Lovina Botone is a first-generation college student who is passionate about what God is doing around the world through missions. She is a GeoLeader on the SEU Missions team, the lead resident assistant for the Buena Vida East dorms and the leader for a first-year experience small group on campus. She also volunteers with Love LKLD, an SEU Missions local outreach initiative, and her church’s Sunday school.
Lovina remembers growing up with a heart for the world. Her curiosity and passion for other nations first began in fourth grade. At the time, her close childhood friend was from India, and she wanted to know everything about Indian culture. This sparked her love for Asia, and ultimately, the world beyond her own viewpoint.
When she was 15, her church announced a mission trip to Thailand. Participants had to be 16 to participate, but Lovina’s mother, the church’s missions director at the time, knew her daughter felt called to Asia.
“The nudge of the Holy Spirit was working through my mom,” recounts Lovina, “because she said, ‘You have to go on this trip.’”
During the trip, the group worked at a children’s home and the experience helped Lovina to realize that she wanted to work with children.
“My calling to full-time missions started in Thailand and was solidified during future trips,” she said.
Finding Home at SEU
After high school, Lovina wasoffered a job as a nanny and had planned to study at a local SEU partner site. However, her mentor, whose daughter had met her husband at SEU, encouraged Lovina to tour the university’s main campus because he believed it had the community she was seeking. She toured SEU in March of her senior year of high school and was greeted at a preview chapel by a long line of welcoming students.
“I just felt at home, and I felt loved and seen. I sat in the chapel service filled with emotion and just knew in my heart that this was where I wanted to go,” she recalled.
Lovina decided to pursue a degree in early childhood education with the goal of ministering to unreached children as a teacher in closed countries.
Leading with Purpose
Just like in Thailand, God continued to give Lovina direction for the future through the various missions trips she participated in as a student at SEU. Her first trip with SEU Missions was to Alaska during her freshman year. The group worked with a youth camp doing sports ministry.
“Alaska is beautiful but spiritually dark because of the weather’s effect on depression,” she said. “We were able to minister to kids and youth, and that opened the doorway to my missions career at SEU.”
In the summer, she then applied to be a GeoLeader and was asked to lead two trips for the following year. A GeoLeader is an SEU student who spends an academic year leading an SEU Missions team, assisting with logistics and finances, and pastoring their fellow students as they serve domestically or globally.
In her sophomore year, she led trips to both Zambia and Guatemala as a part of SEU’s First Year Experience program. She guided and accompanied 16 freshmen to Guatemala, where they worked with an organization called One More Child to serve 300 children through VBS sessions, sports and crafts.
In Zambia, she and her team partnered with Overland Missions for a 21-day expedition to an unreached Zambian tribe. It took a total of 68 hours of travel to reach them, and a missionary family had yet to be assigned to their area. After taking a plane, a bus, and a taxi to Zambia, the team spent six hours in a truck from the missionary base to the village, then walked an additional hour to the unreached tribe.
Lovina joined another student, a missionary pastor, an Overland missions translator and a Zambian native in knocking on the first door of the village to share the good news of Jesus. The family in the house had never heard the name of Jesus. These villagers were interested, and wanted to hear more, so they followed Lovina and her team, spreading the news of the team’s arrival to the rest of the tribe.
When the tribe was ready, Lovina ’s team met with them under the shade of a large tree in a village clearing. “They laid out reed mats to sit on, which are usually provided to visitors. We were given wooden stools, which signified that they saw us in a position of authority, which meant that they were going to listen to us,” she said. “They waited eagerly to hear from us and we started the conversation once they were all there.”
With the translator’s help, Lovina told all 25 tribe members the story of Jesus and asked if they wanted to receive the free gift of salvation. Every member of the tribe raised their hand. An Overland missionary family has continued to disciple the members of the tribe.
Confirmation
Lovina also led a month-long trip to Morocco the following summer, where she taught at an elementary school run by a missionary family.
“Morocco was confirmation that shackled all the doubts and opened my eyes to the fact that this was God’s calling for me: to overseas missionary work through the education system,” she said.
Lovina led trips this summer to Uganda and Morocco. She was highly anticipating working with SEU’s extension site at Watoto in Uganda. “We worked with orphans who’ve been abandoned and rejected. We can live our lives feeling the same way but it doesn’t compare to their experience. I loved having a new perspective by seeing their joy of the Lord and innocent, childlike faith.”
Upon returning to Morocco, she worked with the same missionary family as the first trip. “I was most excited to see the hope continued in the elementary school and to minister to Muslims again. Overseas missionaries have told me that it takes up to 26 different encounters with different missionaries for Muslims to convert to Christianity. They have a genuine devotion to their religion so I am continuing to pray for miraculous revelations for them,” she said.
Lovina wants to continue working with SEU Missions and Overland Missions in the future and hopes to teach overseas during her senior year. After graduation, she plans to teach in Lakeland at a Christian school.
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