Stinkwater Mission Trip

About an hour and a half outside of the capital city of Windhoek, you turn onto a small dirt road that winds its way through the tiny village of Stinkwater. The community lies next to a wide, dry river bed that will only flow after the hard rains of a good rainy season. There are very few block houses, most are small tin shacks. There was formerly a mine nearby providing employment, but that has long since closed down. The only church is an old Rhenish building that is overgrown and unkept, and usually locked unless a visiting group could borrow it for a service. The small group of believers gather under a tree on a Sunday and lead themselves with no trained pastor. The community is as poor, desperate, and spiritually dry as the neighboring river bed. This is where our NETS mission team would minister for the next five days.

We started off our ministry with house visits, greeting people, hearing their stories, sharing an encouragement from the Bible, inviting them to church services, and praying for them if they would allow us. On Saturday morning, we waded through the overgrown plot to the old church building where the students led a service, including leading music and preaching the sermon. They did the same again under the tree on Sunday morning.

After the service, we hosted a little 'spa' day for the elderly in the community, including a soup lunch, hair and beard trims for the men, and manicures and pedicures for the ladies.

Children's ministry was also vibrant. We led Sunday school classes with the children during our church services. As we walked through the community, whenever we would find groups of children, we would play some games with them and share the gospel. Other mornings we visited a local preschool and taught the children God's Word through songs, puppets, and crafts.

And each evening we would show the Jesus film in one of the local languages, followed by one of our students giving an invitation to respond to the gospel.

It was a productive trip in more ways than one. The Word of God was faithfully proclaimed in a community with very little gospel witness. Our students got a chance to put into practice the things they have been learning in the classroom. And they also got to experience the reality of how many Namibians in rural communities live. On the last day of our trip, one exuberant student was convinced and couldn't stop talking about the need to plant a gospel-centered church in that community. Whether it's him or someone else, we pray that would be the case.

Osire Mission Trip

Each year we split up our seminary students into small teams, and send them out on mission trips to put into practice what they've been learning in the classroom. This year, I led a group of 9 students to serve in Osire refugee camp. This is a community of displaced people, mostly from Central and East African countries. They primarily speak French or Swahili, and bring their other African cultures with them. So our local Namibian students were in for a great cross-cultural experience.

On our first day, we went to the local school to connect and share with the students. Now, Namibia is a generally "Christian" nation and ministry in schools has historically been fairly open. But when we arrived at this school, they allowed us to share in a few classes, but said we couldn't preach or speak openly about Jesus. This is more like what I am used to from the States, but it was really surprising to my students. Many of them commented afterward how they really struggled with that, and had to figure out how to navigate these restrictions. As our government is more and more removing religion from schools, I warned them that this is the direction it's going in the future. They need to find other alternative access points (e.g., pressing social issues) to creatively communicate the message of Jesus. Fortunately, in the afternoon, many of those kids joined us on the sports field where we could play games and then share the gospel in a much more open way.

We were also able to meet with a large group of local pastors. One NETS student shared an encouragement with them about servant leadership from John 13. Then I shared from Gal 6:7-9 about persevering in ministry because our true reward is still coming. We were then invited to three different church youth groups, and a children's ministry. And two of our students were invited as guest preachers at different churches.

Sharing the gospel with the colors on the soccer ball

Sharing at a youth group

Children's ministry

Praying together at a youth group

Our NETS students were very encouraged by how hospitably we were received in the community. On our last evening together we reflected on some of our learning opportunities. They mentioned things like the resistance to the gospel in the school, and learning how to speak into people's situations (like being a refugee) in a sensitive and encouraging way. They were also blessed by the unity they felt with the community even though they were coming from so many different places across Africa. Personally, I was encourage by how well our students jumped into ministry, were flexible when opportunities shifted, and really engaged the learning process.

Teen Mission Namibia 2023

Teen Mission Namibia (TMN) was designed to help impassion and equip young people to get involved in God's mission in Namibia and the world. Our first trip back in Dec 2021 (see posts here) was a great success, so we followed that up with another trip this July. We took 6 young people and 4 staff volunteers out to the town of Outjo for ten days to train them for mission and then give them practical opportunities to apply what they were learning. (FYI - July is our winter, hence the reason why in the photos we were often bundled up while sitting in the sun. 😅)

Training session at Boot Camp

Mission Boot Camp - Our trip started out with two days of training sessions on topics like what is the gospel, how to share the gospel with others, how to share your testimony, the global need for mission, etc. During a reflection time, one young lady said she had always had the question of why God had His Son killed, and she had never been given a satisfying answer. But in our session on the gospel she heard about the great exchange, that God put our sin on him and gave us his righteousness, and that finally gave her a satisfying answer for why Jesus had to die for our sins. This is exactly why we start our training with that session, because many people have grown up in church and never actually heard the true gospel.

Practicing sharing the gospel with each other

Each morning we gave them a dedicated 30-minutes and a mission-related devotional to have a personal devotion time with God. Some of them were used to an occasional, sporadic Bible-reading or prayer time, but taking a whole 30-minutes and doing it every day for the whole trip was a new habit that many expressed they would like to continue when they go home.

The campground where we stayed had a pen
with some porcupines who came out at night!

Kid's Club Outreach - For the next 4 days, we partnered with two different community centers to organize and run kid's clubs at each location. (Since it was during the winter break, kids were not in school.) Our team organized games, songs, Bible lessons, dramas, and memory verses that all fed into the main theme for the day. They did all the teaching and the leading themselves. While there were certainly some growing pains and learning opportunities, by the end of the week they had it down and were doing a great job.

Playing "Telephone" at game time at the kid's club

A game similar to "duck-duck-goose"

Helping the small kids with games

Working on a memory verse at kid's club

Sharing a Bible story about Jesus

Teaching through a drama

Small groups afterward to help solidify learning

Small group with the youngest kids

Street Evangelism - In the afternoons, we would split up into smaller groups and go walk down the neighborhood streets. If we met people walking, or they were sitting outside at their homes, we would start conversations to share the gospel with them. (This idea may sound old-fashioned in a Western context, but it is not unusual to have spontaneous conversations with strangers in this more communal context.) One of our team members expressed how at first she was afraid of evangelism because she didn't know how people would respond, but that our training sessions gave her more confidence in what to say. She ended up being one of the most bold people as we went out, never letting someone pass on the street without making sure we talked to them! Personally, I was encouraged because many of the older people we met struggled in English, so I wasn't much use except to pray in the background. Meanwhile, the team was much more natural and fluid sharing in their own local languages! It was another reminder to me of exactly why we are training them to be missional.

Debrief - The last day of our trip was spent reflecting on our experiences and preparing them to go home. We talked about highlights, hardships, God-sightings, and how they can take what they've learned back home with them. One participant expressed how they learned the harvest really is plentiful, but "us laborers are busy with other things" sitting in our comfort zones. Another expressed that she learned fearfulness is actually not trusting God, and how she needs to have more confidence in God rather than in herself. One of the evenings we had watched a documentary called "Beyond Gates of Splendor" about some missionaries to Ecuador who were martyred trying to share the gospel with a dangerous, unreached tribe. Quite a few of our team were challenged by their refusal to fight back saying, "They are not ready for heaven, but we are."

Some debrief conversations while dinner is cooking

Relaxing a bit during our debrief time

After ten days of living on mission together with others who are encouraging us toward mission, now it was time to send them back home to go live out the mission in their own communities. Please pray for them as they go back home, that they would take what they learned from this week and apply it to their lives, that they would make missional living a priority, and that they would become advocates for mission in their churches and communities.

Lüderitz Mission Trip

At Namibia Evangelical Theological Seminary (NETS), we want to give our students practical opportunities to put into practice what they are learning in the classroom. So, each year we organize domestic mission trips where our student body breaks up into smaller teams, travels to different towns across the country, and partners with local churches to advance God's kingdom in those communities. This year I went with the group to the southern coastal town of Lüderitz. We did some street evangelism, ministered at an assisted living home, hosted a gospel worship night, and students preached at various local churches on the Sunday morning. We even had a few spontaneous opportunities like praying with a police group raising funds to search for a missing colleague, and giving a 'wedding blessing' for a couple who had just been married at court that morning. Then we also squeezed in some team fellowship time at the beach, and even found some of the famous desert 'wild' horses. Check out the video below to see what our trip was like!

NETS Mission Trip

In April 2022, the whole NETS community went out on a mission trip to Bushmanland and Rundu. We ministered in villages, churches, homes, schools, and on community streets. We partnered with local churches and shared God's good news with countless people. This video tells a bit of our story through photos and testimonies.

TMN: Debrief

Read previous posts in the Teen Mission Namibia series here: Mission Boot Camp; Ministry Days (part 1); Ministry Days (part 2).

For the last three and a half days the team had been working hard pouring out their energy and their hearts in ministry to the communities of Okahandja. They had learned so much in Boot Camp and put that into practice during our ministry days, and now it was time to turn our attention toward returning home. So on Friday afternoon we packed up and drove to the lovely Eldorado campground just north of Outjo where we would spend our last two nights.

Debrief means time to relax

...and enjoy free quality coffee!

This time was set aside for resting, relaxing and restoring our souls, but mostly for turning our minds back home. We had a few different sessions to debrief our experiences and try to convert it into learning that will transform our lives when we go home. In our first session we looked back on the trip, reflecting on some of our highlights, some of the hard parts, and some of the things that God had been teaching us along the way. In our second session we looked ahead to the situations we would be facing when we return home, to the challenges that lie ahead there, and how we can put into practice the things that we've been learning. Then in our third session we discussed how we can be missional influencers within our Christian communities.

We also got to take a short game drive through Etosha National Park. For some it was their very first time ever seeing lions, rhinos and giraffes. But the highlight of debrief was definitely our final meal. The lodge put together an extravagant buffet with soup and salads and lots of side dishes, but most of all more meat than even a Namibian could eat! Delicious tsosaties, and ribs, and boerewors, and beef chops on the braai. They saw lots of cool animals for the first time that day, but what they couldn't stop talking about was the food! 😂

Spotting giraffes in Etosha

Rhino in the shade in Etosha
(they probably removed the horns to protect against poachers)

Pride of lions in Etosha

The amazing spread for our final buffet dinner

Enjoying the amazing food

We closed our time with a little "commissioning" service studying 2 Corinthians 4. We emphasized that we are servants for Christ's sake, sharing His gospel, not trying to boost up our own reputation. Each person was given a mug (it was the closest I could find to a "jar of clay") to remind us that we are simply clay vessels bearing the incredible treasure of the gospel. We may end up experiencing hardships and persecution as we spread the good news, but in the end it is worth it, because these hardships are temporary, but our reward is eternal.

TMN 2021 Team

As we officially closed off Teen Mission Namibia 2021, I left tired but joyful. I found myself reflecting particularly on Paul's statement to the Corinthians in 2 Cor 4:12, "So death is at work in us, but life in you." Our volunteer staff had poured out their energy, their time and their lives to disciple and encourage and equip these six participants. It was like "hardship at work in us," but bringing new life and purpose to them. Now as they go back to their homes and are more intentional about getting involved in God's mission, they are our joy and crown. It was hard work, in the middle of our Christmas vacation, but it couldn't be more worth it.

TMN: Ministry Days (part 2)

Read previous posts in the Teen Mission Namibia series here: Mission Boot Camp; Ministry Days (part 1).

After our first two days of ministry in Nau-Aib, we would now do the same program again with a church in a location called Vyf Rand. Having already been through it once before, this time the program was on point. The team was exciting and engaging, they were loud and jumping around with the kids, and everything went very smoothly. Once again, our themes were gospel on the first day, and mission on the second day. 

Starting off with some game time

Games with the smaller kids

Around 160 kids came to our holiday club

Teaching our memory verse

Now can you recite it?

Teaching the Bible story of Philip and the Ethiopian

Small group with the younger girls

Small group with the younger boys

Small group with the older boys

Trying to keep those littlest ones occupied!

The first afternoon we split up into groups of 3 and were walking through the streets, visiting whoever was home. We would chat with them, and try to share the gospel if they were open to it, or just ask how we could pray for them. At one house, I was sharing the gospel with two ladies in English and could tell they weren't understanding very well. Then one of our other teammates came over (who is also one of my students at NETS) and she began sharing with them in their local language. She connected with them immediately and was so dynamic and engaging. I had no idea what she was saying, but I thought this is exactly why I am here, to train up those people who are cultural insiders who will communicate the gospel far better than I ever could!

The other afternoon we went to visit the dump site. There are a number of children and others who hang out there. They live in the nearby informal settlements and spend the day at the dump scrounging through other people's trash to see if there is anything valuable or edible. When we first arrived they ran after our bus to see what we were going to throw away. So we piled out and tried to engage the young crowd. Some of our team struck up conversations, others joined in with those kicking around a soccer ball. Some of the people, when they realized we weren't giving anything away, lost interest and walked off. Others were a bit more willing to listen. Just before we left we gathered in a big circle to pray, with somebody praying in each of the local languages. More than anything, the experience was very impactful for our team members. Some commented how they realized how privileged they really are. Others were struck by one injured boy who's mom had gotten drunk and poked him in the eye. They were heartbroken when he said that kind of thing happens regularly.

At our devotional around the fire that evening one of our ministry partners reminded us of one of the chief characteristics of Christ's ministry, compassion. Matthew 9:36 says, "When He saw the crowds, He had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd." She encouraged us to open our eyes and see what's happening around us and have a Christlike compassion. That passage goes on to say, "The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few." This trip was a challenge to our team members to take up that call and be one of those laborers.

Read the final post in the Teen Mission Namibia series here.