One Thousand Gifts.

On my way to listing a thousand gifts that God has given me.

1. Grace
2. Sunny days, and thunder storms.
3. The love of my handsome husband.
4. Every single one of my grade 2 kids.
5. A romantic Valentine’s day dinner.
6. My new running shoes!

Home visits…

Bear with me as I write down some things that I have seen in the last few weeks.
In the last week and a half we have visited with several families. As mentioned in my previous post, right now we are visiting the families of the children to bring their paper work up to date. At first we did not know how the families would react to us, but the paper work has given us a nice excuse to be invited into their homes. Most of the families have been welcoming and open about their situations.
The children who attend CHS come from various home situations. Some of them live with both parents, some of them with only one parent, and some with a different relative. Some live in brick homes with windows, beds and doors, others live in tin shacks with little or no necessities. All of the homes we have visited so far have a limited number of beds and many people living in the house. So I think that there are people who sleep with at least five other people on the bed, but I suspect that most of the children probably sleep on the floor.
Most of the homes that we have visited so far are the homes of children who live with their grandmothers. The grandmothers of this township are the true mothers of Katatura. When a mother dies, it is common for a child to go and live with their grandmother, and sometimes the parents abandon their children and they end up living with their grandmothers. I have met women who are in their late eighties, they are blind from diabetes, their backs are bent over from years of work, and their limbs complain with pain whenever they move, but they have several grandchildren to take care of. One lady has 4 grandchildren, and two children living with her, the only money she makes is from her tiny pension and a token amount from the government for orphans. She lives on less than $150 a month.
Some children go home to filthy shacks, and drunk parents. Some go home to a mother who is laying in bed sick with HIV. Many do not eat at all when they are at home, as any  money that comes in is spent on alcohol.
The more time we spend in the community, the more we realize how important Community Hope School is. Even though the children from Katutura have so many different home situations, they do have one thing in common, they all go home to homes where there is no hope, and CHS exists to change that. Please continue to pray for us, and to pray for the 88 students of Community Hope School.

Katatura…

Katatura literally means “the place we do not want to live.” It is the place where Community Hope School is located, and it is the place where we are doing most of our work. This is the week when we can finally start the schedule and ministry that we have signed up for. In the last few weeks we have been moving into our home and getting settled, we spent about ten days helping with a short term team that was visiting, and we have been working on some administrative things for the school. But this week we will finally begin our community survey. The first part of our survey is going to be a general information gathering for the school. We will be attempting to visit all the homes of children in the school. This way we will update the school’s records and the community will get to know our faces. Then in a month or so we will begin with a survey based on the book Agents of Transformation, this survey involves asking specific questions of the community in order to get a picture of what the community believes. We believe that in order to have a successful new church plant we have to first get to know the community and find people within the community who can be the driving force, or champions of the new church. This survey will take several months. Please keep us in your prayers, and be asking God for divine appointments with the people in the community that we will be meeting. It truly is an exciting day.

We also teach three classes in school. I teach a health class (based on some CHE materials and principles), David teaches a discipleship class (we will on occasion be splitting the class between boys and girls to talk about certain topics in discipleship), and we both teach two PE classes. We are using all these classes to teach the kids spiritual principles. I also am very excited about a dance class that I will be teaching soon.
In the future we hope to have night classes for some of the parents/guardians of the students, so that we can increase the impact that the school is having in the community.

The school itself is a place of light in the community of Katatura. The kids love the school, and the teachers and other staff really pour their hearts into the children.
Please keep us in your prayers!

Darkest day of the year :)

Here we are! Yesterday was the 21st of June, officially the shortest, and darkest day of the year here. It was a pretty dark day for us, as we experienced our first Namibian mugging. We were sitting in the car with Suzanne in the front seat, John had jumped out to pick up some last minute things to take to America (we were dropping them off at the airport.) David and I were in the back seats, the car was parked on the main street in town, the busiest place and one of the safest places in town, and it was about 9:30 am. All of a sudden my door opened and a man was standing there with his ha tin his hands, he put his hat in front of me and asked for two Namibian dollars, but before I could say anything another man opened Suzanne’s door then two more joined them and all four of them tried to get into the car. It was terrifying to be stuck there with four grown men trying to push their way into your car. They had their hands in my pockets and then two of them started grabbing at my neck, punching me in the face in the process. Afterward I realized they were probably trying to grab my necklace. At this point David had been leaning over me to try and fight them off, and he punched one in the face to try and get his hands off me. Then a fifth man opened the opposite front door of the car and took Suzanne’s purse, they all saw that and took off. David and Suzanne jumped out of the car, Suzanne with her cane as her knee is all messed up, she only sent a few steps. We thought that her passport was in her purse so David kept running after them, that was terrifying for me too as I could not see where he ran off to. He returned after a few  minutes, the men had dispersed into the crowd and disappeared. Luckily all they got was her writing pad, some pens, her make-up, and some jewelry (so unless they are a group of cross dressing book keepers the mission was a fail for them). The worst part is that there were hundreds of people standing around but no one helped us, everyone (including police officers) just stood there watching. Ridiculous.

We are all ok, my neck is stiff from tensing up, and when I close my eyes I can still feel their hands on me. Now we know to keep our car doors locked at all times and we are buying some pepper spray today. Please keep praying for us as we are working and living in this city!

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!

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!

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!

Ramblings at 3 am…

I am awake at 3 am, I can’t seem to get to sleep tonight. My mind is running with all the things that need to happen before we leave. My mind is filled with thing, places, and mostly people that we will miss when we move. My mind is restless with so many thoughts about mankind and this planet that we call home. Sometimes it is truly overwhelming to think about all the hardships and heartaches that is endured on this tiny blue rock. Like a celestial ball of pain drifting in space. It is at such times that I understand why some people choose Deism, the thought that God created this planet and then left it to fend for itself seems to make sense in the face of the pain that man endures.

Yet, as these thought fill my mind, I am reminded of the message that we heard today. The message was about Jonah, the prophet who tried to run from God. The one thing that stood out to me over and over is that God is relentless. He is relentless in saving man. Throughout the whole book I kept thinking that God should just smite Jonah already and pick someone a little more obedient, but, thankfully God does not give up on Jonah. In this book God does not only go to great lengths save all the inhabitants of Nineveh, but He takes a personal interest in Jonah. God the creator of all things, greater, better, and more terrible that anything in the universe stoops down and takes a very personal interest in the life of one man. The preacher pointed out that the revival in Nineveh is the largest one recorded in scripture, with over a million turning to God. This is impressive, but at times when I feel small and insignificant like a worm, as the Psalmist put it, I am comforted by the Great God who took interest in little Jonah. He took enough interest in Jonah’s life that a whole nation was saved.

When you are trodden down and crushed, remember that God is God, He is there, He cares.

You are not alone.

62, 2, 350, 1

Sixty two is the number of days we have left in the USA. The one way tickets we bought are sitting quietly in my email inbox, waiting to change our lives forever. In these sixty two days that we have left we will be travelling, packing, meeting, eating (African pizza is just not the same), preparing, and praying. Pray with us as we count down to departure day.