Snake!

Last night the girls came running to my house because they found this snake in the road down the street from my house. One of the neighbors ran the snake over with his truch so it is a bit mutilated. Before they killed it, the snake was about four and a half to five feet long. This is a highly poisonous snake so I am glad they killed it!

Taxi Driver

This is Phillip, my taxi driver. Phillip is a huge blessing. Not only does he pick up Linda and I and take us to school and back but he will come and pick me up whenever I need him. Most of the taxi drivers aren't really "on call" so I try to show Phillip how much I appreciate him by bringing him treats now and then and sometimes lunch if we are in town. I think he also gets a kick out of us "Americans."

Cake!

One of the youth, Josh, had a birthday this week. (Check out the pictures a bit farther down) We had all the youth and Josh's brothers and sisters and cousins over for a birthday party dinner. Below are some of the kids enjoying the cake!

(first picture) - Ileni pretending not to love the chocolate cake!

(second picture) - Josh's younger sister, Tangeny, enjoying some cake. Tangeny is just beginning to get comfortable with me.

(third picture) - Josh's younger cousin, Rochel. Rochel is super sweet but super shy.

(fourth picture) - Sippee and Sussie, a couple of youth girls, enjoying their cake as well as enjoying one of their favorite tv shows on the Disney channel, "The Suite Life of Zack and Cody."

Happy Birthday Josh!

One of the youth boys had a birthday on May 29th. Josh turned 19. We had a little get together/party at my house on the 30th. Josh's parents are out of town this week due to the death of their elder daughter. I really wanted to make his brirthday special because it has been such a hard time for him and his family the past few weeks. Here are some pictures of the cake, Josh making a scary face while holding his cake, and Josh wearing his new hat and holding his birthday card.

New Classroom!

I am finallly in my new classroom that I will be sharing with Linda. They call our classes the "special" class. I am not sure if I like this! :-) This is pre-setup. I am standing with one of my remedial math students, Buitemelo. She just took a 20 addition problem test. Each class takes one each week. She got them all right so her test is put up on the board and she gets a

sweet (candy) for her hard work. Buitemelo is such a sweetheart. I adore her. She has come in the last few days to help sweep the floor or clean the erasers. She is always eager to help.

Jessica's May Update

Note: This is the letter that is sent by email so some of you may have already read this. Feel free to read it again and leave a comment or send an email! : - )

Greetings from Namibia! Here is my May Update. Warning - It is a long email! ;-)

"This is the message you heard from the beginning: We should love one another." 1 John 3:11

"Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and with truth." 1 John 3:18

We have all heard that love is a verb. I also have heard this many times and thought that is was a great way to live. The people in my life back in the states are easy to love mostly because I have chosen them to be part of my life. Living here in Namibia, with a ministry that I stepped into, is a whole different experience in loving people. For example, loving teenagers takes a concious choice! :-) Loving the kids that jump the fence in my backyard while I am not home is a concious choice! Loving my students at school who never listen and like to pull my hair is a concious choice! Loving the Afrikaaners who don't really accept me is a concious choice. Now don't get me wrong, I love all these people with my whole heart but I am learning that it is my love for the Lord that allows me to love these people. For many of these people, particularly the youth and children, I get the warm fuzzy feeling when they are being cute and sweet or when we are goofing around and having a good time but their are times when they are all unlovely and difficult to love. So how can I love them when the teens are complaining about something or the students are naughty or I get excluded from activities? I have been reflecting often that this must be how the Lord feels about me when I am being unlovely. When I read my bible, spend time with him, share Him with others and worship him, I am sure Christ is getting warm fuzzy feelings for me but what about the times I am complaining, when I am being naughty or when I don't invite him to the party? Christ loves me despite my unlovely behavior even though it needs to change. He admonishes me, guides me and gives me the support to make better decisions because He loves me. He has given me the opportunitiy to do this with the people of Namibia.

With that said, I would love to tell you about the last few weeks.

The school holiday started four weeks ago and in my town, Grootfontien, it seems like the world stops. School is out, youth group stops, children's church stops, church goes to one service or no service at all and nearly everyone heads out of town. I was worried that I would be super bored during the time but just because the country is on holiday doesn't mean our house ministry was. Out of the four weeks of holiday I was out of town for two and in town for two. During the two weeks I was at home we had three girls sleepovers, seven or eight youth dinner nights and ten to twelve movie times. We built a new sandbox in the backyard and had a stream of kids in and out to play, read books, play UNO and beg for bread! What a blessing from the Lord that I wasn't bored.

One of the weeks I spent in Windhoek with my housemate Linda. We spent an afternoon in a meeting of teaching AIDS education. We recieved some great material and I am super excited to start it with the youth group this term. We also met with some Namibian teachers to discuss the teaching and education in Namibia and some of the specific problems that we are dealing with in Grootfontein. Again, I left with some good advice and tools to bring back for this term. And of course I went to the coffee shop for my Starbucks like drink! I was also able to do some shopping. I was needing some new clothes as many of mine are not fitting as well anymore! Oh yea, Spiderman 3 was playing in the theater so we found a few minutes to pop in and watch that.

I also spent one week in the town of Rundu which is up in the north on the border of Angola. It was a really refreshing time with five girls from North America who are my age. It was a blessing to be able to relax a bit with the girls and just be a normal girl for a few days. We watched movies, talked about boys, goofed around and laughed a lot. While I was there I was able to visit the state hospital which was quite shocking and I was very humbled by the task that the missionary nurses have before them. I also had the opportunity to participate in the Orphan and Vulnerable Children Project. I love playing with the children and this was one of the highlights of the trip. There was a training for Sunday School Teachers for two of the churches and I participated in that also which was a blast! My favorite part of the trip was the four hour church service on Sunday. The singing, the building, the translating and jus t the whole atmosphere was what I had remembered from my previous trips and I loved it! My time in Rundu was great and I was so blessed by the other missionaries who really where generous with their time and the homes!

So, what's next...

I head back to school this week and back to remedial math and Religion class. I am looking forward to teaching again! I miss my classes. Youth Group and Children's Church start again this week as well and I am looking forward to those times as the groups are both growing tremedously. Linda and I will also be doing once a month Sex and AIDS education at the high school girls hostel. And the house ministry continues to grow and flourish as many kids and youth come in and out and I get to be a part of their lives. It is an amazing feeling. As always, I feel so blessed to be here, right where the Lord wants me and being so happy despite struggles and difficulties that come with life, no matter where it is.

I know this is a long email but thanks so much for all your prayers, support, emails and encouragement. I am so blessed by each one of you and am so excited that you are part of this. God is doing amazing things here in Grootfontein and you are an important part of it. Your emails in particular are a huge encouragement to me in a way I hope you understand. They keep me going sometimes when I have had a really tough day. Thanks again! Below are some prayer requests and praises. Don't forget to check out my blog, their are a lot of new pictures and stories. My contact information is below as well.

Praise
*I am settled and happy and busy, busy, busy!
*The Lord replenished my body and spirit over the holiday.
*Continual blessings by the children and youth I am working with.

Prayers
*Heading back to activities, getting back into things will be a challenge!
*Church Leadership - I will write more about this next time.
*Wisdom - as my relationships with the youth grow, our conversations about life and the Lord have become more intense. Pray for wisdom in the words I say.
*Pray for the Josua family as they have lost their elder sister a week ago. I am really close to the family and am trying to spend time and just be their for them.

Thanks again and God Bless!
Jessica

jessrd19@comcast.net
www.jessicatoafrica.blogspot.com

P.O. Box 1072
Grootfontein Namibia
Africa 9000

Cell Phone: +264 81 32 40 489
Home Phone: 00264 67 24 00 09
(remember, we are eight hours ahead of Portland, Oregon and two hours behind Kenya)

Linda's Trip to Victoria Falls

During the holiday, Linda took a trip up to Victoria Falls in the country of Zambia. There are several pictures below including some of her elephant ride. The baby in the second picture below is only four weeks old!

Sunset on the Zambezi River, Zambia

"The voice of the Lord is over the waters; the God of glory thunders, the Lord thunders over the mighty waters. The voice of the Lord is powerful; the voice of the Lord is majestic."

Psalm 29:3-4

Yet Another Youth Movie Night!

There was a movie on the Disney Channel, "Jump In," that some of the girls have been wanting to watch. What started as a few girls coming over for some soup and a movie turned into seventeen youth over for dinner and a movie. Our living room was jam packed and I was squashed in a corner with kids laying all over me and I was loving every minute of it! The second picture is of the dishes clean up that was left when all the youth had gone. As always, these spontaneous youth nights are one of my favorite parts of being here. This has been such an unexpected ministry but it has opened a lot of doors for relationships with the youth. The girls are starting to open up to me a lot and I have been able to share Christ with them several times and pray with them several times. They are in such need of the Lord and I see each one of them opening the door to following Him a bit more each day. The Lord has provided many opportunities for both Linda and I to lead by example and by words and we are both so humbled that God has allowed us this opportunity.

Trophies

Check out the pictures of the "trophies" the boys created. They are quite proud of them! :-)

Study Time!

Our house is always busy and lately it has been even busier. I now have three tutor kids. Suama has been coming for math lessons and two of the neighbor boys are coming for reading practice. They both have picked out one of our chapter books and are reading a chapter a day. I am excited to see their improvement!

Pirates Party!

I managed to get a copy of Pirates of the Carribean and everyone came over to watch. The living room was jammed packed with 20 youth and neighbor kids. They absolutely loved it. We will be showing the second one on Saturday.

New Sandbox!

Today we created a new sort of sandbox in our backyard and bought a few plastic animals in town. When the neighbor kids came over they were super stoked! They dug and played with the animals, chased eachother around the yard and made their animals eat each other. I sat outside with them and just watched them playing. I was filled with joy at the sight of these children laughing and playing in the yard. They are so precious1 ;-)

Please Pray!

This is a family that I have grown quite close to. Last week their older sister passed away. She had a husband and a 20 month old daughter. Their parents left this week to head up north with their oldest son at home to take care of the funeral. They had to leave behind Suama and Peter, the two on the bottom who are twin 15 year olds, to take care of their younger brother and sister and their young cousin. Their older brother Josh returns next week for school while their parents will remain up north for another couple of weeks. Please be praying for them not only for the family as they deal with their loss but also for these three teens who are in charge of the family. Linda and I are helping with providing food, having them all over for dinner, talking, giving hugs, praying and anything else we can think of. As you can imagine, this is a difficult time and your prayers would be great! Thank you...

"And he took the children in his arms, put his hands on them and blessed them."

Mark 25:44

Singing Time!

I was super blessed to listen to the kids singing. It is amazing to listen too. They sing perfectly together without an adult leading them. The girl in the striped shirt lead the singing and she had a great voice. They have so much energy. I can't describe in words how wonderful and touching it is to listen to their beautiful little voices...

Fun and Games!

I was taught some new hand clapping games by some of the learners. I think I caught on pretty well and it was a lot of fun. I did get laughed at quite a bit though!

Lunchtime at the Orphan Project

While I was in Rundu I had the opportunity to participate with a local churches orphan project. The kids played games, sang songs, heard a bible story and had lunch.

(first picture) - Local women from the church preparing the porridge and soup for the meal.

(the rest of the pictures) - The kids are enjoying the afternoon meal.

Snapshots of Rundu!

Here are just some quick pictures of the town of Rundu. It is much more rural than the town I live in, Grootfontein. It is amazing how driving for a couple of hours can change so much. To get to Rundu from Grootfontein you have to cross the "red line" which kind of seperates the country. The northern part of the country is very rural and mostly black and bushman I believe. There are a lot more huts and tribal type living and less paved roads. It is very interesting to see the difference from where I live in Grootfontein. I really enjoyed being in the more rural part of Namibia.

Hospital Children

Here are some of the patients in the Rundu hospital. I was able to visit the children's ward with my friend Sarah who is a nurse there. It is a lot different from the hospitals in the states. It was hard to see some of the things in the hospital and knowing how much technology is available that they don't have. Please pray for the hospital and the people who work there. They have a huge job and it is very difficult for western volunteers to deal with some of the situations there.

(first picture) - This is one of the preemie babies. When I visited this room they had a baby laying on a mattress on the floor.

(second picture) - Two young patients. What great smiles!

(third picture) - This baby is a burn victim. There isn't anyone at the hospital who can provide the surgery needed to fix this baby's face. Last I heard there may be a plastic surgeon coming from the states to help out. This isn't an isolated case. There are many situations that need help that is not available in Namibia. Pray that more people would be called to come and serve in countries where they need more medical help. There is such a need not only in Namibia but all over Africa!