Namibian Thanksgiving

Being the only American missionary amongst the SIM team here in Windhoek, it became my responsibility to host and organize Thanksgiving, in which everyone else was more than willing to partake. I'd never cooked a turkey before, but I've watched it enough times, plus, how hard can it be! I found two small chicken-sized birds in the frozen section at the supermarket, however stuffing isn't a staple in the Namibian diet (shocker!) so that would have to be homemade. For my first homemade Thanksgiving meal everything tasted phenomenal. I even impress myself sometimes!

This is going to be epic!

The birds all stuffed and ready to go, Mixed Herbs
on the left and Sweet Chili on the right!

The answer is yes, those turkeys did taste as good as they look.

One fine Thanksgiving spread

Buddy, my American friend, brought homemade "pumpkin" (a.k.a. zebra
butternut squash) pie and delicious honey baked ham. We got to share our
cultural heritage with Swiss, German, and Namibian friends.

And of course it wouldn't be a proper Thanksgiving without football!

Katima Mulilo

Far in the northeast of Namibia, out on the Caprivi Strip that sticks out like a thumb, is a little town on the banks of the Zambezi river called Katima Mulilo. It’s a small town with only two stop lights and just a few shopping centers. You don’t have to go far to see villages with stick fences and mud huts with thatched roofs. You may even run into the local witchdoctor in town like I did. It’s a bit off the beaten path where few travelers go, but they desperately need the gospel.

I had arranged to teach a 2-day youth ministry seminar to local youth workers. We were scheduled to start Friday night at 6:00pm, but at that time only about 5 people were there. So in typical African style we began with some a cappella songs and introductions while others continued showing up. We eventually started and talked about the biblical purpose of the church and how our job as youth workers is to build up and send out. We split up into small groups and they drew and described the ideal youth who would come out of their youth programs. Then we talked about how we as youth workers can help different people at different stages in their spiritual development. We looked at how changes during adolescence and a variety of youth cultural issues are affecting our teenagers. By the end of the seminar we'd had in attendance about 30 people from 7 different churches. We closed off our time with lunch on Saturday and a little “graduation” ceremony where we handed out Certificates of Attendance.

It was exciting for me to meet youth workers in this distant town who were so eager to learn how to better reach the youth in their churches and communities. Some people even registered to do the distance program through NETS to further their biblical and theological understanding. Jesus spent a lot of time with the poor and outcast because they were hungry. He told the disciples that if a town didn’t accept the gospel then they should shake the dust of their feet on their way out of town. Certainly some people are called, like Isaiah, to preach to a people who won’t listen to the message. But it’s certainly refreshing and rewarding to teach people who are hungry to learn.

Victoria Falls

After my Monday evening session in Rundu, the next stop on my youth ministry tour was in Katima Mulilo, far to the east on the Caprivi Strip. But our seminar wouldn't start until Friday, so I took advantage of the extra days to swing over to nearby Victoria Falls. I left early from Rundu because I had a 7 hour drive and 3 border posts ahead, and I had to make it to Zimbabwe with enough time to get through immigration before they closed for the day. Fortunately, I got there in plenty of time. But unfortunately, Zimbabwe doesn’t take Namibian dollars, only Rand, Pula, or US dollars. So I actually had to backtrack into Botswana to get some Pula in order to pay for my visa. Good thing I got there in plenty of time.

The city of Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe is a quaint little tourist town, named after the nearby waterfall. The African name for the falls is Mosi-oa-Tunya, “the smoke that thunders,” referring to the spray from the falls that can rise up to a quarter of a mile high and be seen from 30 miles away. David Livingstone was the first European to discover it in 1855 when he named them in honor of Queen Victoria.

One of the seven natural wonders of the world, Victoria Falls stretches over a mile wide. Water from the Zambezi River, which forms the border between Zambia and Zimbabwe, plunges up to 108 meters into a narrow canyon. To put that in perspective, it’s nearly twice as high and three times as wide as Niagara Falls.

The falls can be viewed from the opposite side of the canyon, which nearly is the same height as the falls. Only about 25% of the falls can be seen from the Zambian side, but a majestic 75% from the Zimbabwe side. November is during low-water season, so while there is still plenty of water coming over the falls, it’s not the wide wall of water that it would be during high-water season. However, that also means less spray to obstruct the view and drench desiring photographers.

Often when I’m traveling with people I’m the one lagging behind trying to capture just the right photo. But one of the benefits to traveling alone is that I’m not holding anybody up when I want to try another angle, or just put the camera aside and soak in the majesty. So it was no problem for me to arrive at the falls around 10am and not leave until the park closed at 6pm. :)

Here are a few highlight pics and video of the day, but I’ll soon upload the rest to my Flickr page.

   

Rundu

I’d never been to Rundu before, even though it’s the second largest city in Namibia. The city center area is not too big, but the informal settlement areas stretch for miles in either direction along the Okavango River, which forms the border between Namibia on the southern bank and Angola to the north. This is the home of the Kavango people who speak Rukwangali, and it was the first stop on my youth ministry tour of the north east.

After navigating the dirt backroads of Kehemu location I finally found my way to the  Evangelical Bible Church (EBC). I attempted to park in the shade under a tree but my little 2-wheel drive VW never made it past the soft sand in the middle of the lot. There was no sense fighting it, so I just left it there and went inside.

It had been organized for me to meet with the regional youth planning committee for all the EBC churches in the area. About 30 minutes after we were scheduled to start most people had arrived so we finally began while others continued to trickle in. In all there ended up being about 13 guys and 2 ladies.

We started with introductions and then discussed characteristics of the ideal youth who would come out of their programs. We said that if you don’t know what you’re aiming at then it’s hard to know how to get there. As I spoke, different people took turns translating into Rukwangali.

We talked about the importance of understanding youth culture so we can better communicate and relate with the youth. Different generations have their own unique cultural differences, and this is never more apparent than in Africa. Youth ministry is a cross-cultural mission, so youth workers need to reach across those generational cultural boundaries to reach today’s youth.

As we closed one of the members thanked me for the good lecture, but said that he wished the church elders could hear the same material. In this culture the elders don’t listen to the young people, but the young people should listen to, respect, and submit to the elders. Thus many innovative, forward-thinking youth workers get frustrated and stifled by tradition. I’ve found this issue to be a challenge for many youth ministries and leaders around the county.

Then lastly, I asked them to help push my car out of the sand, which they graciously did.