Namibia Journal - November 29th
November 29thToday started real early. Erin and I woke up after about an hour nap at 1:30am so that she could dial-in and join the Monday night women's group from all the way in Okahandja, Namibia. I did some more journaling, read, and talked with Aaron Shafovaloff online while she sat with headphones on and a microphone feeling like she was right there in the room with her sisters in the Lord in Ohio. The webcam was working intermittently until they gave up on it. I'm not sure if it was an overall bandwidth problem or if it was the wireless connection over there. Either way, it did work well while it was up and we're confident it will work again. It was past 4:30am when we went back to bed.
Tuesday has been dubbed our 'date day' for now. Until something changes, like when our school schedule gets going in January, we are going to have weekly lunch dates every Tuesday afternoon. Dating your wife has to be different in Okahandja, Namibia. First of all, eating options are very limited. But you have to be creative, no matter where you are, and the most important thing for the date is to connect with your spouse in a time of devotion and oneness. Especially as missionaries, when you're living and breathing your passion and your passion is 'work' / ministry, you have to learn to stop talking about it and get away from it for a short time so you can really glorify God in your marriage. Tuesday is a good day because the only officially scheduled team thing for Tuesdays is a dusk-time trip out to Victory Camp and Erin and I have no personally scheduled things on that day yet.
Erin and I were graced on our date to take our minds off of ministry (our passion) for a while and focus on each other personally. Thankfully the Lord is good to us and is our number one passion (one soul) that is always talked about whether it be while connecting on a deep personal level (one heart), or planning the expansion of the Kingdom of God in Okahandja. He has been so good to us so far and we know we need to always keep up with each other, constantly (one mind), and intentionally to keep praising Him together and to know that we are pursuing Him (one strength) because we both feel right and good about the ways He is leading us. Sometimes it will be hard. It is so important for us to help each other through all the times we have. He gave us to each other for a reason. It is pure joy. It is really pure joy.
After our date, we came back to the center and I got some good Bible study time with 2nd Chronicles. I would love to lead a devotional Bible Study or house church through 2nd Chronicles. I'm through the end of chapter 21 now and it's all great. I think there is something unique we can learn by how each king from Solomon on down behaved and interacted with God. Basically, they all messed up in different ways. Even the good ones had significant flaws that we can learn from. Their major flaws represent the common temptations we face nearly everyday in our Christian lives—temptation to forget about God when times are good (Rehoboam), temptation to keep your faith private and let the lost remain comfortably lost in their false religions (Abijah), temptation to forget about God when times are bad, relying on your own strength and not glorify God by relying on His strong support (Asa), temptation to partner with evil nonbelievers for profit (Jehoshaphat), and then there is an example like Jehoram, the 5th king of Judah from Solomon, who takes the throne and kills all six of his brothers which I liken nowadays to wanting to kill everyone in your personal accountability group.
Jehoram's brothers, it says, were better than him. (2 Chron. 21:13) And apparently he didn't like it very much. It could have been a great thing, and a positive lesson, but now it is just a negative lesson, with a bad ending. We should learn from the lesson that we should appreciate the people around us who are doing things better than we are and to learn from them. We should learn from Jehoram's example not to take pride in our positions, or our titles, even as 'king', and eliminate or suppress those who look better than us or would be better at our jobs than we are. God gave Jehoram the position, and we know that He is sovereign over all things, including the murder of his brothers, and we still must say that he should have learned from and partnered with his better brothers, who had their portion from God as well, and were only better because God made them that way.
Today was the second most awesome storm we have seen yet in Namibia. I actually don't think I have mentioned any of the storms yet but it has been raining once almost everyday and often the rain is preceded by great wind, lightning, dark clouds, and a great display all around. Today's big storm started early and kind of ruined our walking plans. The sky is big here. You can see the cloud action and storms going on a long ways away. Texas's sky is more like it than Ohio's but neither really compare on a day-to-day comparison. Texas is big, and the storms are big, but it's not like this. And in Ohio the sky seems somehow smaller, because I think it is lower, so you never really see the big picture of what's going on. In Namibia you see it all. We can see the lightning show and big clouds at a great distance. Where it's raining is obvious by the streaks that drag colors of the sky with them. And then you watch it move.
On Monday night, last night, which I didn't write about for some reason, was the most awesome storm. It delayed our guy's meeting because we were all watching it as it was coming. The flashes got closer and the quiet thunder got louder. Anyway, tonight the rain came a lot earlier. We stayed at the Center until it was almost dark already and then took off on our walk toward Mike & Josh's house. It was a brisk walk this time. We wanted to brainstorm some activity and teaching ideas with Mike as the day we leave for camp is fast approaching. Mike and the team have done a great job preparing and we're only here as the last details are being laid out. It's going to be an awesome time for everyone involved.
If the description of the “second best” storm earlier in this entry didn't sound worthy of being mentioned as a good storm, that's because we had to wait until our walk home in the dark for it to be awesome. See, the storm moved over the center early but it stayed within sight for the next several hours. Over a broad stretch of sky we could see amazing lightning flashes, some which even seemed like they were right on top of us. They seriously lit up everything that you could see if you weren't also temporarily blinded by the illumination. On the horizon out toward Federstahl, the lightning was coming down in fours and fives, not just one bolt at a time. It was incredible. Nothing like it. This is the handiwork of God.
“Job 37:3 Under the whole heaven he lets it go, and his lightning to the corners of the earth.”
That wasn't the end of our evening.
Our good brother Marcus is thinking of returning home. He is the Christ's Hope volunteer in charge of the International facility. He takes care of temporary living quarters for people like Erin and me. He also cleans up a lot around here and has other jobs I know I don't know about. He's forty years old and from Angola and it's been eight years since he's seen his family. He left to pursue the Lord, leading him to South Africa and Namibia. But basically he's been 'stuck' here for a while now, spiritually a little bit lost and unfulfilled, by his own admission. I felt like I needed to talk theology with him and see where he was at. He has to work a lot here and, aside from the morning devotions he leads, I don't think he gets a lot of interaction with people talking about the things of God. I like where he's at right now with God; struggling. But/And honestly there were a lot of things weren't good about where he's at. Like a lot of people here, he struggles understanding true grace. “There must be some prerequisite to grace,” he said. “No!” I said, “Or grace would not be grace.” After our conversation, he was definitely challenged, and I hope he'll be changed, by the grace of God in the Lord Jesus Christ.
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