One Day

This past weekend my church hosted their annual One Day youth camp. We had over 100 youth in attendance, plus many church members and young adults volunteering to help pull it off. I was helping out as part of the worship team. The theme for the day was HE>i (that is, "He is greater than I") and the main sessions looked at how God is greater than everything, greater than us, and greater than our mess ups. During our closing session 17 youth made decisions for Christ for the first time! Then in our worship jam session after that they sang so loud that the band couldn't even hear what we were playing in the monitors. 😂Check it out...

Along the River

Rundu is the second largest city in Namibia located along the Kavango River which makes up our northern border with Angola. This area of Namibia is one of the most diverse in terms of languages and people groups. One of those is the Hambukushu people living in villages spread along the river about 160km past Rundu. In one of these villages, SIM had a historic mission station that has since been handed over to the church. It was leaders of that church who invited me to come lead a weekend training seminar with their youth leaders.

It took the whole day to drive from Windhoek to Mbukushu, so that Friday evening we only had time for brief introductions. Since I arrived after dark, it was only the next morning when I could actually see where I was. The church plot is located right along the river, the rising sun glistening off the rippling water. It's a place where everything is green and the trees grow tall and the dry desert sinks into distant memory. There are a few old missionary houses on the plot. I was staying in one with another missionary, and the 20 or so youth leaders were all bunking in another. The church building is small but sufficient for the few from the surrounding village who attend.

Mornings were quite cool by the river, so we held our sessions outside where we could catch some warmth from the sun. We spent most of our time talking about why we do ministry with the youth, and how we need to be taking the gospel to the next generation. We also thought about their own circles of influence and who in their lives they need to be intentional about discipling.

The church building in Mbukushu

The youth workers of Mbukushu

Small group work at the training in Rundu

On Sunday afternoon I drove back to Rundu where I led some similar sessions on Monday and Tuesday evenings. We also had about 20 youth workers for these sessions, but they came from many different churches. It was a great display of unity as they are all working together to help the young people of that community grow up in Christ. We observed how our strategy is often inviting people to "come to church," yet Christ commissioned us to "go and tell." One of the cooler suggestions on how they can be "going to make disciples" was starting a ministry amongst juveniles in the local prison. I hope that, growing out of our time together, many ministries like that would be started amongst the youth in and around Rundu.

The Kehemu EBC church in Rundu

Sunset over the Kavango River

Synergy Conference

"Synergy" means to combine efforts to accomplish something greater. Anybody who is in the field of youth work knows that this is exactly what we need. Thus, the inspiration behind the name of a youth workers conference I attended in Okahandja. It was organized and hosted by two local youth pastors from Windhoek who are growing in their passion for training youth workers. Other speakers included an Afrikaans rap group from South Africa who are doing great ministry amongst artists in their community, and a representative from the Office of the First Lady.

One of the coolest parts of the conference for me was having one of my current NETS students leading the worship, another in attendance, and one of my former students leading us through some team-building activities. He joked that now he was the one giving out grades! Though at the end of the day I gave him an A+. It really is a great encouragement to see some of the results of such a long-term investment.

But perhaps the greatest benefit and encouragement for me was networking with other youth workers. It was great to hear stories from them about how God is using them in ministry across Namibia. I hope this idea of synergy doesn't stop at the conference, but that we continue to combine our efforts and work together to reach the next generations with the gospel.

The whole conference crew

Ministry to Children and Youth

This week kicks off final exams for our students at Namibia Evangelical Theological Seminary (NETS). The semester is almost over and then students will have about a 5-week break before returning for second semester in mid-July.

This semester I've been teaching two courses, OT Survey and Ministry to Children & Youth. In our youth ministry class, one section looks at a number of different contextual realities and issues that youth in Namibia are facing today. These issues are like landmines and as youth traverse the minefield of adolescence they are not coming through unharmed. We as youth workers can't heal them ourselves, but we're more like medics who drag them out of the battlefield to the One who can.

We also spend some time talking about facilitating experiential learning. All of us experience tension, anxiety and frustration in our lives. Often our responses are not as Christlike as we would prefer. If we know how to evaluate our responses well and seek biblical conclusions, then we can learn and grow through our experiences. My students learn how to help young people work through this learning process. Here [in the photo] they are experiencing a little tension of their own regarding 'personal space' and teamwork, which I was then able to use to model this kind of facilitating.

Other highlights of the course include visiting and evaluating an existing youth or children's ministry, four mentoring sessions with a teen of their choice over the course of the term, and writing a lesson plan regarding one of those landmine issues.

As students are now turning in their final assignments, it's a great encouragement to see how far they've come since the beginning of the semester. I'll close off with this introductory paragraph one of my students wrote in her final paper...

"I am one of the people who thought youth ministry is not a big deal because they do not have much to do besides keeping the kids away from the streets, in particular, bars and dance clubs. How wrong have I been! Upon visiting youth programs, mentoring and actually just making conversation with teens, I have really changed my perspective and the youth workers have my utmost respect."

Graduation

This is graduation season in Namibia! This time of year all the universities hold ceremonies to celebrate those who finished their studies in December of last year. Some highlights from our NETS Graduation included heartfelt testimonies from three graduates, a speech from a representative of the Ministry of Higher Education, an impromptu speech from the mayor of Windhoek (including a call for Christians to put pressure on the government to reintroduce prayer and Bible study to schools, and a suggestion that he may enroll in courses at NETS for himself!), and the emcee announcing the Bachelor's degree students like they were professional wrestlers. Check out the photos below!

Academic Procession

Keynote Address from a representative of the Ministry of Higher Education

Last year's Student Body President receiving an award recognizing her servant leadership

A Bachelor's graduate, excited to be finally finished, receiving his hood from our Academic Dean

Dedicatory Prayer for all the graduates

They saw this in a movie once

Introducing the NETS class of 2019! Students in the green robes received either a Certificate in Christian Ministry or a Certificate in Theology. Of the students in the black robes and purple hoods, three received a Diploma in Ministry or Theology, and six graduated with a Bachelor's degree in Theology. Faculty and Board members are around the sides and the back.

Living in Exile

This semester in NETS Community Devotions we've been preaching through the book of Jeremiah. We've followed him through his call & commissioning, delivering harsh messages from God promising punishment for Judah's sin and idolatry, experiencing persecution for those messages, confronting false prophets, and more. This past week I preached on the beloved chapter 29, a letter from Jerusalem to the group already in exile in Babylon. In this letter, Jeremiah reminds them that God's plans for them look a bit different then their own plans for themselves, but He hasn't given up on them. Are we willing to have patience and trust in God's plans and God's timing, even when we don't like it? You can listen to the message here if you'd like.

Student Life

As a teacher I often feel like I'm constantly pouring out, so it's nice when I have an opportunity to get filled back up. Technically, I'm allowed one week per year for continuing professional development, so for the first time in five years I decided to take advantage of that! So last week I rescheduled my classes, hopped on a tiny little plane with only about 20 other people for the short flight to Cape Town, and stepped back into the classroom myself.

GWC is the yellow building in the background.

George Whitefield College is a reformed Anglican Bible school in Muizenberg, South Africa, a small suburb located on the southern coast of Cape Town. They had invited Dr. Don Carson to come as a visiting lecturer to teach a post-graduate course on the epistle to the Hebrews. Dr. Carson has been a pastor, professor at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Chicago, prolific author and editor of many books and articles, and co-founder of The Gospel Coalition (among other things!). I heard that somebody once said they have three rules in life: 1) Tell your wife you love her; 2) Brush your teeth twice a day; and 3) If you ever, ever, ever have a chance to hear Don Carson teach, then always take it!

So six years after my last seminary class, I found myself a student again. It was actually really nice to be back in the academic sphere where I was surrounded by other people who were asking the same kinds of questions I find myself asking. It was great to dive deeply into texts of Scripture, to pick apart the logical flow of argument, and figure out how the NT author was appropriately quoting and re-applying passages from the Old Testament. But perhaps my biggest takeaway from the course was seeing how Dr. Carson seamlessly wove together his knowledge from many different disciplines. It's amazing how his systematic theology and his language study and his pastoral experience inform his Biblical exegesis and vice versa. It's easy to separate each of those into different categories, but he helpfully brought them all together. It reminded me how I need to be reading much more broadly across the scope of different disciplines within theological studies.

Overall it was helpful, and encouraging, and challenging to help me become a better teacher. And it didn't hurt that after class I could walk across the street for a little stroll along the beach!

Muizenberg beach on a warm sunny day