Covid Update

Over this past month, during our lockdown, the situation has improved. Our daily new infection rates have dropped from about 1600 to about 800. But along the way Namibia has become first in the world in deaths per capita due to covid. Starting tomorrow things will open up a bit with no regional travel restriction, a later curfew, and groups of up to 50 people. And, thankfully, we'll be able to return to face-to-face teaching at the seminary.

Regarding vaccines... I mentioned earlier that we did have two different vaccines available (AstraZeneca and Sinopharm). I even had an appointment earlier this month, but before I could go for the appointment our whole city ran out of vaccine stock. 🤦🏼‍♂️ We have now received more stock, but with the sudden spike in cases now everyone's interested and the lines are long. For some people the wait has been 3-7 hours (not exaggerating!). That's not for the poke, mind you, but due to all the hand written paperwork (🤦🏼‍♂️again). But even still, only 6.1% of our population have gotten their first shot, and only 1.8% have been fully vaccinated.

But in all this I have great peace, because the truth is any suffering we experience is a microcosm of God's great story. Remember from literature class, the tension of any plot line cries out for and points us toward the resolution. So any pain and suffering we experience in this world, is only a temporary precursor to life eternal! As Paul said, "For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing to the glory that will be revealed in us" (Rom 8:17).

I love the lyrics from Andrew Peterson's great song, "The Dark Before the Dawn":
I had a dream that I was waking

At the burning edge of dawn
And I could see the fields of glory
I could hear the sower's song
And all that rain had washed me clean
All the sorrow was gone
And I could finally believe
The king had loved me all along
I saw the sower in the silver mist
And He was calling me home

Pentateuch via Distance

Second semester at NETS has begun via distance education due to the tight covid restrictions in the country. I am teaching seven students through the books of the Pentateuch. We started off using Zoom which has worked out well over all. The trouble with taking online classes from home is that we often have to call students to wake them up!

I've also been making some videos discussing Genesis 1. Since I needed to be preparing for online class anyway, I decided to make them in a format accessible to anyone, and something that helps complement your personal Bible reading. You can check out those videos here.

Everyone seems to recognize that distance mode is less than ideal. We all miss the face-to-face contact for class, but also for mentoring groups, weekly Chapel, and socializing at tea time. Hopefully these restrictions will be lifted soon.

Covid Update

Since our second wave hit during the December-January holiday time, new cases had leveled off in Namibia. We were feeling optimistic with the decrease in cases and news of vaccines circulating. The government brought in a million doses of two vaccines, AstraZeneca and Sinopharm, and made it available for free. But people have been suspicious of conspiracy theories, or vaccine related deaths, or that it may be the "mark of the beast" from Revelation. So few people were going to get vaccinated that you could literally walk in with no lines and no waiting.

Additionally, people are tired of the restrictions, the face masks, the distancing, the group size limits. They are anxious for life to return to normal, so they stopped taking precautions. Recently, a video surfaced of a group of people partying at a night club after attending a covid-related funeral earlier that same day. So it wasn't much of a surprise when the third wave hit.

I first noticed it when more and more people in my circles were testing positive, or were in close contact with those who did. Then the numbers started rising, 400, 700, 800 new cases daily. Each day we kept setting new records for new cases. We've now been over 1000 new cases daily for the better part of this week, topping out at 2075 on Wednesday. These number may seem small in comparison, but remember we are a nation of only 2.5 million people. That makes Namibia the country with the second highest rate of new infections per capita on the entire continent.

With nearly 50% of the new infections occurring in the capital city, the government instituted a quarantine zone around the greater Windhoek area. Schools have been largely moved to distance learning mode. All contact sports have been cancelled and night clubs and casinos are closed. And we continue to have a curfew at 10pm each night.

Fortunately for me, NETS (Namibia Evangelical Theological Seminary) is closed for their mid-year break, and with my other SIM duties I can mostly work from home. So I have been able to stay fairly self-isolated and healthy during this time. Our hope is that this calms down over the next month allowing us to resume face-to-face classes when we return for the second semester in mid-July.

The True Kingdom Citizen

This semester at NETS we've been studying through the Sermon on the Mount in our Chapel times together. I got to conclude our series in our final Chapel preaching from Matthew 7:13-27 on the topic of being a true kingdom citizen. We’ve all known people who seem very spiritual on a Sunday morning, but live a completely different way during the rest of the week. So is a simple profession of faith, or saying a “sinner’s prayer” enough to be saved? You can download and listen to the message here. [Note: Our chapel service was held outdoors due to Covid so the wind and ambient noise affected the audio quality. Sorry.]

Introducing Teen Mission Namibia

After 3 years of teaching, training and guiding his disciples, Jesus sent them out on a mission to "make disciples of all nations." That mission has been passed down from generation to generation until, centuries later, European missionaries first brought the gospel to Namibia. By now the gospel has been in Namibia for over 150 years, and it's high time for us to be sending out missionaries to places that have yet to hear about the good news of Jesus.

But in Namibia, the term "missionary" still carries connotations of foreign Westerners coming here to serve, help, and give. The church needs a dramatic paradigm shift to consider every Christian as a missionary and "all nations" as our mission field.

Enter Teen Mission Namibia (TMN), a project designed to inspire and equip Namibian youth to get involved in God's mission in Namibia and the world. What better way to inspire and equip people for missions than by taking them on mission! So, for their summer break from school, we are organizing an 8-day mission trip to train young people for missions and then give them practical opportunities to serve.

The trip will start with 2 days of intense training, skill development, and team-building at Mission "Boot Camp." We then plan to travel to Osire Refugee Camp, which is home to over 6000 refugees from war-torn countries around Africa. There the team will have opportunities to put into practice all that they've learned. We will end with 1 day of debrief, helping them solidify their learning and prepare to take their new-found passion for missions back to their local churches. 

The team will consist of twenty-one teens age 14-18. They will be split up into groups of three, each led by one young adult small group leader age 19-24. Those young adults will come one day early for specific leadership, discipleship and small group training. We will also have 12 adult leaders managing the details of the trip. So our multi-tiered approach looks like this: 12 adult volunteers investing into 7 young adults who will be investing into 21 teens who will be investing into the whole community.

As you can imagine, such a God-sized vision requires God-sized provision. Each teen will be required to raise a certain amount of support (good practice for full-time missions!), but even that amount will only be a fraction of the actual cost to fund such an endeavor. Therefore, our planning team is seeking individual as well as corporate sponsors to help support this vision. Corporate in-kind donations will help lower our overall expenses, while financial donations will help pay the cost of those things that can't be donated.

If you would like to get involved with raising up a generation of Namibians passionate about missions and equipped to serve, you can give directly to our project through this link. We would also love for you to pray for us regarding the many details that need to fall into place, preparing the hearts of those who will be involved, and God's provision for the whole trip. Thanks for your consideration!

Commencement 2021

"This certificate is not the end; it's the beginning." That was the message from our Principal to our graduating students this past weekend. Students often feel that graduation is the end of their journey, but the reality is that studying was only a preparation stage. When they leave NETS it is the beginning of full-time ministry and life-long learning.

This year we hosted two graduations: one in the morning (to make up for the one we had to cancel last year due to the pandemic) and another in the afternoon. We met outside in our amphitheatre at NETS underneath a temporary shade tent. We had to keep under the government restrictions of 50 people, so we also live streamed the event for everyone who couldn't attend. And we ensured that everyone's seats were separated by a distance. Such is the nature of living through a global pandemic.

But overall, it was a great time of celebration, seeing the fulfillment of all the hard work put in by the students, faculty and staff. In total we had 12 graduates receiving their Bachelor's degree in theology, 2 graduates receiving their two-year Diploma in Ministry, 5 graduates receiving their one-year Certificate in Theology, and 20 students graduating from our distance Certificate in Christian Ministry program.

A musical number by some current students

Congratulations to our Barnabas and Timothy Award winners!

And congrats to all our graduates!

Enjoying some snacks and fellowship afterward.

Osire Vision Trip

We left from Windhoek early, before the sun was too high, because we still had a 3 hour drive ahead of us. Before we even reached the settlements, we drove past long fields of green crops with ladies in brightly colored dresses working in between the rows. It was a picture out of East Africa, or some other distant land, that seemed out of place in this ordinarily desert country. But Osire is exactly that, a small pocket of foreigners, fled from war-torn African countries, seeking refuge in our quiet corner of the continent.

Youth choir sharing a song

As we signed in at the police station, we were met by two church leaders who directed us through the small dirt streets to the church building where everyone was already waiting for us to arrive. We were ushered to four plastic chairs across the front of the sanctuary. After brief introductions from the pastor, translated from French (this was a predominantly Congolese congregation), the youth choir sang a song to welcome us. Then we were given the floor to introduce ourselves and explain why we were there.

We explained that we just came to meet them, to begin relationships and see what God was doing through their church in this place. In Africa, everything is built around relationship. We didn't come with an agenda. We came to listen. We came to make friends. Because when you are friends, then things can happen. When you're willing to listen to their hearts and hurts, only then can you really come alongside, empathize, encourage, and support.

After over 2 hours listening to this small, young congregation, we went down the street to visit another church. In stark contrast, they had a massive church building, electric instruments, and elder men as church leaders. Hailing largely from East Africa, this was a Kiswahili speaking congregation. But despite the differences in the churches, they also expressed similar social issues in the community--immense physical poverty, due largely to unemployment because they're not allowed to work, school dropouts for lack of motivation, lack of skills training, and all this on top of the emotional trauma of the situations they had fled from. But such hopelessness and meaninglessness stem from a deeper poverty, that is, their spiritual poverty. This is why missions needs to be wholistic, addressing both physical and spiritual needs.

Saying goodbye to new friends

After spending Sunday morning celebrating God's goodness together, we departed from our new friends with full hearts. Despite their own needs, they were incredibly generous and welcoming. They were excited that we considered them enough to come visit. And now from our side, we can't wait to go back and start to help meet those needs we've now discovered.