the intersection until it cooled! We prayed, poured water, and tried to make it to our appointments. It was a rough day, though we had two really good meetings.

After the second meeting, five o’clock was approaching fast and we began to hunt for a new radiator cap. We had been told we’d have to import one from a Jeep distributor in another country. We prayed and stopped to ask at a Toyota place if they knew what to do. They sent us to a parts place back in the thick of traffic. There we found a radiator cap that did the job! We haven’t had another over-heating situation since! We thanked the Lord!

Another little scare was when Paul started getting sick. No!!!! That is not allowed in this Covid era! Even the sniffles make everyone nervous. And one of his symptoms was feeling gaspy for air. That’s scary on the wife. It turned out to be a cold, which meant days of low appetite, low energy, and those sniffles. We are learning he cannot over-do with impunity. Gradually he got his energy back. He never missed a meeting, but he left one early to get to bed.

God is good! He is faithful! And He tells us to talk of all His wondrous ways! So that’s what I’m trying to do, share some of what He brought us through.

“Who can utter the mighty acts of God? Who can show forth all his praise?” Psalm 106:2 I’m mentioning a few little things, but the big important things are more hidden. “The Kingdom of God cometh not with observation.” Luke 17:20.

We saw people come forward to make professions of faith, and heard prayers prayed. I wondered sometimes why it was Paul who had to come so far. Was he the only one who could do these things? I think almost every pastor we worked with commented on his strength and continued service for the Lord at age 72. Was this what the Lord wanted people to see? So much goes on that we don’t have a clue about. We don’t know all that went on for the Kingdom, but we like what we know.

So now we’re on the return journey. We got a Covid test in Kampala, and headed south into Tanzania after the negative result came back. We had a few adventures in Tanzania, praying each night to find accommodation, and the Lord leading us to places night after night. Our GPS failed us a bit in Tanzania, taking us in exactly the wrong direction, with some idea of going through Kigali, Rwanda to get to Dodoma! It was disheartening when we learned how much time we had lost (about 2 hours), and after that we didn’t trust our GyPSy so much.

When we got to the border of Namibia this morning, we had hopes of quickly getting across the border and buzzing along toward Cape Town. We did the Zambia exit without too much trouble, but immediately on the Namibian side we had a problem. Our Covid tests were more than 72 hours old, and we had to get fresh ones. They told us it might take EIGHT days because of Christmas and the weekend, to get results back!

Finally we learned of a private option that should be much quicker. We got the test this morning, and hope to get the results on Christmas day. Until then, we wait in a hotel room, getting caught up on our blog, letters, and other work while we wait.

I wanted to cry as we began to realize how delayed we were going to be. We had hoped to come squeaking into Cape Town Christmas night, but now we might not even be able to start that way. I prayed one of those profound prayers that our Lord must hear a lot, “Help, Lord!” and the tears went away. He took the sting out of the disappointment.

Both of us confided to each other this morning, that the moment we felt the air conditioning in our room was the moment we thought we could last two days and two nights while we wait for that negative test. The heat is intense with very high humidity, so A/C felt like a necessity. 🎵 All I want for Christmas is a negative test🎵 😊

That's it for myself, but I'm praying for so much more. So many friends and family are hurting because of Covid. The Lord knows. He is in charge. I'm seeking His help for them.

Pictures below: 1. A truck crash involving 3 semi's that cost us 2 hours, but was a great place to pass out tracts. 2. The statue commemerating the completion of the whole Bible translated into Gweru. 3. Paul looking pale. :-)

40 Days from SA to Malawi and Back

Things I want to remember from our first trip to Malawi:

Crossing the border was peaceful.  We could have saved a few minutes if we had done insurance at the same time as waiting for our visas.

Our first hotel room.  Neon red walls, with a mosaic of broken mirrors and tiles.  Very dim light-bulb. Cassava for breakfast, and chicken gizzards. Paul was pleased to eat mine and Josh's too.

Our visit to the Malawi Museum. Kinda wanted to donate some time there.  It looks neglected.

Lots of long walks passing out tracts, and most people being so excited to get them. I wrote about it in our prayer letter, and said I wished we had a GoPro (just talking, not hinting) and a lady in Indiana wrote to say she had one she never used, and wanted to give it to us.  (Stop, do cartwheel.  Mentally only, you understand.)  

Kids and a lady who stopped on their way into church to admire themselves in the side of our clean (! for once!) Jeep.  The kids had a good time dancing, the lady admired her sparkly shoes.


Josh got a new camera for his birthday in May.  All of these photos are from his camera, and he took most of them.  You can tell which ones he didn't take as he didn't take the ones he is in, with one exception.  I'm thankful he's getting another talent/skill down.

Huh?  You say I have a fidget spinner in my ear?  

Wish I could do that.  

 One of the perks of this trip was seeing so many friends along the way, like the Frews who have been friends since 2006.  Back then, we had more kids than they did, but they have gotten ahead of us.

 We participated in FIVE weddings on this 40 day trip!  Joe and Blessing's was the one we got the most involved in.  They are planning to come visit us in Cape Town in December.

 We stayed with the Beamen's in Chipata, Zambia, but we didn't get a picture of them, just their hedgehog, Lucy.

 Crossing the Zambezi River between Botswana and Zambia on a ferry is a limited time offer.  They're building a big ol' bridge that will take some of the fun out of this crossing.  Paul said this is my 25th Anniversary Cruise.

Crossing the Zambezi will lose some of its romance when the bridge is finished, but for the sake of these poor guys in the big trucks, I'll be glad for the bridge.  They are backed up for THREE KILOMETERS!  We measured.  Waiting for their turn to cross.  It can take them a week.  I'm guessing fresh milk doesn't cross this border often.

 I love, love, love when our kids get involved in ministry too!  Of course, they've been involved since day one. They've been hauled around the world, winning people even as babies, and helping their parents be more winsome, but now they're getting right up there, teaching the liquor bottle lesson full of verses of what God says about alcohol in the Bible.
I suppose I should mention how glad I am that Paul's in the ministry too.  I sort of take that for granted. Of course he is!   I can't imagine him any other way.

 Visiting a tea plantation was maybe not supposed to be the most exciting trip in the world, maybe educational was more what we had in mind, but I think none of us will forget skidding and sliding down through the tea fields, getting lost, and finally coming out miles and miles from where we went in.  It was cool, for sure.  Josh liked the skidding parts even, Paul and I, not so much.  We haven't actually tried the tea yet.

 The unsung member of our team is Gypsy, our GPS.  Though she botched it that time, never giving us a hint of cows blocking the road ahead.

 Paul got drafted into a singing group's photo session.  We're curious if he'll get into the printed version on their CD they're making.  It was a Christian group of singers, very nice, that we met beside the road one Sunday.

 We made a brief stop at Malawi's beloved pottery place, Dedza for the Dedza mountains around it.  It would have been a nice place to have lunch, but we pressed on.    

 It was mouse season in Malawi, so mouse "bouquets" were for sale beside the road.  About $.05 per mouse.  Yum, yum.  OK, we didn't try any, just felt brave to have taken the photo.  And we tipped the boys selling them because we got their hopes up when we stopped for the picture.

 Road hazards!  I'm so thankful we never hit any animals this time except little birds.

 And then there were other road hazards.  Speed traps.  This one was intricate, in Botswana, and I got trapped.  Sniff.

 But Botswana is still the best country I know for seeing wildlife from the road.  We saw elephants too, but they got upstaged as you'll see in a bit.

 Mac Mac Falls delighted us, particularly in that we didn't know it was coming, and therefore had the thrill of discovery.

 There we are!  This was one of the coolest touristy things we've ever done, and we almost didn't get to do it.  We went to an elephant encounter, which does not include (the more expensive) elephant ride, but they let us ride the elephants "just back to the stables" and took our pictures, and it was wonderful!  and the price was right.

 I think the guides saw Paul and immediately matched us with Temba, the biggest of the 6 Elephants at Elephant Whispers.

 These are amazing animals!  and therefore their Creator must be AMAZING too.  Just logic.

We saw a lot of fires.  Smoky by day...

wild by night.  

 On the way back we stayed a few days at Back to the Bible Mission.  We loved it!

 Their campus is off in the hills near Barberton, South Africa, and they call it a "preacher factory."

The road continues, we move on, always on a mission, trying to draw others to Christ.