State of the Union

>We hit the one month mark here on Good Friday, as sober a day as any on the calendar. And now for a sober analysis of the Weiseth state of affairs here in Botswana to date:

After an exhaustive search, we achieved the milestone of finding a place to live a few days ago. It's been a bit of a test, to be honest. Everywhere it's evident that the Demand side of the equation has won the day over its pitiable nemesis, Supply, in this town – whether it's housing, furniture, open road to drive your car around, or a spot in school for the kids. We're thankful that the Lord steered us to a young couple, both of whom fly for Air Botswana and who have a great house that we think will answer quite nicely. Thinking about life in Africa, I had always envisioned a bunch of kids running around on a dirt street in front of our house, playing football (soccer). This house definitely fulfills that desire! I think I counted fourteen kids in front of our house the first time we visited it.

On to the work front. Neither Shelley and I are doing official, productive work yet. But our hands have not been idle! The week after we arrived we went through a one week orientation class that Tina, the 32 year Botswana veteran on our FM team, lead. We learned history, culture, worldview, took some Setswana lessons, learned how to ride combis (minivans that about half the populace uses to get around town), and visited a couple of the ministry programs that FM runs. Since then, I've been taking tests on the airplane I'll be flying, attending ground school, prepping for a few days of simulator training in South Africa, and attending to myriad other details that the Botswana Civil Aviation authority requires. As is typical in Africa, the manifold documentation has to be stamped, folded properly, driven around town interminably, and submitted four weeks before processing. Arg. I hope to be in the air starting in about two weeks, but it's frustrating to have to wait.

In the meantime, Shelley has been spreading resumes in a veritable flurry around town, all to no avail thus far. It's more than mildly ironic. The four or five schools into which we'd like to put our kids all have waiting lists, and yet no one is hiring teachers. Eh? Among our requests for prayer, that would be chief right now: that we would receive both wisdom and guidance in the schooling of our kids and Shelley's mission here in Botswana. Shelley loves to teach, and feels like her most effective ministry has been through her job. But maybe that's not what she's supposed to be doing here. We do, feel, however that the kids need to be in school. We need a miraculous door to open up on that front.

All that being said, it is great to be here. We truly love it. We've been trying to achieve sufficient familial introspection to explain why one would want to launch into a distant unknown only to experience the stonewalling of a striking percentage of our goal portfolio. More on that in our next blog entry.