To our dear family and prayer partners: 

We know some of you may be saying, “Good grief!  It is about time!”.  Yes, we are still alive and still in Botswana.  There is obviously so much to tell you.  We have so much to be grateful for.  In February we sent you a prayer update.  I had to re-read it so that I would remember what I told you and the requests that were made.  There is something significant that I wanted to tell you though.  When I sent that prayer update to you in February concerning my chronic neck pain, four days later I noticed that there was a great improvement in my neck. Such an improvement, that I had to stop and analyze my behaviour and see if anything had changed.  I realized that the only difference was that I had asked YOU ALL to pray!  Thank you!  We truly are grateful to you all for your support and prayers.

Over the last several months, we would look at the names that show up on our support list and just filled with gratitude.  We would say to one another, “Man! (so and so) has REALLY been faithful!”  We thank God for you. We so appreciate you joining us in the work God is doing here in Botswana.  Some of you have been giving for four years, the whole time we have been here. Thank you so much!  We know that God has cared for us and sustained us. We also know that there are days that we experience God’s grace in such a way – that we are utterly convinced you all are interceding for us.

I also wanted to address the topic of furlough before I get to the main matter that I wanted to contact you all about. In the last email, we spoke about hoping we could come to the USA in September.  We will NOT be doing that.  Based on what would be more beneficial for the mission, as far as our absence goes, we have decided to start our furlough and itinerating (there is a difference in those terms) the second week in December.  We are very excited about getting to spend the holiday with our families, and our children are very excited about experiencing a winter in America!  Go figure!  They hope there will be some hills covered in snow waiting for them! J  We didn’t do the “furlough” part very well on our last trip to the USA, so we are making sure we get some time to rest and really enjoy you all. We have decided to take December, a time typically very busy for churches and less open to “guest speakers”, and part of January to be with our friends and family. Though if an invitation is given during this time, we would definitely be open to taking the opportunity. J  We will then pray that we have good weather for the rest of our itinerating. Right now the plan is to return to Botswana about the end of April or very beginning of May, 2009. We would greatly appreciate your prayers for wisdom, direction, provision, and protection as we prepare for this time.

We had our annual Easter Conference for our branch churches.  It was beautiful!  On Good Friday, however, we were headed to the conference and our vehicle was over-heating. We knew we would not make it.  We called some friends to tell them what was going on with our vehicle.  Their reply was, “No problem.  Drive slowly heading back to Maun, and we will meet you with the combie (typically used as 15 passenger taxi) and we will take your vehicle back.  We were so grateful. Six minutes after we exchanged vehicles, we get a phone call telling us that our truck has been in an accident.  Long story short – on Good Friday at 9:00 in the morning, a DRUNK DRIVER hit our vehicle being driven by friends. Our friend said that had he not been in our vehicle, the other driver would have killed him. Thank God for good bull bars! J  So!  Once again – we are vehicle-less.  Our truck was totaled. But after quite some time of negotiating, we have talked them into repairing our vehicle.  Finding one that fits a family of six, and also gets Michael in and out of sandy places in the rural areas is really difficult.

We were extremely motivated to get an update out to you at this particular time because of something we are facing, but in particular, something that the founders of our mission, Pastor Jerry and Jana Lackey are facing.  Pastor Jerry has just been diagnosed with Stage 4 cancer in his throat.  He and Jana are returning to the USA tomorrow so that he can receive the care that he urgently needs for treatment – chemotherapy and radiation. As you can imagine – our mission and church were quite taken a back by the news – but our God is great.  Would you please pray for Jerry and Jana, and their four children as they walk through these next several months?  As you can imagine, there is a lot of uncertainty and new ground to cover during this time.  Jana had JUST returned to Botswana one week and a half ago, after being gone for 6 months to situate their older sons in University. So, all of us would greatly appreciate you praying.  Michael’s duties have changed quite a bit as out of necessity, he has taken back up the Outreach Season baton. By the time he gets home on the 11 June, we will have seen him 3 days in the last 3 ½ weeks.

Continue to stand with us. Please stay in touch. We love you all.  Blessings,

Michael, Heather, Beracah, Judah, Josiah and Charissma Walker

Mike and Heather Walker
Directors of Love Botswana Bible Institute
Love Botswana Outreach Mission