Although my name is Gothusamang Montshosi, I am better known as Mokgapudi which means “shepherd”. I live in the small village of Khekhenye which is in the southern part of the Central Kalahari Desert in the country of Botswana. Most of the people in this village is very poor because there are almost zero job opportunities.
I am in the early thirties and therefore consider myself to still be a young man. As a matter of fact I will be getting married on 26 November 2016. I am hoping to save enough money to buy my future wife a beautiful wedding gown and a wedding ring!
In my younger days I was an alcoholic. This landed me in all sorts of trouble. I got involved in fights, I would wake up in strange places not knowing how I got there. Eventually I was arrested and jailed for a year. I never saw my family during my time of incarceration. After being released from prison I returned home. Soon after that I fell very ill with Tuberculosis. In January 2010 a missionary group visited Khekhenye and they came to my house to pray for me because I was too weak to attend their sessions at the church ground. It was during this ministry that I gave my life to Jesus Christ. Soon thereafter God healed me completely and this enabled me to start attending church services on a regular basis. I really enjoyed church because I got to know Christ better on a personal level!
About six months after I had committed my life to Christ an American missionary came to live in the village for a period of time. He invited me to become part of his team mainly because I could speak a little bit of English. I remember so well that every time this man would read the Bible to me I had a revelation. In this way I got to learn the Word of God and to understand it better. Although it was very important to learn more and more of God through the Bible, I must admit that the Christ-like life that this missionary lived impressed me so much that I had this desire to be like him and to learn from him daily. For me he put Scriptures into practice – he “lived the Bible”.
Even today I am still trying to be like that man. I know that God had changed my life 180 degrees since I surrendered to Him. People who know the “old me” sometimes still struggle to understand how I could have changed to the person that they now see. It is then that I tell them that it is absolutely the work of Christ and that the same is on offer for them – all they need to do is to accept Christ as their saviour. I tell them about the apostle Paul – how God changed his life!
I am now striving to be a role model for others, like that American missionary has been for me, so that they can see a living example of the power, grace and mercy of our Lord. God is using me because the people in this village know who I was and also who I now am. I will continue to preach to them that God can bring about change that is impossible for man to do. I will continue to be a “Mokgapudi” (shepherd) to the people of this village for as long as God wants me here.
As Christians we should be living testimonies of the Word of God because we never know who is “reading” us.
Mokgapudi. (Khekhenye, Botswana)
If and when this Testimony has spoken into your heart, please go to the Commitment page.