One Last Week

Hey!

As always, thanks for the e-mails and encouraging words.

Tomorrow will mark the beginning of our last week in Namibia. We've been doing lots of planning and trying to be as useful and effective as we can with our final days. We hope to spend some time reaching out on the UNam campus, and helping out in a clinic and 2 orphanages.

Last Friday, we did an assembly for a local primary school. It included a dance we've all learned, a karate demonstration (we have a new member who has a Karate Ministry who shares with them), sharing of the gospel, and a testimony. I gave a short testimony in front of about 500-600 5th, 6th, and 7th graders. Haha...that was quite a new experience for me. :-) We did another assembly today for a few hundred 1st-5th graders. Both times, the principals were really supportive afterwards and sincerely thanked us for what we were doing...and even reinforced to the kids to listen to what we had said and follow Christ. Hmmm not in America!

On Saturday, we drove out to the fringe of Windhoek to a neighborhood called Katatura. I think I discovered what real poverty looked like here. As we drove down the dirty, sandy road, I looked out the window and saw rolling hill after rolling hill of tin shacks. No running water, no electrcity. The orphanage we went to was also a tin shack, probably about one-half the size of my bedroom in Cincinnati. 35 kids sleep there each night. These kids have nothing. We took them some food and shared Jesus with them, sung some songs....and just played. One girl came up to me and rubbed my face and hair for about 2 minutes haha. It's easy to pity these kids when you see them....but when you begin interacting, it's hard to not have the hope of Jesus for them. I don't really know what to say about them...you kind of just have to experience it for yourself. We hope to go back again this week and give them some matresses or something.


On another note, our team leader's brother-in-law has passed away and the family would really like him to be there. So, Ed will be heading back to the States tomorrow (Tuesday). He has left Molly (one of the team members) and myself in charge of the team. Please pray for Ed as he travels back and prepares to leave us for the remainer of the trip. It will make things a bit more challenging since he is the money man! We are going to try to purchase as much today as we can before he leaves. Please pray for all the arrangements and the new responsibilities we will face. We have some great Namibians to help us out, though, and you can be rest assured that we will be just fine :-)

Thanks for your prayers and for reading through these long e-mails! I've got about 5000 pictures (they add up fast with 9 photographers) and 7 hours of video for anyone who is interested in seeing a bit more of the trip...when I return.

I hope to write one more time before returning!

In Christ,
Dan