Africa At Last!: March 2008

Just a few sights in Rundu, the town I spent Easter in...

A Sad Reality...

There are so many amazing things I have experienced here and I have memories that are so unique and special. There are a lot of joys that I have had and I am so blessed to be here. But the reality of life here is so very different than what I grew up with and there are also many reminders of that. Below is a story that hit all of us missionaries intensely and reminded us of why we are here and what a need for there is for the hope of Christ.

Awhile back, there was a surprise at the Rundu hospital when six children, siblings, were brought into the hospital with what appeared to be sickness from something they ate. Although the doctors did what they could, one by one, each child passed away. The youngest was almost three and the oldest was eighteen. The youngest passed away first and the oldest last. It came out later, although without any strong evidence, that the parents had poisened all six of their children. This is shocking but it is not for the reasons you would hear from this type of situation in the US. These parents had basically lost all hope. They had no way of supporting their children. They could not afford to send them to school, pay for clothes or feed them adequately. What must it be like for a parent whose heart felt their was nothing that they could do for their own children, no way to provide the basic neccasities of life for them. These parents truly believed that it was better for their children to die than to continue living the way that they were. It is hard to think about this situation and I am not sure how to feel about things. There is no excuse for killing your children but the hopelessness that these parents feel must have been overwhelming. And I think about the older children, as they lay in the hospital bed knowing what probably happened. How must the oldest child felt as he watched his brothers and sisters pass away. The reality of life here is so different than what I have ever known. The hopelessness and the deep need for Christ is different than I have ever known. I do ask for your prayers. Please pray for us as missionaries. With as much joy as we see in what Christ is doing, there are continually stories like this one that keep us aware of why we are here. But also be praying for the people of Namibia to really reach out to a God that brings love and hope. He is really the only one that can bring them exactly what they need.

Below are the pictures of the graves of the six children.

Rundu is a town to the North of where I live and I spent the Easter Holiday there this year. Here is a photo looking out on the Kavango River. It is beautiful. I love this spot because it reminds me a little bit like home just seeing the river and all. I do miss water!

Another picture of the water and of course I had to do a little posing.

From left to right, Linda M (my housemate), Mary (the english woman who teaches at the teachers college in Rundu), Anny (not with AIM but also teachers at the teachers college), and Kimmie (my host in Rundu who is a nurse at the Rundu Hospital)

Anna, Kimmie and I. We had a great weekend of doing a lot of nothing and eating a lot of good food. It was so fun to hang out with these girls. One night we even showed Star Wars to the students who remained at the college. That was a lot of fun. We set up a projector outside and had a little movie night complete with hilarious commentary from the students.

This picture is a little scary but I can explain. In our town, Grootfontein, there really isn't any place to go eat and so I cook all the time. I love it and it is a lot of fun but I do miss going "out" sometimes. So there are a lot of lodges in Rundu since it is on the Kavango river and one in particular serves steak. So the girls and I went "out" for like the first time in a long time. It was so good and we had a great time!

Sad but funny!

Egg dying is part of my memories for Easter but this year went a little different. There is another volunteer that is not with my organization who lives in the town of Rundu where I went to spend Easter with another missionary, Kimmie. So Anna, the other volunteer, had recieved an egg dying kit in the mail and we thought we would have some fun. We dyed a total of ten eggs and we were super stoked because there were stickers in the kit as well. We added the stickers to our little group of eggs. Then we thought it would be fun to take some pictures of the eggs cause we take pictures of everything. That went on to an egg wedding where I cleverly added the veil which makes sense for a bride right? It is a little sad but we had a good time! Check out the happy couple below.

Awwww...

Don't they take after their Aunt Jessica. Abby and Josiah are growing up so fast, it constantly amazes me! This is one of the hardest things about being in Namibia. I am missing out on seeing my niece and nephew growing up. Abby is one now and I only see her in pictures and the occasional 30 second video. Josiah is growing so quickly and I am missing out on it. I love being here but it is not without its sacrifices. I mean, look at these two... :-)

Final Product

If you read the farther down, it tells a little bit about the project my grade 7 agriculture class did. Here is the final project. Not all the students were there to take the pictures and there is one group not shown here.

(first picture) - Johannes, Rodney, Lourencia and Emilie

Conserve Water by using Rain water

(second picture) - Daniel and Julinda

Conserve Water by watering your plants early in the morning and late in the evening, not during the heat of the day.

(third picture) - Rebecca

Conserve Water by keeping lakes and rivers clean.

(fourth picture) - Linda and Veronica

Conserve Water by fixing leaky pipes.

Project!

My grade 7 Agriculture class had a project last week on the topic of Water Conservation. First the class had homework to record how they used water at home for two days. Then, as a class, we generated ways we could conserve water. After that, I seperated the students into five groups and each group had to make a poster to represent their topic. These guys worked so hard and I was so proud of the time and effort that they put into the posters. Several groups stayed for nearly an hour after school to finish. The best part is that two of the local stores have put their posters up in the store in town. The kids are so proud and I am glad that the rest of the town can see their hard work. I love these kids!

Ewww.......

So at the local grocery store they have the butchery area where we buy some of our meat. Tuesdays, Linda and I generally get some marinated chicken legs to eat for dinner because it is one of our long days. So this week, there was a little surprise. I was in the middle of cooking the chicken and I see something on the leg of the chicken...feathers! It kind of reminds me of like those animals with tumors or extra legs coming out of their backs or something. What concerns me more is that I just picked he feathers out and still ate it. Gross - yes, but what can you do?

My Class - Grade 4 English

This is my class! You can't see all of them but there are 46 students in the class. They go between being super well behaved and super naughty. It is a lot of fun most of the time and they are quite smart when they really put their minds to it. One of their favorite activities is our story time. I have been reading them the book "George's Marvelous Medicine" which is a book by Roald Dahl. I wasn't sure if it would be to difficult for them to understand without a lot of pictures and it is a lot of listening for them to do but they have really gotten into the story. One really good thing is that they are remembering lots of the story which is a good skill for them to do; listening and comprehension. I gave them an assessment test last week and nearly all of them got the questions about the book correct. The other recent excitement is the spelling test I gave them today. Most of them received 12 or more correct out of 15. The words were like hat, fish, and clock but for these particular kids, it is quite an accomplishment. I really love teaching them and seeing their face light up when they understand or do something well.

(first picture) - The class

(second picture) - They are supposed to be listening to me reading but are quite distracted with Linda taking photos.

YEA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This is funny when I think about the wireless internet in the states but we just got ADSL for the internet which means we can use the internet all day long and it does not use our phone line. Before we were paying by the minute for dial up and it was pretty slow. Now it is much faster and we can use it anytime. Before, it was expensive to use before seven in the night so we waited till it the cost went down or until ten to download anything when it went down again. Anyway, I am super stoked and hopefully I will be able to stay in better contact with everyone. PRAISE THE LORD!

Lunch Time!

Here are "my boys" taking a minute to eat some lunch. EduKali on the left and Timo on the right took advantage of the quiet of my room to enjoy something to eat. These two drive me crazy but they were from my remedial class and I absolutely love them.

Check Me Out!

I don't know if you can see it so well but I had my hair done in a new way. This is the first time I have had the rows put in. I love it. So of course we had to have a little picture taking to along with it. I am here with my favorite few kids. Josh is the tallest boy, then it is Peter and Suama is the girl. I love these guys but they drive me crazy!