Namibia Journal - December 13th
Tuesday, December 13th, 2005
We weren't intentional about having today as a total date day. We left the Center a little earlier than usual and went straight to the Herero House of Prayer. We wanted to show up right away again after last night to give things a good start and to let them know we seriously cared about them.
A couple of people were missing this morning. We didn't see Beauty or Erika from last night, but everyone else was there. The fact that it was only 9AM didn't necessarily guarantee that everyone would be sober but Peter and Gertrude were. It was a wonderful time to talk with them more and to see a spark of the new work God was doing in that place. It was also a great time to do a little Bible study. With Beverly translating, we walked with them through all of Romans 12. We simply read it and explained what the words meant and gave a little application. There is great stuff in Romans 12 for a hurting family. “Live in harmony with one another. Do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly. Never be conceited.” (vs. 16) “If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all.” (vs. 18) “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.” (vs. 21) Of course the whole chapter is awesome and fits perfectly with our goal of directing them all toward Christ, to be loved and filled by Him.
Beverly did a great job translating for us but we could see the need for the family to hear the word in their own language, Otji Herero. Besides that, they simply didn't have any Bibles in the house. When we began to pray, I don't know if he was just so excited or if he didn't understand how we did it but Peter, the man of the house, just began to pray and started and finished. We smiled approvingly and then said we would like to pray also, so everyone enjoying it bowed their heads. We could see the light of Christ spiritually but almost tangibly dawning in that house.
After returning to town, we went down the street to run some errands. We hadn't taken any opportunity to get out since coming back from camp. We got some necessary things and bought an Otji Herero Bible, the Ombeimbela (I think), for N$56. That's about $9 US. We would have liked to buy more, and I think I need to get one for Heinrich, but we hoped it would be enough for today.
For our date, Erin and I did take some time together at Cafe Spitze. It was a good day to reflect on everything that is coming about so rapidly now. We spent a good part of the day reading and writing and thinking and praying about all the new things God was bringing our way.
We were around the Center when the rest of the Apexers were getting ready to go to Victory Camp and we thought it would be nice to go with them. We got to talk with Mike and Josh who we kind of felt like we hadn't seen in a long time. At Victory Camp today, I enjoyed watching Hein read a Bible story to the children in Afrikaans. About eight children were there and I got some pictures of him and Erin with them. You can actually see those pictures I posted here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/disposablechristian/76020545/After the story we were all kind of lingering around, talking, and not wanting to leave for some reason. Hein ended up driving back with just a couple of other people while Mike, Josh, Sara, Erin and I walked home. We walked most of the way together and split up as we approached the center of Nau Aib to go our own ways.
We came across some workmen hard at work trying to chop a limb off of a tree in the field between the Multi-Purpose Ministry Center and the Herero holy fire shrine. They were off duty and simply cutting the wood off to make an addition on a house. They were taking turns chopping as they would get tired. The axe was an old rusty axehead welded on to a metal pipe, not very sharp or sturdy. It was beginning to rain and I knew they'd want to be going soon so I walked up to them to offer my help. Besides it being a nice thing to do, I thought it would be fun to try to chop down a tree with a funny axe. I took as many good hard whacks as I could and managed to hit the sweet spot perfectly multiple times but nothing happened. A couple of big chips flew off when I hit the wrong spots but the part they were chopping was hard as rock. I offered my condolences and left with Erin again.
Erin and I had a great walk together and were surprised, or not surprised, at just how much we began to miss Heinrich and Mouna. It had only been one day without them but these Namibian days are long! We missed them a great deal and looked forward to Jesus' new day for Himself and for us all tomorrow.
Namibia Journal - December 12th
Monday, December 12th, 2005
I spent the early morning this morning in 1st Chronicles reading through the fascinating genealogies of God's people in Israel leading up to David and beyond. These chapters are not boring! I think that myth comes from people opening up their Bibles at any random point and beginning to read. That is not how God intended the Bible to be read. It is not a fortune cookie. It's a book. The names and family organizations and lines are fascinating when read in the part of the book like they're supposed to be read. I also got to spend some good quality time with my wife Erin whom I love.
After a while we went shopping for some things to take to Heinrich and Mouna. Yesterday we had talked about getting some meat and something like rice. There was a huge 10 kilo bag of rice on sale at the grocery store for only about $5 US. We loaded it up into one of our backpacks, 22 lbs in American measurements, and also stopped at Piet's Biltong shop for meat. It's not often that one shop combines the best price and the best quality, but the other Apexers taught us that about Piet's soon after we got here. The walk was long as we headed for Heinrich & Mouna's with the heavy load and from another way that we hadn't come from before. When we got there we found that no one was home. We sat outside for a little bit, wrote them a note, talked, read our Bibles, and waited. Eventually it was getting very close to 5 o'clock when we needed to be at Sam's house for a Bible study.
On our way to Sam's we ran into Canisius again outside of his house. He wanted to know what we were up to so we told him going to a Bible study. We asked if he would like one at his house for his family. He said he didn't want to waste our time, but we assured him it would be our pleasure to come over. He said anyway that he and his family were heading off to other parts of Namibia for holiday shortly and maybe we could talk about it when he got back. Just as we were leaving, his mother came home in the family car. She's a nurse at the Okahandja hospital and she was very pleased to meet us, which was cool. We were pleased to meet her as well.
Sam's place was further away from Heinrich's than we remembered so we got to our 5 o'clock appointment a little bit late. When we got there, Heinrich surprised us by walking up to us from across the street! He said he had been looking for us for most of the day and was surprised to hear we had made it all the way to his house but missed him. He knew about the 5PM appointment we set up together and was waiting with a relative that has a lot of goats staying in the small yard.
We went to the back of Sam's house and set out some chairs for whoever would show up and waited for Sam. It was me, Erin, Heinrich, and two girls—Sam's daughter that we met yesterday and a friend.
Not wanting to waste any time or an opportunity like this, we asked if the girls had any questions for us about God, the Bible, Jesus, church, etc.
The first question the girls asked was if God has a body like us. We thought at first that they were asking what God looks like so we turned to John 4:24 and explained that God is Spirit. But also we explained that there is God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. They understood that; they had heard it before—the friend went to the local Roman Catholic church and we think Sam's daughter has gone to the Dutch Reformed church. (We had always heard that the Dutch Reformed church was the white church but recently we learned there is a black one too.) We explained that while God the Father and God the Spirit were completely spirit, Jesus did have a body that we could see and tell them what He looks like. Then we turned to Revelation chapter 1 and helped them understand as best we could what verses 14-16 say about Him. I think they were very impressed. Then we found out they really wanted to know how we could be with God since our bodies just go into the ground when we die. Ah... that was a different question entirely.
We turned to John 5 and talked about the resurrection of the dead. They were surprised to hear that there would be a bodily resurrection! My friend Aaron Shafovaloff in Ohio (now Utah) always told me that not many people are taught about the bodily resurrection and it was true here. We explained the resurrection wasn't to this place, but to another place. “And do you know what comes after that?” I asked. They had no idea. It was a rhetorical question anyway. “Judgement,” I said, “You go to see the judge.” That got a big “uh oh” out of them immediately. “He judges you, and, if you're perfect you go to Heaven, and if you're imperfect you go to hell.” We gave them some good facial expressions to let them sit there and think about it.
Then one of the girls decided that she was perfect and would be okay. The other one just had this look like 'I better have as good a time as I can here because I ain't making it'. This is just what Jesus did when he met the rich young man in Matthew 19 and said, “If you would enter life, keep the commandments.” Without seeing their need for a perfect savior, we knew these girls would never embrace the cross for anything close to what it is. We continued talking about what it meant to be perfect, trying to come to a point where Sam's daughter would understand that she was not going to make it. The answer they had always heard, Jesus, was now beginning to make sense as they were beginning to understand the question: How can a perfectly holy God accept an imperfect sinner like me?
It got to be past six o'clock and it became clear that Sam wasn't going to be back anytime soon. We decided to leave and teach more to the girls on another day. I told Sam's daughter to invite her friends and we would see them again. We walked from Sam's house back toward the Chateau and ran into one of Heinrich's sisters named Ivonne and her friend Beverly. They were in their early 20s and apparently deep into the typical hanging out crowd here in Okahandja. But this was Heinrich's sister and she had been watching God's work in his life.
The brother Ivonne was seeing now was very different than the one she knew from the last many years. We followed Ivonne and Beverly to their room, literally like a tiny shed with two cots next to a shack. It was a little awkward for Heinrich and I and Erin just took over, walking with the Holy Spirit working in her. She asked the girls poignant questions about life, about alcohol, drinking, boys, and the regular things to do here. They were honest and seemingly near brokenness, but their interest did not seem to me to be in the truth of Christ. We prayed together, holding hands in a circle, sitting on makeshift chairs between their shed and the shack. I prayed and Erin prayed and as Heinrich was praying, it was a startling thing to me, Ivonne started to pray out loud and I felt an intense presence of the Spirit there. I don't know what she prayed. I have no idea. And I don't know what Heinrich was praying in Otji Herero, but there was something happening there. After we walked away, I didn't know what to think. I trusted God and was thankful for my wife He loves.
Our last stop in Nau-Aib today was at what we have dubbed the Herero House of Prayer. It is a large house on a corner, catty-cornered from the site of the construction of a big new church building. Heinrich introduced us to the family and we met Peter, Gertrude, Opa, Thomas, Ciena, Grandma, Beauty, Beverly, and Erika.
Beauty was the first one to ask us for prayer when we met them. She is 19 and has a 1 ½ year old son. She and her friend Erika spoke about knowing what it was to follow Jesus but were far from him now.
Beverly was also about their age and from Windhoek. Her English was the best so we translated through her.
Peter was drunk, even tonight, and out of it. The main prayer concern of the family was alcoholism. Food was not staying in the house. This saying is an expression of what it is like to try to feed a family when so much money is going out for getting drunk.
Gertrude was unabashed in front of Peter in explaining the huge swelling around her right eye. Peter had hit her the night before in a fight although she was just as bad with alcohol as he was and asking for prayer also.
Grandma was quiet, and contemplative, in her traditional Herero Victorian style dress and cow-horn hat. She only complained of pain and weakness in her aging legs.
Opa, Thomas, and Ciena are three young boys. We weren't sure at first but eventually recognized Thomas as one of the boys who frequently begs outside of Pick'n Pay, a grocery store near the Center. He and Opa are 8-10 years old and Ciena appears to be 6 or 7. They are obviously the ones being hit hardest by the effect of the alcohol on the house's food supply, being unable to do much for themselves besides beg.
It sounds like a bad situation, and it is. We looked around the room knowing that the only hope for this family is Christ. Prayer may have been a last resort for them but it was the very beginning for us.
They were all asking for prayer now. We went inside with Heinrich and got into a big circle in the living room. They gave Erin and I the place of honor, on the broken couch, while Grandma sat in a chair and the rest of the family sat on the bare concrete floor.
Just after we settled in, Mouna walked in! We were happy to see her and she was just about as lost as we were with the language. She speaks primarily Afrikaans while Heinrich and this family are much more comfortable with Otji Herero. She was passing by on her way home and someone told her we were all inside so she came.
God had brought this family low, it was clear, and their sin was hurting them much more than they thought it would. Now, we prayed, it was His time to make a name for Himself there. We had a tangible feeling of darkness and sadness to fuel the warfare of our prayers in that house. As the actual darkness was falling outside and the sun was going down, we were seeing spiritual darkness in a sleepy rage all around us. We prayed for each one in our prayers. We were all gathered around holding hands. We prayed for Beauty's repentance, future and fellowship with Christ. We prayed for Peter and Gertrude's alcoholism and for Gertrude's bruised eye. We prayed for Grandma's legs hat were mentioned, that they would be strong and free of pain for her. We prayed for Christ to bring His Spirit to the house and fill each one, to give them hope and joy and love, that each would be full of worship toward Him and their house would be a house of prayer.
It was a seriously joyful thing, all in all. There was nothing better that we could have been doing in all the earth. I loved the light of Christ I saw dawning in my own mind, capable of penetrating any darkness of the world. Erin and I were both excited to see what light would shine there in that house soon.
Eventually we said goodbye to them all and promised to come back often for more prayer. We knew immediately that part of how God would use our visits would also be for an accountability. They would be much less likely to go drinking if they could know we were coming to see them, and see how they were treating their children. We liked that and God put in us a serious desire to see them changed.
When we got outside with Heinrich and Mouna it was getting pretty late but none of us wanted to leave. They started walking our way with us and we stopped to talk under a streetlamp. We found out that Heinrich and Mouna had never actually been in those people's house before and had not even known their names. They just happen to pass by that way often on their way home and knew they had problems. They said the only reason they were let in was because they were with Erin and I who were from America and would come pray with them. That was great, I thought. We love the heart of Heinrich and Mouna who knew the needs of that house and were led by the Spirit to take us there to see if they would talk.
We stood there under the streetlamp and prayed in a little circle of four. Erin thanked God for our friends who were now missionaries to their own country with us. I don't know what Heinrich and Mouna prayed but I'm sure it was beautiful. Little Martin stood there between us completely silent and still the whole time. After our prayer, Mouna had a tear in her eye. She pointed down the street to our left and said she couldn't believe that these very streets she grew up on “being naughty” were now the streets she was praying on. She never had a chance to pray she said and now she was worshiping God there with us. I can't describe the joy I felt in that moment with Erin, hearing that. I just wanted her to say it again and again. I didn't really make her repeat herself but I didn't want anyone else to speak for a moment, just so it would sink in. “On these streets right here I was being naughty and now I am praying here. My whole life is changed.” Heinrich and Mouna's prayer request tonight was that they would never go back to the old ways. I had to share with them from John 10:28 and 29. The last time they gave us that request, on Saturday, I just said, “Okay, that's good. We will pray for that.” But this time I wanted to give them the assurance answer to go along with their race:
John 10:28-29, “I [Jesus] give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father's hand.”
So, securely, in the Son's hand, and in the Father's hand, we rest and run the race of life in His hands. Glory be to our God.
When we got back to the Center, I was unable to look at things the same way. I was feeling the desire to be more with Christ and have less of whatever else there was available to me. I wanted to be out all night, praying and teaching the Word. It was that desire perhaps that led me to sit down and talk with our friend Gert. Gert is most always sitting outside of his room with his wife Gerjanna in the evening times. Gerjanna went in to go to bed and Gert was still finishing his last cup of tea.
I asked him how things were going and sat down with him. There was usually a guy's group meeting on Monday nights but it was obvious it didn't happen tonight. We talked about that and I asked him if he wanted to pray with me about anything. He talked about how great an opportunity it was here to share the gospel with people back in Holland. For instance, he said, whenever he would talk with his brother or sister-in-law, in Holland the gospel would never come up. But here, when it is why he is here, and it is his life, even though his job is to be the master builder on the Multi-Purpose Ministry Center, it comes up almost immediately. It was astounding to him and he was praising God for that.
I feel like I would be sharing too much if I shared what we prayed about after that but you can know that I asked him to pray for the desire Erin and I have to have a son if God wills. It was a new thing to sit down and pray with someone at the Center and I know we both enjoyed it.
Namibia Journal - December 11th
December 11th
We woke up this morning still reeling from the pleasure and awe of the previous day's miracle(s). Everything was changing if this was happening, if it was real.
We got up early and set off on foot to go to Victory Camp. It was our first time walking and we thought we gave ourselves plenty of time to get there.
It was a long walk and we arrived a bit late, 8:20. I found myself wondering if they would notice. I'm not sure how anyone there tells time. I've seen one guy with a watch on but it was for looks only, the same as the broken TVs and other appliances in their homes. They might possibly have wind-up clocks that do work in their homes. Christiaan found us shortly after we arrived and said it was no problem. He gathered some people together and we sat down on some old semi tires to begin the study.
In case you've forgotten what I mean when I use the term “Victory Camp,” it's the town dump. It's where all of the garbage from the people and businesses of Okahandja winds up. When I say they have 'homes', I'm talking about construction done with trash. Local Namibians refer to it as “the rubbish.” Everyone knows where it is even if they've never been there because you can't miss the occasionally huge plumes of smoke coming from its fires when they burn the trash. Sometimes they burn a bunch of tires. There is a squishy burnt river of melted rubber from one of the tire troughs that has recently been torched.
When we began, it was Christiaan, Morin or maybe Maureen, Naphtali (as in the tribe of Israel), another guy whose name we never figured out, and of course Erin, my precious wife.
It was painful. Honestly, it didn't seem to go very well at all. We were teaching Firm Foundations lesson 1 and I had put together six pages of notes to go through. With no one to translate into their more familiar languages, I simply read straight through it as simply and as slowly as I could. Maureen could have translated for us but simply didn't want to. Christiaan understood enough to not give up and walk away. Naphtali looked totally disinterested the whole time. The guy whose name we didn't get seemed very interested but we think he actually understood the least. We will have to do a review next week, if we go back. We need to talk with Hein about coming with us to speak Afrikaans. And I know there is a guy there named Hendrick(?) that speaks good English but he didn't answer our calls for him.
So, after that, we headed back to the Center to do some more preparation, only having a few hours before we had to be at Heinrich and Mouna's. Time flew by and we left the Center with enough time to find our way back to their house on foot for the second time, the first time coming from town.
When we arrived at Heinrich & Mouna's, the energy was still there from the day before. We were excited to begin the journey through the Bible with them in Firm Foundations. Betty, Elizabeth, Stella, Stephanie, Velma, and more children joined us.
Betty is Mouna's mother, originally from South Africa. She is from a people group that begins with a “T” and married a Namibian Ovambo man. We're not sure when they divorced but we know it was in part due to alcohol. We do not believe she is a Christian at this point and don't know if she claims to be. Her motives for coming, and how Mouna got her to the house are unclear.
Elizabeth is a student at Okahandja Secondary School around 15 years old. She was one of the ones God used to bring Heinrich and Mouna to the Word. Apparently Elizabeth invited Mouna to come to church every week for a year before she came for the first time. She is a future leader.
Stella is a neighbor who lives behind Heinrich & Mouna. She doesn't speak much English so Elizabeth translated what we were saying for her into Oshiwambo. She has four children—Moses, Rosalia, Georgie, and Monica. All of them are adorable. I especially like Georgie and Rosalia. Erin likes Monica, the youngest. They don't play exactly like the other children and don't talk so much but there is something special about them.
Stephanie is a young adult, about our age, who is very desperately trying to separate herself from the drinking and sex lifestyle. She is one of Mouna's cousins and lives with Betty.
Velma is Mouna's sister and is obviously struggling with alcohol big time. Yesterday, as Heinirch was showing us the way out of the Chateau and toward Mike & Josh's house, we ran into her boyfriend, Monathan. He was drunk and walking around with their 4-month old baby. He said he would receive the Word of God if his heart was open. I told him that was exactly right. He said, “Just don't give me the hammer, man.” Thinking that was a humorous comment, but not indicating so, I said, “We won't condemn you. We will love you, and teach you the Word of God, and pray your heart will be open.” Velma seemed open, and broken. We set up a time to have a Bible study at her house on Wednesday at a time when Monathan should be there.
The Firm Foundations Bible study at Heinrich and Mouna's went much much better than Victory Camp earlier in the morning. All of the information about how the Bible was given from God to us was fascinating and God-glorifying. We taught that the Bible was written down by over 40 men that God spoke to in their minds, out loud and through visions over a period of about 1,600 years. The Bible is extremely reliable from an objective standpoint based on its amazing continuity despite the number of sub-authors and time gaps. This is because there is only really one author, God. Each book was also copied extremely reliably numerous many times, more times than any other ancient manuscript, so we can know that what God said originally is what we have available to us today. The traditional copying and transfer methods of the Jewish people are astounding. Even though we were speaking with a group of people who mostly already believed that whatever the Bible says is true, the message gave more praise and worship to their lips for the great God of the Word. He has chosen to communicate with us and reveal Himself through the Bible, to the glory of His name.
As we taught, the lesson was translated into both Afrikaans and Oshiwambo. Translation can be very nice for the teacher because the pauses between statements help the teacher figure out where he's going by giving him (me) more time to look down at his notes. Being the first lesson we were teaching from Firm Foundations, I didn't do such a good job organizing things the way I wanted to say them on paper. The author's style comes out in the lessons and if it's not like your own then it takes some work to reorganize a little bit and pick and choose what points, examples, and illustrations you'll use from the lesson book and then add your own. It still turned out really well and we knew next time what better we could do.
After a cheerful end to our study and warm goodbyes, we continued to walk around with Heinrich for the rest of the day. The first person we talked to was Canisius, a neat young guy from camp. His parents' house is on the road the backway from Heinrich and Mouna's to town. We found him standing outside of the house with the twin sister he never told us about. That was all of the introducing we did today. Heinrich did the rest. He seems to know almost everyone in Nau-Aib, especially those in the Otji Herero people group. We met some of his relatives and a brother today. One of the guys was named Sam and, after Heinrich's brief introduction, he pointed at me and said emphatically, “I will join the church!” I kind of laughed, not in a bad way, and said, “We don't have a church. We'll meet at your house.” After a little bit more explanation in Otji Herero, we agreed to go there tomorrow at 5PM. Heinrich took us there immediately just so we would know where it was at and we met one of his daughters and another guy staying there.
Before we parted ways, I asked Heinrich when was the last time he ate. He was modest, even shy, and I could tell it wasn't something he was going to bring up on his own. He said the kids had eaten. We asked about him and Mouna. It was like pulling teeth. “When is the last time you and Mouna had some food to eat?”
He told us about the last time they had some borrowed porridge from a friend or family member. We think it was Friday. I told him that we would like to get them some food to help them. It was not a handout, I explained, and it was not because we're “rich Americans.” It was because God laid it on our hearts, we were their friends, we wanted them to be fed. That was all, and we hugged deeply and parted ways.