New house!

We got a place. Thanks be to God! [breathing huge sigh of relief] And the lady who owns it said we could pick up the keys tomorrow. That gives us 5 days to transition from where we are now, get furniture and move it in there and clean the apartment we've been staying in before the new people from Finland show up.

Pictures to come, once we're settled in.

Speaking of liturgy

We eventually made it down to the Woodpecker Seminary south of Gaborone for the recording session that was scheduled to begin on Friday. Couldn't go Friday because Rob was still not well enough to drive so we left Saturday morning. Got to Mahalapye, just a couple of hours drive north of the seminary, and pulled in to top off our gas in the car. The attendant noticed that we were leaking oil heavily, enough that the spare under the car was totally soaked on one side. He called a mechanic for us, who came out to direct us to his shop. After sitting there in his yard for a few hours while he drove all over town trying to find the busted part (blew a gasket of some sort), Maria, the ELCB person organizing the event, said she'd drive up to pick us up. She did and we were at least able to finish one set of recordings that night. The composer was only available that day and he stayed until well after dark to conduct his part of the liturgy. It sounds great.

Sunday, Rob finished recording the new Lutheran Setswana liturgy and Maria took us to our hotel in Gaborone to wait for the call from the mechanic in Mahalapye. Rob took it easy, still recovering from the illness that came on Thursday night.

Monday, Daniel (the mechanic) called to say that he had found the part and was fixing. He also said that he could drive the car down to Gabs to pick us up! We were thrilled. The guy from the Jeep dealership called to see if we wanted to come in to test drive the Patriot (one of reasons for wanting to spend an extra day in gabs after the recording sessions) and we explained that we had no way of getting to the dealership because of the car breakdown. He offered to pick us up so we jumped on the offer. We drove it, it was fine. We filled out the paperwork for the order. Oddly enough, the only colour of automatic Patriot available in southern Africa right now is a shiny, bright blue… so that's what we're getting. Kind of sporty looking. You'll see us coming a mile away.

So, Tuesday, Daniel came to pick us up. We drove him out to Mogoditshane to pick up a couple of tires for his personal vehicle (how could we refuse, eh?) and then went to lunch before hitting the road. We made it back to Maun (via Francistown) on Wednesday. Thursday, we recovered from the drive and the last dregs of Rob's illness. Friday, we hit the house-hunting again.

It's pretty disheartening to have the house situation still hanging over our head. And you can't force people to help you any faster than they choose to. This includes real estate agents and individual renting homeowners, both parties whom you would expect to have a vested interest in getting you into a place ASAP so the money can start coming in. And people say they'll call me but they don't and I have to call them. Like, one place, I called in mid-January and asked about it. She said they'd find out later that week and get back to me. I asked if she'd like me to call her. She said, no, that he'd call me. He didn't call. So, I call yesterday, now that we need a place again. I'm told that they've already rented it to someone else. Like, why didn't they call me back? And I never know when calling again is being pushy. If I push, they may not help me at all. If I don't push, I may not get anywhere.

Sigh. In happier news, I ran into my friend Bontekanye at the grocery store on Saturday and she invited us to a luncheon on Sunday. It was celebrating the publication of her latest book, “The Seed Children”. She asked us to perform a couple of songs during the entertainment portion so we did Wayfaring Stranger and You Move Me (by Susan Ashton). We had a great time. Bonty does great development work with the local youth. Whenever she publishes a book, she develops a multi-media presentation of it for the book launch and uses local youth as performers in the presentation. That way, she is providing them employment and developing their professional skills. She's a pretty cool lady and we're constantly encouraged by what she's doing.

And one of the people she works with who was at the luncheon asked us if we'd be willing to sing at his church sometime. That was also pretty cool. A bright spot in an otherwise dim few days.

Irony in liturgy

One of the things I love about a liturgical church is the scheduled readings system. It's funny how often a designated reading, set by someone I'll never meet, a long time before my current needs and situations came about, will nail something I'm dealing with at that moment.

Take today's Catholic church of Southern Africa reading, for example. Rob was up all night with vomiting and diarrhea. It seems to have stopped but it makes for an exhausted day today. We won't be making the drive to Gaborone today that we had planned, let's put it that way. Anyhow, I got daily readings software from Universalis. When I open the program in the morning, it just has all the readings for the day right there before my eyes. Which is nice for the lazy girl in me. Anyhow, today starts with Psalm 37 in the Office of Readings, Habakkuk 3 in Morning Prayer.

Ah, Habakkuk – I have heard you, Lord, and my stomach churns within me; at the sound of your voice my lips tremble. My bones rot away, my steps stumble.

Seriously though, I think Rob will be just fine. He's accepting positive prayers on his behalf, nonetheless.

New digs

Well, here we are in Maun. We are, effectively, in a housesitting-
like situation again. That is to say that, yes, we are paying some
rent (albeit nominal) but the person who normally lives here is just
out of the country so all their stuff is still in the house. This
leaves us with the same problem we've had all along: where to place
our stuff where it won't get mixed up with or knock over their stuff.
It is, thankfully, quite a bit bigger than the guest house we were
staying at for the last 2.5 months. We currently have a bedroom, a
living room, kitchen and bathroom, which is 2 rooms more than we had
last. There are even 2 desks in the living room so we can work side-
by-side without tripping over each other. Luxury.

But the main difference in our situation is that the end is in sight!
We have arranged to rent the house next door. Woohoo! All that is
left before moving in is for the current tenant's paperwork for
Zambia to be finalized and for us to sign the lease. Then, we set up
house at long last.

Friday, we were wiped from the drive to Maun in the hot car so we
took it fairly easy. Our one big trip out was to eat lunch and get
some basic groceries. Funny thing: this house we're staying in comes
with 2 dogs. Now, they're pretty laid back, except when they're play-
fighting. Oh, and also whenever we open the gate to take the car out.
When we went to leave yesterday, one of them bolted out of the gate
while Rob was driving out and no amount of whistling or cajoling to
get him back. Thankfully, the guy who feeds them was in the yard next
door and he said we could go ahead, that he'd let the dog back into
the yard when he returned from running around. He also said that they
usually attach the dogs to leashes off to the side of the gate while
they pull in. I thanked him for his help, thinking all the while how
convoluted that all sounded. Like having to lock up your residence
doors and gates like Fort Knox every time you go anywhere isn't
enough. Anyhow, when we came back, both dogs were indeed inside but
obviously wanting out again. So, I unlocked the gate, slipped inside
and made little "come here, dog" noises while walking to where the
leashes were supposed to be. Come to find out there's only one leash
but, to my delight and surprise, when I held up the one leash, they
came over and sat next to the wall at my feet. As I I had actually
leashed them, they stayed when I walked away. They stayed while Rob
drove the car into the yard. They stayed until I locked the gate
again. Good dogs! And I told them so, in that gooey voice that I've
heard people use with dogs. I hope they continue to be as cooperative
on all our returns and departures.

Moving day again

So, tomorrow we move to Maun. Just a temporary housesit until we find our actual home but at least we'll be in the right area of the country for what we're supposed to be doing.

Which, at first, is just learning Setswana. But it's important to learn Setswana in the area where we'll be doing most of our Setswana-speaking, because of dialect differences around the country. But, also, Rob needs a place where he can do recording again. I mean, yes, he has a fully mobile studio. But he needs somewhere he can just sit and mix and master too. Also, I have a DVD of our ministry that we're trying to finish up and I'd really rather have the house thing not hanging over my head when I try to focus on that for the last few hours it'll take to do so.

Today, I'm photocopying the handwritten Shiyeyi New Testament that I found in the Shiyeyi files. Making 2 copies; one for the archives and one for me. Having to leave the copier to cool down for 10 minutes between every 10 pages copied certainly does slow things down a bit. Hopefully, I can get it done fast enough that we'll still have packing time when we get back to the guest house.