I wrote this in a town called Rundu, on the Namibian side of the Namibia-Angola border, just south of the Okavango River. We had just finished our first day of outreach in a High School. You can figure out the rest from the entry......
"7/15/2008
God is good!! Today is what I would call our first outreach. We went to a local high school and shared about abstinence. It was great getting to mix it up with some kids again! I went and watched two other groups teach before doing ours with Laura L. and Jerome.
Fulla was teaching that one…full of 12th graders. At one point she was asking about the problems the youth of Namibia were facing and about what diseases they were fighting. A young boy stood up and said “AIDS – the disease which breaks my heart.” The class very quietly agreed that it breaks their hearts too.
At that point, I think it began to be real to me. We read the statistics on the internet: 20% of Namibians suffer from AIDS. But when we walk the streets and mix it up with folks, the only reminder of this epidemic is the cold poster signs hanging around town for various AIDS programs. But, it’s about more than just the sickness. To these kids, the heartbreak of losing a family member or friend to AIDS was what really tore them up.
We finally got our shot to share with a group of 8th graders at 5th period. We talked about God and His creation in Genesis 1:1. We talked about how God defines marriage in Genesis 2:24. We talked about the good and bad of sex inside and outside of marriage. We talked about the ABC slogan, which they all know: Abstain, Be Faithful, Condemize. We talked about the false safety in condoms and the risks that were still present.It was going good and I feel like we were making progress. But then class-time was up and we had to wrap up really quickly. Well, it turned out that their teacher for the next period wasn’t there (I think this happens a lot in Africa) and they all wanted to continue the discussion inside. We went inside and opened it up to their questions and had some dialogue through that.
But, finally, we got to talking about what you do if you’ve already had sex. How do you deal with that pain? One of the team members shared her story about how she had performed some sexual activity with a boy when she was in 7th grade. She shared about the pain and shame that she went through and how God was what helped her through and helped heal her. This is when I really started noticing them all begin to pay attention. From there, I began to sum up where we get the strength to do anything and shared the Gospel with them using the bridge illustration (a classic Navigators tool). The attention I had from every single eye in the room was astonishing.
It was here where I realized two important things:God, please help these children to know you. Help them to accept the forgiveness you offer. Please, please, please reveal yourself to them. I pray that these kids would set an example and be role-models for generations to come. That their faith in Jesus would give them the strength to really impact the problems facing this generation of Namibians."
- We aren’t really here to tell them how to fix AIDS. We’re here to share with them the hope and good news of Christ. I think it’s astounding to many who read the Bible and see when Jesus forgives sin before healing them. But ya know, after talking about diseases, unwanted pregnancies, and poverty…it was forgiveness of sins and the story of Jesus that really captivated them. The underlying issue is an issue of sin that must be addressed before any social problems are really ever made progress on.
- There is power in the Gospel. There is something so true and so hopeful about it that it’s captivating. These young Namibians are thirsting for Christ. They are thirsting for hope and for good news in a world, to them, in which very few of these two things exist.
