Fievel goes west.

Today during my bedresting I noticed movement out of the corner of my eye. I looked up and guess what I saw?! A field mouse sitting in my sock drawer watching me. Just sitting there. Without a care in the world. I stayed on the bed. There was no way I was going to lumber/waddle over to it and chase it around the room. It’s way too hot here for that. David came home about 15 minutes later, the whole time the mouse just sat there hanging out. So anyway he caught the mouse with an empty ice cream dish. And tomorrow we will go set it free near someone else’s underwear drawer!

Cross Cultural Guesstures :)

Today David played Guesstures in his Discipleship class. It was pretty funny, but also very interesting. It is amazing to see how the kids act out the words on the cards. At first I thought is was going to be a disaster when I saw how the kids were acting out the words. It seemed like “physical gibberish” to me, but the kids were getting it!
It was interesting to see the Namibian culture come through so strong on such a simple game. To my eyes “cat” looked like a dying chicken, “eating” looked like rapid face punching, “monkey” looked like a chicken dance, but “pound” was one of my favorites. The kid acting out “pound” was acting like he was pounding maize with a wooden maize pounder Of course here pound does not mean weight but making dinner. I would have failed if I was trying to mime pound.
David and I did each take a turn. It was not pretty. I mimed “mail box” but the kids stared at me with confused faces. Afterwards I realized it is because they don’t have mail service here, only PO boxes. I bet most of our kids have never even seen a mail box, or received a letter. And I know that they have never sent a letter. It seemed to take the kids much longer to guess words we were miming, if at all.

I learned today how important it is to understand a culture to properly communicate a message. I was not able to communicate mailbox as it is not part of the kids lives. In the same way we are here to communicate the love of a heavenly Father to people who have mostly not even known they fathers, and most of them who have know fathers know them as violent drunks.

I think I am shown to that God’s plan is perfect. If we came blazing into Namibia ready to plant churches without knowing the basic culture of people who live here we would have failed! So even if some days we feel frustrated by not being in a place of planting churches yet, we are in a season of preparation right now. And it is probably some of the most important preparation we will ever have. Please pray for us this week, to learn all we need to in this time, and grow where we need to!

Ummm, WHAT???

We live close to a store, about two blocks close. We walked there today. We saw this:

 

Found on my SD card.

My SD card is full again, so I was going through the pictures and found some interesting ones from the last few  months. So how about another picture journey, it’s been a while!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Come to Namibia!

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!

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.

Dolf meets Hermanetta…