Ending Well & Beginning Anew!

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As we left Katima Mulilo, we were satisfied and excited. Satisfied because our three weeks in Namibia had gone so well. Excited because due to severe road conditions between Sesheke and Kazungula, Zambia we would be driving through Botswana to get to Livingstone, Zambia, including a long stretch through Chobe National Park. The prospect of seeing animals along the way would make the trip a lot of fun. And, we weren’t disappointed.

If memory serves us, we were privileged to see Cape Buffalo, Kudu, Zebra, Impala, and African Elephants as we zipped through the park. Although there was not time for photography, the joy of seeing such amazing animals made the drive a real pleasure.

Our time in Livingstone was marked by two things. First, we conducted an intense, three-day Boot Camp for members of the Biblical Worship Training Centre (BWTC) team. Abby focused on the nature of Christian discipleship in her “Receiving, Being, Becoming, and Doing” class and Doug targeted “Understanding the Bible.” Dan, Nana, Nathan, Natasha, Esau, Miriam, Cliff, and Sitwala were a delight to train. They’re all highly motivated and extremely committed to BWTC’s mission to raise, train, and equip believers to become worshippers who are transformed by the presence of God so they are prepared for church growth and mission. We are privileged to be official consultants for BWTC and to have the opportunity to build relationships with these vibrant leaders!

Second, we spent time video recording two more of our classes which will be used for BWTC’s online training which begins this fall, and will offer certificates to those who complete it. The certificates will be officially issued by BWTC in conjunction with Global Training Network (our mission agency) and the Lake Forest International School of Ministry (our church). We are pleased to be such an important part of this BWTC development.

Our final days in Livingstone were marked by debriefing and planning with Percy Muleba. We fly to Zambia and Namibia on July 31st and will return home on September 18. We’ll be training in Livingstone, Lusaka, Mumbwa, Zambia, and Katima Mulilo, Namibia. Percy and we will also be meeting with leadership of the Church of Central Africa Presbyterian (CCAP), historically rooted in David Livingstone’s Free Church of Scotland, and active in Zambia, Malawi, and Zimbabwe. They have expressed an interest in our training, particularly Abby’s chaplaincy training, and we look forward to spending a few days with them in Lundazi, Zambia, a 90 minute flight and four hour drive from Lusaka in Eastern Zambia, someplace we’ve never been.

July 31-August 2: Travel to Zambia

August 2-5: Livingstone, Zambia

August 6-13: Katima Mulilo, Chetto & People’s, Namibia - Phase 3 Training and Outreach to the Khwe

August 14-20: Livingstone & Musokotwane, Zambia - Phase 2 Trainings

August 20-24: Lundazi, Zambia - Church of Central Africa Presbyterian’s General Conference

August 25-27: Lusaka, Zambia - Phase 1 Training

August 28-September 6: Mumbwa, Zambia - Phase 2 Training

September 7-16: Livingstone, Zambia - Video Production & Strategic Planning

September 17-18: Return Home

Please continue to hold us up in prayer as we prepare for our next trip. As always, your support, prayers, and encouragement mean the world to us. And, remember, where we go you go!

Front Row: Nanah, Muyunda, mirriam,sitwala, and natasha…Back row: dan, percy, esau, cliff, and nathan

Teaching under a tree is cooler as the heat of the day intensifies.

What can i say?

Worship Warriors!

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The final weekend of our three weeks in Namibia, we were joined by Daniel Mayeya, Nathan Kondowe, Cliff Belemu, and Lusungu Katete, two Biblical Worship Training Centre (BWTC) staff and two BWTC volunteers, respectively. Dan, Nathan, and Cliff are all students of ours, as well. Their purpose was to lead what Percy calls a Worship Warrior Retreat, open to all the churches in Katima Mulilo, designed to edify, but also to whet the appetite for BWTC’s in-depth training which includes many of our classes.

The turnout was strong for a first event and included pastors, worship teams, and members from several area churches. Charity & Faith Church graciously hosted us for this marvelous weekend of training and worship. The husband and wife co-pastors, the Amisi’s, were so hospitable to us, even serving us an amazing lunch on Sunday noon! Dan taught with skill and conviction, and Nathan, Cliff and Lusungu led beautiful, heartfelt worship in preparation of and response to the training. After the final amens were said on Sunday evening and the retreat formally ended, Dan, whose mother is from the Congo, and the team led us in about fifteen minutes of joyful and exhausting Congolese celebrative dancing. It was just plain fun.

There were several takeaways from the weekend. First, it was wonderful to see our training and influence multiply through our spiritual grandchildren. Percy’s BWTC team is awesome. Second, the weekend was a strong reminder that worship is not a song designed to medicate our pain, but a lifestyle of obedience that demonstrates whom we love most, Jesus, and leads to our healing from the effects of guilt, shame, and fear in this fallen world.

Third, we were reminded that everyone worships in some way, Christian or not, because everyone builds his or her life around what or whom they love. For the Christian, of course, that means Jesus, and it moves from fearing him to intimacy with him and then to intimacy with his body, the Christian worshipping community. In other words, we are called to a worship which is a whole life-giving response to God the Father through Jesus Christ the Son by the power of the Holy Spirit with other believers leading to love, righteousness, justice, mercy, and humility. And, for each of us, this worship involves my heart (what I love), my head (what I believe), and my hands (what I do).

It was Doug’s privilege to speak during the final worship session and he chose Romans 12:1-2 as his text. Here, Paul emphasizes that God’s mercy calls us to and enables our sacrificial worship, reasonable worship, and transformative worship. Doug’s special emphasis was on the renewal of the mind as a necessary foundation for biblical worship that glorifies God. As John Cotton has said, “Knowledge without zeal is not true knowledge, and zeal without knowledge is only wild-fire.” Painting with broad strokes, in the U.S., we fall prey all too often to knowledge without zeal, and in Southern Africa it’s often zeal without knowledge. Neither is an adequate expression of true Christian worship. Together, they are life-changing!

What an awesome conclusion to our three weeks in Katima Mulilo, and how exciting it is that many more doors are now open for BWTC and us to train there. We will return to Katima in August for two weeks. We can’t wait!

We’ve been home now for three weeks and have had time to reflect on our trip. We’ve also had time to thank God for you. We are so very grateful for your support, prayers, and encouragement. It is a tremendous privilege and joy for us to do what we do, both at home and in Southern Africa. Thank you!

Percy Muleba cast visiion to the attendees to kick things off!

Abby and percy with the BWTC team from L to R: Lusungu Katete, dan mayeya, nathan kondowe, and cliff belemu

Dan, the amisi’s, and percy

Lovely Grace was one of the ministers at charity & faith church.

The amisi’s treated us to an amazing lunch with chicken, beef, fish, rice, carrots, greens, and more!

Dan led us in some congolese dancing that was over the top!

Learning some cool moves from dan!

Getting to Know All About You!

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We managed three visits to Chetto and Peoples over the next ten days following our Phase 2 training’s conclusion. On our first visit, we had the chance to sit with Principal Matthew who heads up the school in Chetto which teaches through grade nine. He was extremely transparent about the difficult situation on the ground there. Some of his comments that day lay it out pretty bluntly: “We have about 250 students, both boys and girls. Last year we had fifteen pregnancies, the youngest to a girl who was ten years old.” “We have to schedule parents meetings in the morning before about 11 o’clock. Any time after that and the parents will arrive drunk. So, we typically bring parents in by 9am, just to be sure.” In addition, Principal Matthew faced a problem with some of the teachers when he arrived about two years ago, and staff changes had to be made. He’s pleased with his new staff, and while it’s clearly been a tough couple of years, he is cautiously confident that things are moving in the right direction, which is encouraging.

While we were there, Principal Matthew introduced us to Betty, the Life Skills teacher, and affirmed Pastor Nelson who is a Khwe pastor and community leader whom we already knew and who just happened to drop by. It was good to see him again, and we promised to visit with him during a subsequent visit. Following our visit to the school, we dropped by to say hello to Sonnar, one of the leaders of the Chetto church, and a Khwe who has spent significant time in Europe working with anthropologists who are studying the Khwe communities in South Africa, Botswana, and Namibia. Sonnar is fluent in English. On our way out of the school, we bumped into Regina and Maria, who had come to our previous week’s training - see previous blog, and had heard we were there and came by to see us. We chatted a bit and promised to be back for a longer visit. On the way home, we stopped off at Peoples and spent a few minutes visiting with Pastor Wilson, his father the Headman, and his family. It was good to see them again!

On our second visit, we spent some time with Sonnar. While we were there, Regina and Maria, plus three other Khwe women, including Regina’s sister, came by with their infant children, to say hi to all of us and, of course, visit with Abby. They had a wonderful time talking about “women things,” as Abby likes to call it, and it deepened her relationship with Regina and Maria. Meanwhile, Jack, Percy, and Doug spent some “men time” with Sonnar.

On our third and last visit, Abby had the privilege of spending quality time with Betty, the Life Skills teacher. She is a Christian, and was open to talk and reaffirmed Principal Matthew’s picture of the kids’ reality there, and the difficulty of helping the kids live differently than is being modeled, in most cases, by their families. She explained to Abby that of the thirteen teachers at the school, ten are in their first teaching position and are only one or two years out of university. The living conditions are tough, and the teachers all go every other weekend to Katima Mulilo, like herself, or to another significant town where they can be refreshed. She invited our team to come back in the future to train and encourage the teachers which we are eager to do. Abby’s heart for the teachers and the kids was touched deeply during her visit with Betty, and her experience as chaplain, especially at Barium Springs Home for Children, makes her uniquely qualified to lead our efforts to make a difference at the school.

While Abby was visiting Betty, Pastor Jack, Percy, and Doug visited Sonnar again, which allowed them to have a good discussion about how to add value to his work, especially with the local teenagers for which he has a burden. It was a deep conversation and seemed to go a long way to strengthening our relationship with Sonnar, for which we are grateful.

We are in no rush when it comes to the Khwe, and we know it will take a long time to build trust and establish really good working and training relationships. We’re grateful that Jack and Percy will be able to see them throughout the year, and we’re excited about the privilege of training Khwe leaders by bringing them to Katima, and for the possibility of encouraging the teachers and churches in Chetto and Peoples, as well.

Thank you for your prayers, love, and support. Your encouragement is essential to our work and God uses it to fuel us. And, remember, where we go you go!

Khwe school children at chetto

Her intensity is compelling.

So much promise!

The eyes have it!

L tO r: jack, abby, betty, pastor nelson, school board member, principal matthew, and percy

Pastor wilson (l) and his father, the headman of peoples

Pastor nelson

Pastor nelson’s hands

Pastor nelson’s wife (l), sister, and their younger children

Abby enjoyed spending time with the khwe women, including maria (l) and regina (r).

Doug and the boys: percy, pastor wilson, the headman, and jack

On the road to the khwe settlements we saw elephants, kudu, puka, impala, and this ostrich!