A few months ago I started communicating with Marie from the organization ‘Chords of Love’, who invited me to join her for an outreach in the north of Namibia. Committing to taking mission trips is always a step of faith for me as my resources are usually rather limited, and it was no different with this trip. But I have seen God work so many miracles in my seven years in Africa, that I had the confidence that He would supply. Many thanks to Activated Ministries, who were instrumental in making this outreach a reality! Activated Ministries not only sponsored two big boxes of Christian resource materials, but also helped with a generous donation to cover the traveling expenses.
My adventure started with a 38-hour trip by public transport. Traveling on 2 different busses, a taxi and a mini bus, covering a distance of 2,500 km, brought me to the town of Ondangwa in the north of Namibia.
Ovamboland is also called the Four O Region, because the names of the 4 districts, along with 80 % of towns and villages, all begin with ’O’. More than half of Namibia’s entire population, almost a million people, live here on just 6% of the Namibian territory. Namibia is twice the size of California or 3 times the size of the UK, but is home to only 2 million people; the landscape in the north is very flat and sandy with many pools of water after the rainy season.
I met up with Marie, a missionary from Finland, whose grand uncle had started a mission work and built a church 150 years ago in Olukonda. The church, along with the mission house and a small traditional Ovambo village now serves as a museum and a landmark in the history of the Ovambo people.
We had 6 sponsored sets of the STEPS Program and other children’s ministry materials, which we donated to the following two nursery schools, one Bible college, and three churches for their Sunday school programs. Approximately 300 children and young people will benefit from these materials.
Olukonda Nursery School, near Ondangwa
'Second Chance' Nursery School, Ondangwa - a bit of an odd choice for a name for a pre-school. The hut in the background is the humble classroom in a poor rural area.
At a small Bible college with 20 students where Marie had been teaching the 12 Foundation Stones Bible Course. We were able to leave them with their own set of the study material as well as the STEPS Program to help the students improve their English in a fun and meaningful way.
We were invited by a small church in Ruacana, a small village right by the border to Angola, to teach 12 Foundation Stones and Gospel Made Simple Bible courses.
In the evenings we were teaching 30 people in the pastors house, since their church doesn’t have electricity.
During the day we had many people coming by for counseling and prayer. Ruacana is a very small place, and everyone knows everyone. For the people who came to talk to us it was an opportunity to share very personal things with us that they would not talk to the people from the village about, even the pastor, for fear that it would start some gossip about them. There were many women who are diagnosed with HIV/AIDS, and are abused by their husbands. Some shared their heart about disunity among members of the church, financial problems and so much more. The most heart-breaking story was from a young lady who had been possessed by a spirit that made her crawl on the ground like a snake, and had gotten saved and cleansed some time ago. But the villagers didn’t seem to be able to see her as the new creature she had become, treating her as if there was still something wrong with her, which made her doubt her salvation. We assured her that Jesus loved her, assigned her passages from the Bible to read and left her some inspirational booklets which will help her become stronger in faith.
With Pastor Theuns Eloff in a church of the Tjimba tribe near Ruacana.
We gave them sponsored books for their Sunday school ....
