13th, 14th, 15th and 16th of October
Thursdays are always fun days for me here in Namibia. I get to go to FHS and it is indoor games and puzzles day at the center. I have never been so thankful and so excited to put puzzles together. Mostly my morning group enjoys them more than the afternoon group of the middle school-ers that want to whoop their friend at the newest card game that “teacher” has taught them (the last couple weeks it has been the “spoon game”). But putting puzzles together are so much fun here. Every piece you put together the children are enthralled by, but whenever they put a piece together they call “teacher look, teacher look” a phrase that can either excite you or annoy you depending on the mood and stamina of the day.
This Thursday I had the privilege of hosting Bible Study again with Minnie at our house. This has been a day where I have started making food for everyone who has come. This has been both a really fun and rewarding experience as I am trying to prep my cooking skills for soon to be married life. This week we started our study off by singing worship songs and later getting to talk about Chapter 2 in Philippians which has been a sweet reminder of our reason to be here as foreigners in Namibia.
Friday was the day I was looking forward to all week since early on, Abigail, our boss at FHS invited us to go to the game park at Okapuka Ranch. This establishment was our first trip outside of the city, which was a treat in itself! The Ranch was amazing! We got to go on a safari as well as watching the lions eat. The park was a resort and the restaurant had glass surrounding walls or open airways that watched over the watering hole that a lot of the animals congregated to at night. It was an amazing experience and I was so happy to have so much fun with all my co workers after such a hard week.
Saturday was an early morning as all of us staffers decided to go to Ouema’s funeral. It was very interesting because in this culture the memorial service is the day before the actual burial. This memorial service can last for hours with people sharing stories, singing hymns and a sermon being preached. The burial was the next day and the body is transported from the Mortuary to the person’s home, from the home to the cemetery and a line of cars follows the hearse while it is driving. Abigail explained that the cars go so slowly that people on the street are sometimes passing them. This can take a couple of hours depending on how close everything is to eachother. In this case the processional started at 6 am leaving us to be at the cemetery at 7 am. The burial service was very similar to ours, but a lot of hymns were sung during the ceremony. There was also a time where anyone who wanted to partake got in a line to toss some dirt over the coffin after it was lowered. After this the pallbearers helped cover the body with the dirt that was dug from the whole and completely covered the hole as well as added a mound on top to show where the body now lays. I thought this was very interesting how all the attendants waited until the body was completely covered and the plaque was placed above Ouema’s body until they departed the scene. Afterwards there is a time of grieving at the person’s house, but the FHS staff did not attend this intimate gathering.
It was hard to take everything in after the funeral, but I did have a quick nap before Hannah and Sarah came into town and we met downtown for lunch at Mugg and Bean with Heidi and their two Dutch friends from Rehoboth as well. After meeting for lunch we got to go to a local orphanage in Katutura. It was amazing to see how excited these kids were to be with us. It really broke my heart knowing that a lot of these kids had been in and out of hospitals for medical problems as well as being orphaned at such an early age in life. It was a lot of fun playing with the kids, but very exhausting as all of them wanted to be held at the same time! After the orphanage Sarah, Hannah and I set up camp at my house for our sleepover! As we were deciding what to do Tacos came to mind so as a group we met David at the grocery store and stocked up on homemade tacos with homemade tortilla shells (we could sound very domestic, or I could just tell you the truth and tell you that they do not have either Taco seasoning or shells in the stores here) It was a fun night of cooking and fellowship and we ended the night with a movie called the Kingdom (we had a previous movie, but it was very poor quality and probably pirated, so we exchanged for a new one)
Sunday morning came very quickly, but Sarah, Hannah and I went to church at New Song and had an amazing lunch afterwards at Fresh and Wild! It was so nice to spend time with them this weekend and get encouragement from them as well. It was also nice that they did not have to leave right after church because they were taking the Bus back home. Because of this we decided to watch another movie for a lazy afternoon. We decided to watch The End of the Spear. If you have not seen it, please do! It was an amazing movie about a story of 5 missionaries in Ecuador that would do anything to answer the Lord’s calling and even go and preach to a group of people who killed eachother for entertainment. I know I sound like a billboard, but please see this movie you won’t regret it! The rest of my afternoon has been catching up on emails and reading. I will try to post pictures later this week when I have internet access. Thanks so much for reading and I am excited to see what the Lord is doing in each of your lives while I am away have a wonderful week!
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