5 Weeks

Hello everyone! I’m alive and well! I’ve been in Namibia for five weeks now, and goodness gracious God is good. He has been so incredibly faithful! Surprise surprise, right? Yeah, it’s been amazing to see how He has already fulfilled promises that He made me. He has filled me with Joy and Peace and Courage. God is good.
I wanted to share a few of the big things that God has given me the opportunity to be a part of. That way you can get an idea of what life is like for me here and get to see what God has already started.

Beautiful Kidz (Pre-School): I spend Monday-Friday going to the preschool (often referred to as “the Center”). At the Center I am 1 of 5- 10 people who work mostly in the kitchen. There is a schedule that changes every day to designate who does what work. We clean a lot, cook a lot and laugh a lot. Things get pretty interesting in the kitchen! I am the only American out of mostly Namibians- which, I have to say, is nice. Everyone is really lighthearted and is playing around all day while doing their work. Whenever there is a break from working I am free to relax. Often, work means working directly with the kids. It’s a perfect fit for me! Because I love to hang out with the kids… But these kids can be extremely overwhelming if you are with them constantly. So in this situation I get to serve the kids without being with them directly and managing their craziness but I still get to spend time with them every day. Yeah, God really knows what He is doing.

Community Work: 2-3 times a week I get to go into the community and visit families. I have been helping with interviewing families that have applied for their child to be enrolled in Beautiful Kidz for next year. Mostly we just go and see the exact living conditions of the child. We find out the income of the people watching the child and how many people live in the same room and house. The visits are really important because they have already received a huge amount of applications for the coming year (Starting in January). The kids that will be accepted are the poorest of the poor. It comes down to the income and condition of the people taking care of them and if they will likely get them into another pre-primary school if the child is not accepted to Beautiful Kidz. This experience is one of the most vital parts of the process of understanding the actual situation in Namibia. I’ve probably visited 50 homes or more in just a few weeks… It is rare to find a child that lives with both biological parents. Almost all of the home situations include not having enough money to feed the family, unemployed single parents, overcrowded “houses”, large numbers of kids per adult, and more disheartening conditions. But, you know, most of the families consider themselves followers of Christ… they just seem like they are down and out. There is such hope for them! They don’t always seem to see it. But God will show them in His own way.

Youth Club: On Thursdays and Fridays we have Youth Club at the Center. This includes kids from all over the community. Anyone is welcome. We play a few games with them, worship with them, someone generally shares a message, and we always feed them. We have three different age groups that meet at three different times. There is a sort of “reward” of a night on two Saturdays of the month for the kids that come consistently. They just get to hang out, be together, listen to worship music, and eat a meal. The groups are HUGE. Each meeting has about a hundred kids… sometimes more. The first week I was here the staff had decided to start to share a message that is pretty touchy with the kids. They wanted to address the issues of not growing up with a father. More specifically, they wanted to teach the youth about forgiveness. Just about everyone that comes to Youth Club has been negatively affected by an absent man in their lives. Most of them didn’t grow up with their fathers, or they did but were really mistreated in serious ways. The subject had continued for three weeks and every time we discussed the Youth Club as a team we all agreed that we have only scratched the surface. God is really doing something amazing with forgiveness and healing and restoration for these young people. They are hungry to understand how to not hate their fathers. Every time we talk about it we are seeing people open up and break down. God is really moving. But we are expecting some deep, deep healing to take place in the coming weeks. Please pray that God will share His plan for this process vividly with the staff/leadership. These Youth Club meetings are SUCH an AMAZING opportunity to minister to the next generation of Namibia. These young people are literally asking “How do I know how to be a dad someday because mine was horrible to me?” and other practical and heartbreaking questions. It’s sometimes a little weird because one of the groups is just about my age… so if feels funny. But God is growing me in stepping up and taking the authority presented to me.

Thank you all so much for continuing to pray for me! God is really doing amazing things in my life and you are a part of it. Thank you thank you thank you!! Check my facebook for pictures and any other news. I will update soon!