As promised, some monkey pictures…

Finally an update!

We have been in South Africa for almost two weeks now, the weather has been beautiful and it has been great to spend some time with the family here. We spent the first few days getting over jet-lag and getting used to the extreme weather change (It was snowing in Denver when we left, and it was very hot when we got off the airplane in JHB). The flight was uneventful, I took some footage of the trip, and I was intending to make a short video showing the trip from Denver to JHB, but I ended up using my IPOD (the camcorder is on my ipod) as a book light and I killed the battery. So I may put up some footage of Denver to Germany 🙂 Forgive the lack of communication, the internet the we have right now is very expensive and we only het on line for a few minutes a day. It will definitely get better once we get to Namibia.
The most difficult adjustment has been to the level of crime out here. We now have a system of keys and gates that we have to get used to, and one always has to be aware of what is going on around the house. Case and point, last night while we were sleeping some criminals bent the palisade fence and stole expensive car parts out of my parent’s yard. This is the eighth break in they have had. It has been a somewhat scary time as the country is going through an explosive racial turbulent time right now. Please pray for peace and safety in South Africa!
We have been able to get some preparation done for the school that we will be working with, including working on the CHE curriculum. This curriculum includes Bible, health, discipleship, development, and storytelling lessons.
We also made our first purchase for our new home out here, we bought an iron! There is so much to look forward to once we get to Namibia from finding and making a new home to discipling young Namibians. The future looks bright, thanks for all the prayers and support!

Made it

We made it to South Africa. Right now we don’t have the best internet connection so the blog posts may be short and far between for a few weeks. We are getting settled in and trying to get over the jet lag right now. It is great to be back home, the weather has been fantastic, and my parents are really happy to have us around for a few weeks. That’s it for now, hope you all are doing great!

Holiness.

This is one of my favorite song (if you are viewing this on facebook click here). It is about holiness. Tonight I have a question.
What do you think it means to be Holy?

What is holiness?

How do you try to be Holy in your life?

When I was child attending Sunday school and we used to sing songs containing words like “I lift my holy hands to you” I would throw my hands up without giving it a second thought. I think today it is more difficult for me to do that. I feel like it would almost be obscene for me to raise my hands and claim that they are HOLY. I know my heart and the attitudes behaviors that I deal with. One of my favorite “scenes” from the Bible is where God tell Moses to take his shoes off for he is standing on holy ground. That image gives me goosebumps. It reminds me that our God is Holy and that holiness is sacred. I also know from Hebrews that the blood of Christ is enough, that through Him we are made Holy. I am not sure that I have a point here, just that in listening to this song tonight I spent some time reflecting on holiness and what it means.
What are your thoughts?

5 days left….

Five days, yes only five days remain until we get on a plane and move back to the dark continent. So far as many things have gone wrong as have gone right. Our taxes are finally done (thank you Cindy Marvin!!), and we have hit our one time support goal. On the other side our application for a HI account in Colorado has been rejected, so as of right now we are unable to cash or deposit any checks that are made out to HI. So right now we are reapplying to the secretary of state, the application takes 7 to 10 days and then after that (if the application is approved) we should be able to receive our support. We also still are trying to sign up for health insurance, and that also is turning out to be more tricky than we originally thought it would be.

Please take a moment right now to pray for the situation with the bank account, and for all the rest of the things that we need to get done in the next few days.

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!

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.

 

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)