Home Again

So after 39 hours of traveling and every single one of my planes landing late (luckily, it only made me 2 hours late to get home...) I am back at home. I've had a day already at home and am still feeling some jet lag. As Blair put it when I came it "she's a disaster".
Overall the trip exceeded expectations. We as a group took lots of small steps towards creating an established Navigator ministry. The trip's best verse can be Zechariah 4:10 (NLT): Do not despise these small beginnings, for the Lord rejoices to see the work begin. Look for my follow letter with even more pictures in a month or so (it might take me that long since we'll be traveling to/from MI Aug 9-24 and I start grad school Aug 25). Thanks for all your prayers and support! God is working in Namibia, and I got to be a part of it because of you!

Me again

Blair's apparently been really busy trying to get everything settled so he can leave to go back to MI 3 days after I get home, so I'm copy/pasting an email I sent to him. Funny how I have more time than he does right now.
Things are going well here. Some people are starting to get sick (colds, coughs, etc) so I'm really trying to avoid that since I was sick at the start of the trip! So far, just a little sore throat, but nothing that's not relieved relatively quickly. We've started a little running club and that's been fun. I wish I had brought better running shoes, since I can't run too far (1. it's really hilly 2. my feet hurt way too much at the end of 20 minutes), but the goal is to get to the top of this mountainish hill. I'm okay getting there either by running or walking, but some are really dedicated to run the whole way. I'm going to try to take pictures of it before going. Hopefully I'll get a chance to hike up it and sunrise and get some video. This past week we've been at Polytech and UNam. I have been at Poly, working with some girls that are not yet believers. I've been encouraging them to start reading the Bible in hopes that the Word will have it's usual effect of working on their hearts. We spent Tuesday morning/early afternoon at an orphanage called Hope Village. It's a really cool concept which I hope to write more on later. We helped them out by doing some "spring cleaning" and doing a deep scrub of the boys house, girls house and baby house (yeah, there was a house fulllll of babies, no I didn't keep one). The boys shoveled something, I don't know what still....We have a new member of the team. He's a friend of Ed's from Woodland Park and he's called Karate Ken:) His purpose is to share the Gospel by teaching people self-defense principles and using those same principles against spiritual attack. It's pretty cool and we've learned a couple useful moves for escape and defense. I can't believe it's only a couple days until we leave. Time flies! This Saturday is the one day conference, so I hope we have a good turn out! So far we have over 100 people signed up.

Actually written by Lauren from Namibia!

We are at an internet cafe here in Windhoek and I was hoping to be able to get on wireless to download things to my iPod, but their wireless isn't working well, so I overestimated how much time I'd need and have time to actually blog!
We spent the morning doing campus ministry, aka evangelizing to random people on Polytechnic of Namibia's campus. Not my strong suit, or my buddy Vanessa's. We had a hard time initiating conversation with people, but did get contact info for 7 girls we're going to follow-up with tomorrow. One girl was really excited about learning about God, asked for my Bible (I have little New Testaments I carry with me to hand out, so I gave her one) and wanted my number so we can talk tomorrow. She's not a believer, but was really intrigued by how I was 100% certain I was going to heaven when she's worried she's probably going to hell. So we're going to meet tomorrow and talk more. Another girl believes in God, but doesn't get why there's so much evil in the world and isn't getting the concept of a personal relationship with Jesus, so Vanessa and I are going to prep tonight to try and get her some answers to some questions. I'm hoping we can work on developing relationships with the girls we met today so I don't have to go introduce myself to strangers too much anymore:)
Since Blair's last posted, I've been in Tsumeb, then to Etosha Wildlife park where we took a day of "vacation" and saw the animals. I got some great pictures of giraffes and zebras I'll post once home.

Another day in Africa

I realized I've written a lot about what we've done and not a lot about Namibia itself. We actually have relatively few Namibians on the team. Of our Africans three are from Namibia, 4 are from Zambia, one is from Zimbabwe, and one from Kenya. They like meat. We tell the kids there are people in the US who are vegetarians and they think we're crazy. The schools the kids have to pay to go. The desparity is pretty obvious in some places. We've been blessed and have had nice accomodations so far. I think I've only had two cold showers still and have only a couple days I haven't showered and that was more because of choice:) I feel like I don't notice if I don't shower as much since not everyone here gets one everyday. Poor you (Blair) when I get back and I smell:) We're still teaching in schools some with our last day here being Monday. Hard to believe we leave Tuesday.

Still not coming home yet. I definitely miss [Blair] and the fur faces although there are new puppies (maybe 3 weeks) at the orphanage. I named one Gizmo, but told the kids they can change the name if they want. The people here are friendlier for the most part although I think all the kids want to say hi either because they saw us at their school or haven't really seen many white people. I think that's it for now. I'm trying to not repeat what I write and what I journal so I'll probably be printing out my emails as a supplement.

At School

We get really a really slow and weak wireless connection at the Bible school where we eat lunch so I'm pretyping because of that and because I don't want to spend all my time there on my iPod being antisocial. Ah so much to tell you, I don't know where to start. We've been doing a lot of assemblies at the schools and have been teaching classes a good amount too. I think I've done four so far and have a full day of teaching tomorrow. We're mostly at Primary schools which can be anywhere from k-7. So far the youngest we've taught is 5th grade. We focus more about the gospel and family structure and relationships in general than teaching them about sexual abstinence. It's less awkward for everyone that way. One of the schools we were there during what would be their recess and we all spread out to chat with the kids. I bent down to talk with some 6 year olds and ended up getting mobbed by about 30 little kids. They all were wanting to touch the white girls hair and skin. Chippo, one of the girls came and saved me.

So I'm ok. Just had my hair pulled a lot and my personal space highly invaded. We've been getting really close to the kids at the orphanage. Don't know if i've told you but we know that one of the girls was orphaned then raped by 4 guys and given HIV. We think it might be the girl who we've been getting really close to. Her name's Gurona (at least that's how you pronounce it). I asked her how to spell it and it was "g" click "r" something. So I couldn't actually spell it out. She's so sweet though and I absolutely love her. The girls braided half my head of hair yesterday. It came out during my shower so I'm gonna ask them to redo it today. That's it for now. We're headed out to show the Jesus film to the kids at the orphanage.

Teaching and Stuff

We did an assembly (scary, but not because it was for 300 kids under 10) and then Alex #1 (there's two and he's #1 only b/c he was there) and I taught a 10th grade class on Choose to Wait. It was really cool and we split into guys and girls and I had a great group of girls. We'll see how tomorrow goes with a days worth of classes to teach. I'll be with another guy to teach who's not as prepared, or concise and another girl who just saw the material for the first time today. So far God's been faithful in giving us words, and has pulled our thrown together presentations together. We're also showing the "Jesus film" or fill-'em as they pronounce it tonight with the Campus Crusade guys that joined our team. (I'm sure you can google it). I'm getting better as I see good results coming from this. I taught a group of girls how to use the first aid kit today at the orphanage we're partnering with, then I taught 3 of them the Gospel and then learned (can't do them independently yet) songs and dances from a group of 7 kids. They are awesome. We get to visit one tomorrow at her school while teaching. SWEET.

To Blair "GO SHOPPING FOR GROCERIES!"

Africa Update - A little Sick

We lucked out and someone was able to get a broadband wireless card that we can use at the camp. Our plans have been delayed a day, so I won't be going to Otjiwarongo until tomorrow morning instead of today like planned. I got sick starting Wednesday, so have been trying to deal with that. It's been a pretty bad cough which is starting to affect my sleeping now. I'm hoping I get over it soon so I'm not so behind the rest of the group. They've been really supportive of me trying to rest, but it's not easy when 8 girls are sharing a room. We finally have more of group here, so it's finally coming together, the rest is coming in today (hence the waiting another day to leave).