Sunday

Lucas and I have started frequenting the Word of Africa on Sundays. The pastor and congregation are very welcoming. When we attend, they make sure there is someone to interpret. The pastor goes back and forth speaking Setswana (or Sekgalagadi, I’m not sure which) and English.
One Sunday the pastor opened the floor for anyone who had been touched by God. A friend of ours Mma Mogale, went to the front of the church and told a story of how we invited her to come and collect some spinach we had grown in our garden. In the story she explained she was shocked when she arrived and all we had was 2 ½ leaves of spinach for her (our garden is very new). She said she learned a great lesson that you don’t give away because you have a lot. You give away because you have the love of God working through you. Lucas and I were kinda dumbfounded. We didn’t realize what message we had sent by giving her such little spinach. But she was so appreciative of us and our friendship. It became the theme of the day’s sermon. We neglected to mention the reason we were giving away the spinach is because it was mustard spinach, which is extremely bitter. We were trying to get rid of it…
When we got home there was a man waiting for us. He offered to clean up our yard of weeds and leaves. I’m always reluctant to pay anyone to do work we could do ourselves and save some pula. But Lucas has such a big heart; he gave the man a job. The going rate for yard cleanup in Salajwe is about P100. This man offered to do it for P30. All he had was dress shoes so he took them off and began cleaning the yard bare foot. There was no where to put the waste so he dug a hole in the corner of our yard and started burying everything. It was ridiculously hot out so we offered him a banana and water. When we ate lunch, we offered him a bowl of rice. He was such a hard worker.
As the sun was going down we offered to let him come back the next day and finish the yard. As best we could interpret from his Setswana and broken English, we figured out he really needed the money that day. He said he would keep working until the yard was finished. We had to turn on the porch lights so that he could see what he was doing. After about 5 hours, he had finished. The yard looked unbelievable. I packaged up some bogobe and noodles to take to his family and some candy for his children. He was so grateful for the work. We ended up giving him P50 which is all of about $7. The experience helped us to remember why we’re here and that we do make a difference in people’s lives even if by accident.