Botswana Ministry

Some of the leadership team, Derek van de Merwe, Matt Meng, and myself, Mitch Hassell had the privilege of attending the Open Gates Conference in Palapye, Botswana. We were invited to come from January 28th thru 31st and share a little on the Power of God. Little did we know that we were actually given the morning sessions and 2 evening sessions. We were able to speak with Pastor Peter and find out what his heart was and what the purpose of this conference was all about. To teach and equip people on how to move in the power of God. We took his idea of equipping the body and sought the Lord about what we should go over in our sessions.

Matt Meng had the first night session and he spoke on how worship is a lifestyle and not just something we do on Sunday mornings or during church or ministry meetings. That worship must begin with and flow out of relationship and intimacy with God. Genesis 1:26 Let us make man in our image, speaks of honor. We create statues to honor our heros or people we want to honor and how much would the Godhead honor one another to make us in His image. That is amazing.



Speaking of honor, I don’t think I have been more humbled at how this church served and honored their guest speakers. I have never had anyone come up to me and carry my Bible and notebooks into church and place them on my seat. Nor have I seen more sacrifice in providing meals than I saw last week. They cooked chickens and this is the first time I have seen people actually kill, pluck and prepare chicken. It is an all day event but I was in awe.
This church and culture certainly know what it is to serve. If we could all only model after that. These people gave generously out of their lack. What an amazing thing to see and experience. Jesus said of the widow with her two mites that she had given more than all the rich people had given, and we were privileged to see this principle in action.

Our team took time to seek the Lord as to what we should speak and teach on. We felt the Lord leading us to teach on Hearing the Voice of God. We were created to know God and have relationship with Him. Communication forms the basis for any successful relationship and knowing how to hear the voice of the Lord has to be one of the most important areas of focus after salvation. This was our theme in our morning sessions and while anyone was speaking or teaching the people were on the edge of their seats. "The hunger and thirst of the believers was evidenced through their note taking and questions asked. It was so encouraging. The visiting pastors were the same way. At no time did they act as though they knew everything but instead drank in every word.

On the last evening service Derek spoke about how the Kingdom of God is not of talk but of power, 1 Corinthians 4:20. God’s power to heal and save is bigger and greater than the devils ability to bring sickness and death. According to Revelation 12:11 Satan was thrown out by Michael the archangel, God did not even have to get involved in the battle. With that knowledge why do we think so often that Satan is bigger than he is? In Colossians 1:15 Jesus is the image of the invisible God. If people wanted to know what God was like they would look to Jesus. Its the same today. If people want to know what God looks like they look to you. What Jesus are you showing? When people look at you, can they see that God is a God of power? It was a great teaching. Afterwards we had a time to pray for anyone wanting to come forward. I remember praying for a young lady who said she had a backache and chest pains and afterwards, gone! Three other people prayed to receive Jesus as their Saviour. It was incredible.



To top it all off we were able to make relationships with 2 other pastors whom we will be able to come along side and minister with. It amazes me how in our obedience God opens the doors and a flood of blessing and provision comes pouring out. I’m finding that if I just take that first step in obedience He totally takes over and takes care of the rest. How many times in the Bible do we see that as well?

It was affirmed in our hearts that God desires for us to do more work in the country of Botswana. There are only 1.8 million people living in the nation and we know that God desires for the nation to experience revival. If you desire to take a team into this nation, please let us know as we would love to host you.