Namibia Journal - November 28th
November 28thOur first event of the day today was our second team meeting with all of the Apexers in Okahandja—Hein, Nadine, Mike, Kendall, and Josh. It was Hein's birthday today! He turned only 37. How does he feel being 37? He says, “Stronger.”
Our team meetings are already becoming more than meetings. They are almost house church meetings in and of themselves. That's our goal for how it should be. As a team, our goal should be to be the church all the time—that means ministering to one another, worshiping, being a family, and, of course, being on mission.
We talked about camp, making our final plans to get completely ready to leave for the coast Sunday morning. And we covered everything else that is going on, what God is doing with the work in Okahandja, and what He's doing in our lives.
One of the things left to do before camp is get together some devotionals that will be part of the notebooks given to each student. We are pulling the devotions from the handouts Erin's mom has been making from several months based on the book “Because We Love Him” by Clyde Cranford. They cover a wide range of very important topics, all of which God has blessed already in the lives of all who have been following through them. Here's an excerpt of one I really like:
“When you think of the person of Christ, what comes to mind? Is it the baby in the manger? The carpenter? The teacher on the hillside? The gentle healer? The humble and obedient crucified one? The Christ appearing with nail prints in his hands?
In the following passage in Revelation you will read of Christ as He is today, in his glorified state.
Read revelation 1:12-18
Based on this passage, how do you now describe Christ? His voice? His physical appearance? His eyes? His countenance? His response to John in verse 17?
Take a moment to think on what you have written above- the object of your thoughts is the Person of Christ. What is the response of your heart to God when you think on Christ this way?”
After our meeting, I got Erin's computer ready to get online and join the gathering of women back on River Bluff Drive all the way back in Ohio. If all goes well, she'll be able to see them and they'll be able to see her via webcam and they'll be able to talk back and forth via skype. Aside from the all the technology involved and web traffic from Africa to America, the only hiccup might be staying awake from 2 til 4 in the morning...
We took a short walk today past the Multi-Purpose Ministry Center (MPMC) and took some pictures. We also walked around one of the streets closest to the MPMC. The houses there are pretty poor. Almost all of them have the bathroom outhouse style. These Okahandja 'outhouses' are not entirely like the 'old west' outhouses. The municipality, to save money, only ran the sewer lines to the front of the properties, so they have flush toilets and everything, they are just out in the yard. The outhouses are usually painted the same colors as the houses they belong to, and usually two colors split down the middle because it's even cheaper to run one line to one spot and have two toilets there for two houses.
When we came back it was about time to get started with a good meeting time of getting in the word and accountability, sharing struggles, and ministering to one another with the guys here. This time Marcus joined us and again it was Gert, Vincent, Josh, Mike, and I. We got a little further, moving along in Ephesians 4, verses 7-10. We also talked about our levels of satisfaction in our time with God. The guys who basically set their own schedules and have 'lots of time' were in quite a different place than those who have a lot of working responsibilities and expectations on them. Having nothing really to do with the passage in Ephesians, we also discussed the topic of healings, miracles, signs and wonders in the church today. I think Vincent was a little surprised that we don't have miraculous healings such as lame people walking and blind men seeing in our services back at Apex in Ohio and we talked about that.
When we talked about the body of Christ tonight, I mused about being the part of His body that is going to be tattooed when He comes back:
Rev 19:16 On his robe and on his thigh he has a name written, King of kings and Lord of lords.
And wondered if the ones riding with Him in white robes were angels or if they could be guys like us.
I think everyone was invigoratively blessed with feelings of passion, awe, and desire. It's going to be awesome.
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