“Shades of Gray”

The theme from this week’s project 52 is “Shades of Gray.” I am cheating this week and posting a picture I took last year, but it is one of my favorite pictures and it fits the theme! It is of some of the friends we have made here in Namibia. This picture was taken for their wedding invitation, they were married in December in the Congo. They are fun, hard working, and we are incredibly lucky to be friends with them!

One eleven eleven.

It is international “Thank you” day today! So David and I and our local baboon spokesman would like to take this day to say “THANK YOU!!!” to all our prayer partners, supporters, friends, and family around the world. You are our legs and arms, we would not be able to be here without you.

New Year!

We are back at school! Classes have not resumed yet, but we are back in teacher training and class preparation. Adam and I spent some time today in the second grade class. The desks and chairs are empty ready to be filled with smiling faces, the walls are bare ready to be filled with art projects, and we are ready and eager to teach!
I am absolutely excited about the upcoming year. I have so many ideas! In art class we are doing a school wide rendition of Starry Starry Night, in Geography we will have passports that we stamp as we adventure through the seven continents, and in Science class we will learn to make our own soap!
Keep your eyes on this space!!

We still feel our hearts being drawn to church planting and the desperately under evangelized North. It has been quite a journey to get here, and to get to what God has in store for us. We are still not sure what that is, maybe a church is Windhoek? The area in Katutura is sorely underchurched and the churches that are there are… different. We visited one that charged for baptism, and one that took up an offering from a grieving family during the funeral. There are broken hearts, lives, and people all around us.
Keep praying!

Also it has been raining each day for about three or maybe four weeks now. Our plants are thriving! The rain smells wonderful, the world around us is green, and at night we get to fall asleep to the sound or distant rolling thunder and the sound of raining sifting onto the roof. God is good!

Project 52

The 365 (taking a picture every day of the year) project is very popular. I have been thinking of jumping on that bandwagon, but I think I already post way too many pictures on here 🙂 I recently learned about Project 52, this is only taking one picture a week. If you are interested in joining click here. Every week a new theme will be posted. This week it is “around the house.”
Join the fun, and show off your photography skills!

Whoosh!

That is the sound of the December break flying by! My parents are on their way back to South Africa, and preparation for the new year is in full swing. Our staff and teachers are making their pilgrimage back to Namibia after spending time in countries throughout Africa.
We are looking forward to our first January at the school. David is working hard on streamlining the way the school runs, and preparing for the classes he will be teaching. I am working on my Art and Health classes. There is always something that needs to be done! Our one year mark in Namibia is quickly approaching.

In the last week it has been raining almost non-stop here. It is an absolute blessing! The landscape around us has been transformed, who knew Namibia could be lush? We pray that in the same way it has been raining here God will pour His blessings on you in this new year. May 2011 be a time of joy and refreshing for you! Please prey the same for each one of our ONE HUNDRED AND EIGHT students, especially pray for the 20 new students that will be joining CHS this year.

Voorspoedige Nuwe Jaar!

Summer.

Today it is over 100’F here. IT. IS. SO. HOT.
My parents have been enjoying the warm mornings, but after lunch time it is too hot to move. We are enjoying a relaxing break with them. On Saturday we will have Christmas dinner with the Wrights and the Hunters. We are bringing all the South African dishes, and they will prepare the American ones. We just made made some home made ice cream (without any kind of machine or device), check out the recipe here.
To all our family and friends in America we wish warmth and dry weather, to our family in friends rain and cool weather.
Hug a loved one!

Tomorrow…

…my parents will be here for a 3 week visit!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

A hat for your toothbrush.

We have been married for over seven years. When we met I was 18, David was 20. I was fresh out of high school, David was with Kyle on a two year mission trip to the North of Namibia. We grew close during our time in Namibia. We were engaged 12 months after meeting each other, and we were married 8 months after that. We have spent most of our time together since we became Mr. and Mrs. When were students at CCCB we had the exact same class schedule (except for one class), for four and a half years. We also worked at Wal*Mart, we had the same shift, and we took all of our breaks together. When we are at home we like to be in the same room. It is as if we have out own secret language, more inside jokes than most, we thinks alike, and if you were to play Taboo against us you would surely lose.

Yet, there is one thing that we completely disagree on. This difference has grown over the years. It is something that we will never be reconciled on.

The thing that we disagree on the most is the treatment of our toothbrushes.

David is strict about his toothbrush, and I am not at all. My toothbrush is usually tossed in the drawer after I brush my teeth. When we travel I just throw it in my bag, on in my toiletry bag. Whatever. David’s toothbrush on the other hand, has a hat. When we travel his toothbrush is put in its own ziplock bag, with the hat on. He is very careful about his toothbrush touching anything else. I once used his toothbrush by accident, he threw it away.
Now I realize that my toothbrush habits are probably disgusting, but the toothbrush hat is hilarious to me!

I am blessed to have such a great man in my life, and as I look back to that day that we first met it is so obvious that God handpicked us for each other, toothbrush hat and all.

Thoughts.

Sometimes the beauty I see in Namibia takes my breath away. There is the natural beauty of the stark landscape here. The animals that have such a wild beauty that people come from all over the world to see them. The beauty in our kids, some of them are as wild as the animals here, but people don’t come from all over to see them.
Sometimes I am takes aback by the raw pain I see here. I met a lady who prostitutes herself so she can buy formula for her baby. She is hard and broken. I cried when we left, her eyes were vacant. I don’t think she has cried in a long time. There are days when the task really seems insurmountable. I was sitting with the 5th grade girls recently, as we sat and talked I looked around the room and thought of each girl’s story. One of them lost both her parents to AIDS, she now lives with her older brother, another lives with her alcoholic mother who has no interest in her, they live at the doorstep of a bar. Still another lives with her very old grandmother, her mom did not want her. One now stays with her aunt, her mom passed away recently, she still cries and talks about how she misses her mother. One of the hardest things here is to realize that not many of these kids has anyone to hold them when they cry.
Yet, tonight as the sun set I experienced one of the most beautiful sights. In all this pain and misery there is still beauty. God is still God. It seems to be a recurring lesson for me here in Namibia. I am constantly being reminded of the sovereignty and goodness of our heavenly Father.
I snapped this shot of the clouds behind the barbed wire, it illustrates how I am feeling right now.