Happy Holidays!

The desert paints some of the most exquisite sunsets you’ll ever see. As the sun sinks silently into the horizon it ignites the few lonely clouds with strokes of yellow, pink, and orange. These are suspended on a background of every shade of blue imaginable, from pastel where the sun has just disappeared to the deep blue at the height of it’s dome directly overhead fading into the purples and pinks of the opposite horizon. With no obstructions, the sky is so expansive that it’s impossible to take it all in with a single view. Meanwhile the low, steady howl of the constant wind silences every other sound until it’s only you, this massive color pallet, and your Creator.

Over the holiday break I’ve been staying in Arandis. It’s a small town in the desert and many people have left for the holidays so it’s been peaceful and quiet. It’s always sunny and being only 60km from the ocean we get a nice cool coastal breeze. I do still have a few friends who’ve stayed in town so it’s been nice catching up with them and mostly just relaxing.

Some days I will drive the 30 minutes west to the coastal town of Swakopmund. At a pretty constant 60-70 degrees, it’s where many people travel to during the holidays to escape the oppressive inland heat. I go to find some beach volleyball, take a stroll out the jetty, hike a dune, or just relax with a book on the beach listening to the sounds of playful children and crashing waves. This holiday I’ve been reading Family-Based Youth Ministry for work, and for pleasure, rereading one of my favs, A Severe Mercy by Sheldon Vanauken. I’ve also used some of the downtime to finally catch up on sorting and editing photos from the past few months, which I’m slowly uploading to my Flickr page whenever the internet decides to work.

I sincerely hope that whatever you’re doing over the holidays, it provides you with a time to rest a bit, enjoy people you love, and reconnect with the God who loves you so much that He sent His Son in the form of a baby who would grow up and die on a cross so that you might have a relationship with Him. Wishing you all a very merry Christmas and happy New Year!

December Video Update

Summer Camp 2014

It's All About The Trophy

On the first day of camp we were split up into four teams: yellow, blue, green, and red. I was made one of the leaders of the Red Team. Throughout the week teams would compete against each other for three different trophies. The first was the Bible Quiz trophy. Teams would answer Bible trivia questions for points and then the top two teams played off in the championship on the final night. The Yellow Team won the Bible Quiz trophy.

The second was the Spirit Trophy. This trophy rewarded not only team spirit, but also characteristics like working together, encouraging each other, how well they served and cleaned during their kitchen duty, and positive attitudes.

But by far the most coveted trophy was the Sports Trophy. Each team put together teams to compete in soccer, volleyball, and netball. There were also individual events like high jump, long jump, a 100 meter race, 200 meter race, and a 400 meter relay. Whoever collected the most points over all those events won the trophy.

Now everybody comes to camp to have fun, but honestly not everyone is on an even playing field when it comes to athletic ability. Especially during the teenage years, some people are just more athletic than others. But in my mind, that shouldn’t stop you from having fun. So as we put together our teams the most athletic guys wanted to play soccer, the most athletic girls wanted to play netball, and so my volleyball team was kind of a conglomeration of people who wanted to participate for the fun of it and not because they were the most athletic people on the team.

As we were playing our volleyball games, and losing, the other athletic Red Team members kept coming up to me saying, “Put me in, coach.” But I kept saying, “You played soccer or netball. Let’s give these other people a chance.” They were all getting super upset at me because we had done really well in the individual events and had a chance to win. Plus all the other teams were letting their athletic players play in all three sports.

By the end of the sports I was so frustrated that all anybody cared about was winning. What we reward teaches kids what we value, what we think is important. Were we really trying to teach these youth that their value is in their athletic ability?! I began to realize that my frustration arose from a clash in worldviews. The world values people for their athletic ability, or their external appearance, or their ability to entertain. But Jesus valued the outcasts and the people others considered worthless. He understood that everyone has intrinsic value because they are made in the image of God. Because I follow Jesus, I value different things than the world values. I would much rather let everyone participate and have a good time than win some silly camp trophy. In fact, I told my team I would rather forfeit every game than become all about winning at any cost. I'm far more concerned about their character, how they treat opponents, encouraging and building each other up no matter how well they perform, working hard, having fun and giving it their best shot.

In the end, we got last place in the sports competition. The Green Team won that trophy. But somebody happened to notice that our team let everybody participate, even the weak ones, even if it meant losing. And apparently that made an impression, because it won us the Spirit Trophy, which was the only one I really cared about anyway.

Wedding Bells

  

Congratulations to my friends Blessing and Anthea Chishanu! Anthea is our registrar at NETS working in the administrative offices. They met when Blessing came as a student from Zimbabwe. This past semester he was in my course on Ministry to Children & Youth. Next year will be his fourth and final year and they are still seeking what God has for them next after graduation.

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.