Update on Yoda…

We sold Yoda. We no longer own that sturdy little green car.
We put 100 000 miles on it.
We ate over 1000 meals in it.
We spent many hours studying for tests and quizzes in it.
Yoda was a place to go if you needed a minute to be quiet.
Many important conversations were held and decisions made in that little green car.
And for some reason Mr. Stevens liked to ride in the back of Yoda.
Today everything we own fits in a suitcase, and we don’t need a key for anything 🙂
Namibia, here we come!

To be commissioned…

On Tuesday night we were commissioned by the elders of our church, at Pikes Peak Christian Church. There are so many things I want to say about this night, about what it meant to us, but I am afraid that I will not be able to put into words the support and love that we felt. So for now I want to post this picture, I think it captures beautifully what the night was to us. Thanks for all the prayers and support!

Rocky Mountain High…

On Wednesda,y after a tearful farewell from our friends in Moberly, we set off for Colorado Springs. We were able to fit everything we own in (or on) our car, David even had the space around me packed pretty tightly! The trip from our house to home of the Echols is 800 miles and takes us exactly 12 hours. Thirty minutes into the trip we were pulled over for a non working tail light, so after that was fixed we set off for the Springs. The weather was beautiful and Kansas was as exciting boring as ever. When we crossed the Kansas Colorado border “Rocky Mountain High” started playing on the radio 🙂
For the next few weeks we will be attending many church activities at Pikes Peak Christian Church, our sending Church, in an effort to get to know the average church member better. We will also got to the other side of the mountains to visit with David’s great grandmother.
The next 25 days should be sad, fun, exciting, exhausting, and so many other things as our time in the United States comes to an end.

 

Some pictures of Namibia.

I am really busy this week, and I don’t have time for a proper blog entry so here are some pictures to keep you going!

Overwhelmed…

Please take a moment to pray for us tonight. We are feeling somewhat overwhelmed by everything that needs to be done before we leave on TUESDAY!!! Agh!
Also, I cried for a long time tonight, it is really difficult to say goodbye to all the friends that we have made here in MO. I always cry with goodbyes. I can’t believe how fast this year is going! Thanks for the prayers!

Namibia, part one.

I thought it would be fun to do some information posts on the country of Namibia. This first post will focus on the geography, and people of the country. Namibia is a small country (just over half the size of Alaska) in the South Western part of Africa. It is bordered by Angola, Botswana, South Africa, Zambia, and the Atlantic Ocean. Namibia has a mostly dry climate with the Namib Desert along the coast and the Kalahari Desert along the Eastern border. In fact Namibia is so dry that it has less than one percent arable land. Natural resources found in Namibia include diamonds, gold and uranium.
Estimates for the population of Namibia range from 2000000 to 3000000 people. The estimate for Namibia has to take Aids into account, Aids causes high mortality rates and low life expectancy (the life expectancy is only 50 years). Fifteen percent of Namibians are HIV positive. The average Namibian is 20 years of age, and 40% of them live in the city of Windhoek (where we will be living for the first two years). Also half of Namibians live on two dollars a day. Namibia has over 30 distinct people groups,each with their own language and culture.
Take some time today to pray for the people of Namibia.

New Look…

I think all this packing and getting ready to move has made me want to change other things too, such as the look of this blog. I found this layout after looking for a while, I had to figure out what an HTML code is, and how to edit it without tearing a hole in the space time continuum. I think I figured it out. I love the picture of the road in the header of this layout, it symbolized life perfectly I think. I will probably try to tweak it some more in the coming days (to widen it) but for tonight, and for the sake of the space time continuum, I will leave it as it is for now. Let me know what you think of the new look.
(if you are viewing this on FB click here)

Wordless Wednesday

Community Hope School.

Community Hope School is a primary school for orphans and other vulnerable children in Namibia. It was started in 2005, by John and Suzanne Hunter, missionaries to Namibia. The school exists to fulfill the spiritual, academic, and physical needs of the children. When the school opens in May it will have 90 students. We originally contacted John and Suzanne about helping us obtain our visas for Namibia, little did we know the plan that God had in store for us.

Let me back up for a minute and tell you more about how we decided to go to Namibia int he first place. David and I met in Namibia in 2002. He was out there on a 2 year church planting mission trip and had decided to attend a YWAM missions school, I was fresh out of high school attending the same school. We became best friends and the school, and were married a year after the school ended. From the start of our relationship we knew that we would be involved in ministry in some capacity. We then moved to the States to attend a Christian college, as David had promised his church he would.
At Central Christian College of the Bible we committed our lives to full time church planting missionary work in Africa. It took us several years to decide to return to Namibia specifically. We wanted to be sure that it was Go leading us back to Namibia, and that we were not just picking it because we had been there before. We even spent over 3 months in Tanzania, looking for and praying for a place to serve full time. Our heart kept being drawn back to Namibia, even when we were in Tanzania. David and I spent a whole year (without mentioning it to one another) praying for the decision to move to Namibia, and praying that God would draw the other person’s heart to Namibia. It was kind of funny when we finally spoke to each other about it, we had been praying for the same thing!
So at that point we knew that we wanted to Go to Namibia as missionaries, we wanted to use CHE as a ministry strategy, and we hoped to plant Christian churches there. The problem with Namibia is that it is very difficult to obtain any kind of long term visa, that is where the Hunters come in. We contacted them hoping they could assist us in getting a work visa for Namibia. After some discussion we agreed to partner together for two years. We will be developing and running an after school program for the kids, this is exciting as one of CHE’s methods is to begin by having a “health screening” at a school.
At first it seemed like working at the school would not be exactly what we had had in mind the last six years while preparing for missions work, but I was unprepared for the passion that has grown in my heart since agreeing to this partnership. I find myself daydreaming about the things that we will be doing with the kids, and I have a longing in my heart to reach out and love them. I am growing inpatient, I can’t wait to get there!!
If you have read this far thanks, and forgive my rambling on about this. Remember to pray for us, and pray for CHS. Their website is here, take a moment to check it out!

Community Health Evangelism/Education

Today we finished our CHE training, and we are finally certified community developing educators. CHE is a holistic missions strategy that focuses on the physical, economic, social, and spiritual health of a community. The end goal is to get the community to the life that God intends for them, in all aspects of life. One of the key concepts is based on the Kingdom of God, in Matt 13:31-33 the kingdom is likened to  yeast. Yeast that permeates the whole piece of dough, changing it completely. When we bring the Gospel to a new community it should change all of it for the better, not just the spiritual aspect.
CHE is based on six principals. The integration of physical and spiritual, multiplication (in more than one community), local ownership, teaching methodology, prevention (development instead of relief), and the use of local resources.
Before going through this training we knew that CHE would be helpful in Namibia, now we know that it is perfect and we are even more excited to go! Only 51 days left. Please keep us in your prayers as we try to raise the last $350 we need, and keep your eyes on this space exciting things are happening!