Visit to South Africa Branch

 We had a great visit at the South Africa branch of Jehovah's Witnesses.  We met lots of couple, one of which was on the exact same flight as us from Portland!  They are visiting a missionary in Swaziland.  We made quite a few friends, some of which were in SASL (South African Sign Language) and were being moved from bethel to Capetown as special pioneers to start a new group there.  They were nervous but excited for the challenge.  We had our tour of the branch on Thursday and enjoyed lunch again with the brothers at bethel and it was Hamburgers!  Quite tasty..its interesting and loving how the brothers cater to all the different cultures there at bethel.  The day before they served indian food. (Below are pictures of the branch and Brian and Rita Godwin)

So..on Friday we said our sad goodbyes to the ones there in South Africa and got on the bus to Gabarone, Botswana.  We were greeted in Gabarone by John and Sonia Campbell the special pioneers serving in the local congregation we are going to be helping in Botswana. They are serving in a village of 30,000 in Ramotswa.
The next day, Saturday we were able to join them for a full day in the ministry.  They start out their day by doing maybe 2 or 3 doors and then spend the rest of the day with their studies. Micah went with John and I joined Sonia. The territory we worked were the government houses where the people who work the border crossing or hospitals live.  Sonia thought it would be a good choice because the majority are educated and speak good English. We were able to speak to someone from each of the 6 doors we did and had some nice conversations.  We used the Truth tract as our offer so that we would ask them which question they had 5 minutes to discuss and then would have a discussion based on their choice.  Two times we discussed the question on What happens when we die?.  And we also got a few to agree to attend the meeting the next day.  Micah joined John on studies the whole day.  We started at 9 am and ended at 4:30 with a 1/2 hour lunch break in between. 

Sunday we enjoyed going to the meeting in Ramotswa where it was conducted in half Tswana (the native language) and half English.  The talk was interpreted from English to Tswana and the Watchtower is conducted trading the paragraphs between Tswana and English.  The power went out in the morning, so we got to sing based on memory and had to pay extra careful attention so we could hear the brother conducting! 

Today is Monday and we are staying with another couple, Farai and Lorraine and little baby Unathi (Cute little picture of her right above).