Namibia Journal - December 10th
December 10th 2005Today was a wonderful day. God worked miracles today. We began our day late, recovering from the sun and travel back from Swakopmund. While no one else was here, still half being stranded in Swakop with the broken down Bakkie, we went anyway to Victory Camp by ourselves. I was only really motivated to go because of the guy Theophilus that Vincent and I talked to last week. We did promise to bring him a Bible, and I thought I might as well actually show up even though I didn't want to bother Vincent or anyone else about going out there.
Erin and I walked there for the first time and it was a nice walk. I wore my off-the-street-vendor Okahandja yellow plastic sandals. They're comfortable but a little prone to letting sharp thorns stick all the way through them into my feet. I didn't like that but it didn't slow us down too much. We didn't take any water or fruit or anything which is the usual course on Victory Camp Saturdays. We just had a Bible for Theophilus and our own Bibles, of course, to do some reading and praying there if we felt like it.
Well, Theophilus wasn't there. We were greeted instead by one of the usuals who Hein has been building a relationship with named “Christiaan.” (This is a different Christiaan than the one Mike and Josh and I are meeting with on Wednesday nights.) This Christiaan lives in the dump, Victory Camp, and seems to be a nice guy. He is easy to talk to when he hasn't been drinking, even though his English is very broken. Christiaan was talking with us kind of randomly when another guy we hadn't seen before, in a blue tshirt and a hardhat started waving us over to where he was sitting.
Not thinking we should be interested in random conversations that day, I wasn't very quick to move over to where he was. He got excited. He came over to us and introduced himself, “Heinrich.” He is a tall Herero Namibian. His English was not great, but much better than Christiaan's. He said he was there to buy planks of wood to make his house better. He said he would pay the residents $3 for the wood so they would have some money; because they were 'suffering.' We did not yet fully understand the extent of Heinrich's living conditions but knew immediately that we should be impressed (by God). He invited us over to the group he was with. He was very excited that we came with the Bible. He introduced us to “Nowa”(?) who supposedly is the 'chief' of Victory Camp. (Hein doesn't know him so who knows.) And there was another guy who stays there sitting down and a another guy who was just visiting from Nau-Aib sitting there.
Heinrich and the group asked us questions about what we were doing there, the 'big yellow building' (the Multi-Purpose Ministry Center) and if we'd be starting a church. They said they would come. I was sorry to disappoint them and tell them that we wouldn't be starting a church there, but that we did want to start churches. “These churches,” I said, “would not be about money. They wouldn't take your money from you. They wouldn't need to build big buildings. They would meet anywhere at any time, and we wouldn't worry about getting lots of people to come.” I told them we just wanted to start little churches that met for the purposes of worshiping God, reading and learning the Bible, helping one another to live better lives, and to love one another. The sound of this simple idea seemed to excite them, especially Heinrich.
And even though I talked about the 'church', the words they keyed in on were “Bible study.” I think the word “church” did not compute with what I was saying about it. Meet anywhere? Any day of the week? No money collections? Sure... how about that Bible study? They seemed interested in us and that we had come from America to teach them and love them, because we loved God and because He sent us here with love in our hearts for them. Heinrich, translating, got them to give us a time when we could come back for our first Bible study. “Tomorrow,” Christiaan said, “8:00.” “Okay,” I replied, even though that sounded way early. Even for missionaries. I mean, at Apex, Erin and I were 11 o'clock'ers who would have gone even later if it was available. It's not that we're lazy. We just like to get up and to read and to spend time with the Lord and each other before doing other things. We don't like to necessarily get up and get going out of the house at that time. No matter. We're missionaries! We would be there at 8am or shortly thereafter. The best part, I think, is what happened next.
After getting their time nailed down for them, Heinrich turned to us and said, “And now, at my house, you will come and have Bible study.” Surprised, what else could we say but yes? In fact, with less than a few seconds to process, our hearts were beating with excitement. Yes, it was exciting to have something arranged for the Victory Camp also, but something was different with the look in Heinrich's eyes, the reason he was out there, and his insistence that we come to his house 'now'. I do not think he would have taken no for an answer without being very disappointed. I carried some of the wood he had bought even though he could have carried it all on his own with his strong arms and headed in the direction toward Sam Stand.
We talked along the way and found out more about the area we'll be living in, Nau-Aib. The part of Nau-Aib he lives in is one of two “chateaus.” I know this is not the correct spelling but it sounds like they are called “Chateau number 1” and “Chateau number 2”. What I'm saying sounds like “chateau” is actually 1 or 2 Herero words that mean “stand together” just like “Sam Stand” except that “Sam Stand” is Oshiwambo for “stand together.” Like Sam Stand, the chateaus are made up entirely of shacks and shantys made out of tin and spare wood. No running water. No electricity. No refrigerator. No bath. No toilet.
Heinrich kept talking about his wife and by asking questions we found out that she has 5 kids; 14, 11, 8, 5, and 2. Heinrich is 31 now and she is 32. He said, very clearly, that they wanted to know the way of Jesus, that they believed it was the best way, and it was the only way they wanted to live their lives. We asked if they were “born again.” Heinrich said, “No,” but Erin and I know that depending on who has taught them what they have learned so far, and how the people around them are defining the terms, they might not know what it truly means. “Even though we have no jobs, we have food to eat every day that we know comes from God,” he said.
Eventually we reached the house of Heinrich in Chateau number 2. It was a very small metal house painted olive green. Even calling to his wife from the front of the yard, they were very excited. “The Americans who have been walking around our streets have come to teach us the Bible.” They pulled inside two of their best seats from the backyard. The one I sat on was a little nylon stretched over a tripod, like a camping stool. Erin's was a metal frame of a chair from a school with no seat but another piece of plastic secured in the middle to sit on. They covered it with a thin sheet of fabric before she sat down. The floor was partly covered with a plastic sheet that had a mezzanine-tile design on it and the rest was dirt. Most of the room was taken up by a large bed (two mattresses stacked on top of each other), and the rest were some simple cabinets where they kept a store of simple household items, snacks, and sweets to sell. That's how they made their money we found out, by selling little things to other people in the neighborhood for a small profit.
I don't even know where to begin with what happened next. The physical details about the surroundings and how we got there are easy to explain. What the Lord did in the hour or so that followed was incredible, and harder to explain. Heinrich's wife's name is Mouna and her English is superb. Also with them was a friend named Lucia who they call Kuna. One of Kuna's children was over playing with Heinrich's 5 year old and she was very pregnant with her second child. Mouna explained that Kuna didn't have a family, and so she was often at their home and did everything with them.
How can I take enough time and words to explain the joy and awe and wonder they had. Erin was saying it like this, “They were looking at us and thinking we were miracles from God. All the while we were looking at them and thinking they are the miracle.” We said we would like to have a Bible study with them and to even teach them the entire Bible verse by verse. We started off our time in reverent prayer.
Mouna deeply wanted to know about tithing, and the differences between the Old Testament and the New. “Are the Old and New Testaments the same?” she asked. “Well, no,” what else could I say, “they are not the same. They have different words and talk about different things.” “Well,” she said, “the Old Testament says we should give so much of our money to the church, and they tell us that at the church, but shouldn't it be different now?” Ah, then I understood what she was asking. I cannot repeat the entire conversation in dialogue form but what followed Erin described was like shackles of condemnation falling off of them and scales coming off of their eyes. I was just focusing on the Lord's leading as I walked through several passages as slowly and as clearly as I could.
On some tougher words, Mouna would stop and translate for Heinrich. Otherwise it seemed to be totally clear just the way the Lord was helping me rephrase the words I was reading. I took them to parts of Hebrews 8, 9, and 10. I explained to them basically as well as I could what Pastor Rob taught at Apex in late 2003 about giving. It was sad to hear about the guilt and condemnation Mouna felt not being able to give to the church where they were teaching her and Heinrich about the God they loved. In their words, they just wanted to know the way of Jesus, and never go back to the way they were before.
They said they had been attending the church they were at now for about 9 months. She said they would be happy to give, for the sake of the upkeep of the building, and for instruments, or whatever, but she couldn't understand why they were basically forcing people to give, and telling them it was a law from God that they give. Should she be taking ten cents out of every dollar she made at her shop? The locals, she told us, called her shop the “One Dollar Shop” but her name for it was “The Alpha and Omega shop” because it only began and only ended with Jesus. He was the reason behind it and for it. We were blown away. Amazed at what God had done in preparing these two. Automatically both of our minds were accelerating into thoughts of house churches, marriage groups, and long-term 2on2 discipleship.
Heinrich, we found out, was gathering wood not to improve the house per se but to build a roof for a kindergarten in the back. In Namibia, kindergarten is not required by the government and not provided by any of the schools. Like preschools in America, there are many independent kindergartens in Namibia where parents who can afford it like to send their children. Apparently Mouna has already been to a lot of training and has a Bible-based curriculum to teach. I'm not sure why, maybe it's the municipality, but she said they need a floor area and a roof overhead in order to start the Kindergarten in January. She is going to a final training in January, the 4th-6th and will then be eligible for donations to start the school by buying books and materials. I immediately thought of my mom who, in the same situation, would be living her dream by starting a school like that. She already does run a preschool in America and has a great time at it, as it is her ministry from God, but there are a lot of bothersome regulations and hoops to jump through (for good reasons some of the time) in America that make it difficult. I told Heinrich, with a smile, that I would like to help him build the preschool, and told Mouna that we would pray for that. But that was not her prayer request.
When we ended our time, we took prayer requests from each of them. Kuna asked for prayer that she would understand God's Word and live His way. Heinrich and Mouna both asked for prayer that they would keep going Jesus' way and not fall back. We could tell that the past was a painful memory to both of them. They did not want to live the way they were before. What was this but the working of God powerfully in their lives?
We also talked with Heinrich and Mouna about marriage. The fact of the matter is, they are not married. They are, rather, as married as they can be given their situation as far as we understand it. They cannot afford to have a wedding. They said they are ready to get married and have been for a long time but are still saving up the money. This is where it is kind of tricky, especially when writing about it. We did not compromise, but it was our heart from God to be as encouraging as possible. The legalism of some of the churches here says that even if you are just dating someone, having a boyfriend or a girlfriend, then you are not welcome in the church, that it is not acceptable to them. Many people they know said they want to seek God and know His Word but have been kept out of the church by this legalism. Heinrich and Mouna keep going anyway they said, bearing the shame and the guilt.
To encourage and exhort them, I had them open up their Bibles--an Afrikaans translation they owned and the English one we were bringing to Theophilus--to Genesis 2:24, the foundational scripture for marriage in the Bible. It says, “Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.” With conviction and seriousness, I spoke about what it meant to “hold fast” to each other, to be stuck together—to be two people joined together and with no one else but God. The two people are supposed to be stuck together so much I said that to be taken apart would be to be destroyed. Then with tenderness and passion, I spoke about what it meant to “become one flesh,” that Erin and I share all of our thoughts (to be of one mind), we share our feelings and emotions (to be of one heart), and that we work together, coming alongside one another (to be one body), etc. We talked about the significance of declaring your marriage vows publicly, that by no means were Erin and I considered married in America before we had our big wedding. They had already mentioned rings being something they needed and we told them how it was indeed significant to have a way to tell the world of your commitment. We also talked about the importance of the wife changing her name. That is one other obvious thing they lack. We talked about it ands found out that culturally the name changing is the same for them as it is for us in America. Erin and I both hurt for them in a personal way. With the priesthood of all believers in effect I could have married them right there. But we know it is a significant and important thing that they pursue the wedding according to their tradition and make a statement for all to see. I haven't written about it yet but it's a sad fact that weddings are largely considered too inconvenient and too irrelevant for a lot of the population here, especially the very poor. At the same time while we were laying that out, we very positively encouraged them in their faithfulness to each other and commitment to Jesus' way.
I say this with as much confidence as I can right now. We will be spending a lot more time with Heinrich and Mouna. This is what happened after that. They want us to come back tomorrow. They suggested 2pm. I said how about 4? Either time was fine they said, and they were going to invite all of their neighbors, friends, and family, telling them that the Americans they have seen were in their house teaching them about the Bible. I told them I was scared! Nervous and intimidated. It was true, but only in a brief human sense. I wanted to reinforce the fact that we aren't going after big crowds. Erin wasn't scared at all. And we developed a plan for what to tell them as soon as it gets too big (probably tomorrow). We will tell them that we will have to meet again in another person's house on another day and they will have to split up. Our long-term plan is to stay with these new house churches (we hope) just as long as it takes for them to function without us and leave. It might take a year or more, but we will do what it takes. And whether we start with just this one, or God gives us more before then, He will be king, and to Him will go all of the glory. Hallelujah to the Lord our God. He has worked around us a miracle today that we could not imagine. It was absolutely nothing at all that we did. We do not even want to take 'walking to Victory Camp in the middle of the day' or anything else and turn it into a formula. God alone is the one. He alone does these things.
We left and walked toward Josh & Mike's house, thinking we'd refill our water bottle there after sharing it at Heinrich's house. (Heinrich and Mouna have to prepay for their water which comes out of a machine in the street outside their house. Their bathroom is a 5 minute walk to the bushes down the block and around the corner.) Josh wasn't there but the friendly neighbor lady with the green grass gave us cool water to drink. We walked back to the Center and crashed for the next four hours. We had been out walking and having the Bible study for about 4 hours and the tiredness from the week before was taking its final toll on us.
But that wasn't the end of the day.
Marcus, the CHI employee from Angola, is still here and still struggling. If he gets the money he has been promised by some, he will be able to leave for Angola on a bus on Monday. He is struggling with purpose, fulfillment, and even his faith. He has little to no assurance that He is truly believing in God for salvation. When I talked with him a couple weeks ago, he was struggling with whether or not he was believing properly, or enough, or willing hard enough, having enough faith, to be saved. What else is there to talk about in response to that but grace? “Praise God,” I said, “that we are not saved by faith.” “No?” he replied. I know it's a puzzling statement to many, especially someone trained in seminary that faith is the pinnacle of the Christian life. “No,” I said, “we are saved by grace.” “But what about what we do?” he said, “Isn't there some reward, or isn't there a requirement for the reward.” This was before the part I quoted in the other entry about when we talked last (on November 29th).
He said, “Think about this. I know it's simple, but imagine parents with two children. The parents give the children many rules to live by. Won't the parents wait and see which one obeys before giving the reward? Isn't God like that?”
“Marcus,” I said, “that story is already in the Bible.”
If it wasn't already out at that point, I think it was, I took out my Bible and turned to Romans chapter 9. It says, “And not only so, but also when Rebecca had conceived children by one man, our forefather Isaac, though they were not yet born and had done nothing either good or bad--in order that God's purpose of election might continue, not because of works but because of his call-- she was told, "The older will serve the younger." As it is written, "Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated." (Rom. 9:10-13)
I didn't know it at the time but Marcus had actually just led the CHI devotion this morning on Romans chapter 9, the same chapter I just turned to in order to speak with him about God's grace. They are going through Romans, one chapter per day, and basically just read it and talk about anything that sounds good to them. Marcus was more than stunned by what the Word of God said. It was probably then that he said what I quoted before, “There must be some prerequisite to grace.” “No,” I said, “or grace would not be grace,” and the verses I showed him were Romans 9:16-17, “So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy. For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, "For this very purpose I have raised you up, that I might show my power in you, and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth." So then he has mercy on whomever he wills, and he hardens whomever he wills.”
The truth did hit him and he was changed. But he is still struggling. Big time. Maybe even more. The beautiful God-glorifying thing is this: It is far better for him to struggle with whether or not he is saved when he knows it depends on God and His free grace, rather than it is for him to struggle with his salvation when he thinks it depends on him and his will.
“It is very good to know where we stand with God,” I said, “and you should want that. We can know that we have true faith from God all the time. But, more importantly, we should know that if our faith should fail us, and when it does, that God keeps us in His grip of grace.”
In John 10:29, Jesus says, “My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch [us] out of His hand.” Amen.
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