When I returned with a team the next year, I walked by that same storefront where the youth center had been and found it empty and locked up. I had lost touch with Wimpie and now had no way to contact him. But since he also had a heart for youth ministry, I always wondered what ever happened to him.
Fast forward 11 years and now here I am serving in Namibia training youth workers. Over this past holiday break I was walking down the sidewalk at a strip mall and noticed some friends I hadn’t seen in a while sitting at a coffeeshop. I went over to sit with them and catch up for a few minutes. While we were chatting briefly, a strangely familiar face sat down at the booth next to us. After my friends paid their bill and we parted ways, I couldn’t help but ask the man in the neighboring booth, “Excuse me, but is your name Wimpie?” Sure enough, here I was reintroducing myself to the man I’d met over 11 years before.
Wimpie was recently hired on to begin a youth ministry at Christian Family Church in Windhoek. This was one of the churches I had visited when I first arrived in Namibia, but they had nothing going on for youth, so now he’s there to start something. He also shared with me some of his visionary ideas to reach out to schools in the area of suicide awareness and prevention (a big issue among high school students in Namibia recently). This time we exchanged contact info and I look forward to finally being able to build on a partnership begun over a decade ago. I love seeing Providence at work!
