by Simon Some of you will be aware that earlier in the year I spent a week travelling with David Greeff, an Australian CMS missionary who works in the north of Namibia co-ordinating the Namibia Evangelical Theological Seminary (NETS) distance education program. I have just got home from spending another week with David, this time in the north east corner of Namibia. In the course of the five days;
· we drove more than 1500km
· we picked up more than a dozen hitch-hikers
· we saw no hippos, elephants, crocodiles or lions (although they all exist in the wild there)
· we were translated into 6 different languages
· we taught the Bible and answered people’s questions
· we tried to encourage God’s people and were encouraged by them
Monday
Rundu Prison - Language: Afrikans, Oshiwambo
The first stop was a prison just outside of Rundu. About 15 prisoners had gathered, most of them already enrolled in the NETS distance program, some there to sign up for the first time. After a short Bible study, we had a time of open questions. The course material raises lots of questions for students, and David’s visits provide the best opportunity for those questions to be answered.
Question time at this prison took an unexpected turn for me. Someof the questions were;
Is it possible for a Christian to be tempted?
Can a Christian be righteous? How can we be righteous and still sin?
Isn’t it impossible for a Spirit filled Christian to sin?
It never occurred to me that prisoners in gaol might be duped by the idea that Christians can be sinless and perfect this side of heaven. It was great to be able to talk about how God declares us to be righteous (all right in his sight), and about how he gives us the righteousness of Jesus as a gift. A great comfort to men who have been beating themselves up and living in fear that they will never be good enough for heaven. We were also able to talk about how in our lives we can make choices to live more like Jesus. The Bible urges us to live in a way that fits with who we have been saved to be. As our time drew to a close one prisoner spoke about how he was convicted that if he really repented of sin, he would have to confess to crimes he had not been caught for and to make an attempt to replace everything he had stolen. (ala Nicodemus)
Jesus promised that the Holy Spirit would convict the world of sin,
righteousness and judgement. (John 16:8-11) From what I saw and heard, I can confidently say that the Spirit of God is alive and active in the prison at Rundu!
Our discussion began at 2.30 in the afternoon. Dinner was at 5pm, but all of the prisoners chose to collect their meals and leave them in their rooms so that they could come back and keep talking. It was nearly 7pm by the time we actually left. The hunger and receptiveness to the Word of God that I found in the prison was a great encouragement and spur to me.
Tuesday
NETS Rundu Campus - Language: Luchazi
This year NETS has agreed to begin to take over the operation of a small Bible school in Rundu which has been operated by the Evangelical Bible Church. David is taking responsibility for much of the administration of the Bible school in this transitional phase. Next year, God willing, there will be more staff and the school will offer the full lower level NETS certificate/diploma program.
I spent 5 hours teaching Romans in outline to about 15 students, as part of their New Testament Introduction course. I really love the letter to the Romans and spending a whole day focussing on it was great.
Wednesday
Group of youths near Divundu - Language: Thimbukushu
We drove Wednesday morning to meet with a young pastor in a remote community near Divundu. He has gathered a group of young people who have finished school but have no work. Some sponsorship has been arranged so that they can study the NETS distance material. After some time with him alone, the rest of the group joined us. As a part of a unit they are doing on prayer, I taught about the role of the Holy Spirit in prayer, and using the Bible in our prayer lives. We then had a time of open questions. The questions ranged from, “Who wrote the letter to the Hebrews?” to “Why are Matthew, Mark and Luke so similar, but different?” There were lots of other questions as well but the maturity of these young people and their familiarity with the Bible was a great encouragement. They are quite obviously being well taught.
Although they attend all sorts of different churches, their teaching primarily comes from this pastor who meets with them each week and now leads them through the NETS material. He is a bright shining light of Christian leadership. He is being encouraged by others to take better paying jobs and to study outside of Namibia, but up ‘til now he has remained in his home village. When we asked him about this and talked about how he deserved to be paid properly for his ministry, he replied, “If I go who will take care of these people? It doesn’t matter if I get paid or not, God will provide. This is more important.”
He is an exceptional Christian leader and pastor, and the love he has for God’s people in that small community is a great inspiration.
Thursday
Divundu Prison - Language: Afrikans, Oshiwambo
Before we even got to meet with the students, we spent some time with the Senior Officer at the prison. He told us how glad he was that we were there and how much he appreciated the ministry that David has in the prisons. I nearly fell off my chair when he said something like, “We can feed and cloth and look after the men, and teach them skills, but unless they know Jesus they will have no hope in life. They need to know the Word of God to be changed men… we can’t change them, only God can.”
I asked him if he was a preacher in his church and he said, “No, that’s your job. Now I’ve held you up enough already, you’d better go and do it.”
And so for the next 3 hours or so we did! Again some great questions came out and the prisoners were especially interested in how to talk with people from different religions and how to relate to traditional healers (witch doctors).
Caprivi San (Bushman) church elders - Language: Afrikans, Khoisan
In the afternoon we drove about 200km along the Caprivi Strip to meet with a group of church elders from the surrounding area. Although the meeting was planned well in advance and seven people had indicated that they would be there, only two showed up. This was really disheartening, especially for David who puts so much effort into making these things happen. In the course of our time together these two church leaders also took the chance to ask questions that were on their minds. One asked, “The traditional healers tell us that there is a male and female god. Is that right?” The other asked, “I’ve heard about Martin Luther. Was Martin Luther God?”
Doesn’t your heart just break to know that there are prisoners and teenagers just a couple of hundred kilometres up the road with a firm grasp of the gospel… but in this area the leaders of church… the ones who preach every week… don’t have much more than the first clue. Please pray for them and the people they minister to, that God would protect them and reveal himself.
· we drove more than 1500km
· we picked up more than a dozen hitch-hikers
· we saw no hippos, elephants, crocodiles or lions (although they all exist in the wild there)
· we were translated into 6 different languages
· we taught the Bible and answered people’s questions
· we tried to encourage God’s people and were encouraged by them
Monday
Rundu Prison - Language: Afrikans, Oshiwambo
The first stop was a prison just outside of Rundu. About 15 prisoners had gathered, most of them already enrolled in the NETS distance program, some there to sign up for the first time. After a short Bible study, we had a time of open questions. The course material raises lots of questions for students, and David’s visits provide the best opportunity for those questions to be answered.
Question time at this prison took an unexpected turn for me. Someof the questions were;
Is it possible for a Christian to be tempted?
Can a Christian be righteous? How can we be righteous and still sin?
Isn’t it impossible for a Spirit filled Christian to sin?
It never occurred to me that prisoners in gaol might be duped by the idea that Christians can be sinless and perfect this side of heaven. It was great to be able to talk about how God declares us to be righteous (all right in his sight), and about how he gives us the righteousness of Jesus as a gift. A great comfort to men who have been beating themselves up and living in fear that they will never be good enough for heaven. We were also able to talk about how in our lives we can make choices to live more like Jesus. The Bible urges us to live in a way that fits with who we have been saved to be. As our time drew to a close one prisoner spoke about how he was convicted that if he really repented of sin, he would have to confess to crimes he had not been caught for and to make an attempt to replace everything he had stolen. (ala Nicodemus)
Jesus promised that the Holy Spirit would convict the world of sin,
righteousness and judgement. (John 16:8-11) From what I saw and heard, I can confidently say that the Spirit of God is alive and active in the prison at Rundu! Our discussion began at 2.30 in the afternoon. Dinner was at 5pm, but all of the prisoners chose to collect their meals and leave them in their rooms so that they could come back and keep talking. It was nearly 7pm by the time we actually left. The hunger and receptiveness to the Word of God that I found in the prison was a great encouragement and spur to me.
Tuesday
NETS Rundu Campus - Language: Luchazi
This year NETS has agreed to begin to take over the operation of a small Bible school in Rundu which has been operated by the Evangelical Bible Church. David is taking responsibility for much of the administration of the Bible school in this transitional phase. Next year, God willing, there will be more staff and the school will offer the full lower level NETS certificate/diploma program.
I spent 5 hours teaching Romans in outline to about 15 students, as part of their New Testament Introduction course. I really love the letter to the Romans and spending a whole day focussing on it was great.
Wednesday
Group of youths near Divundu - Language: Thimbukushu
We drove Wednesday morning to meet with a young pastor in a remote community near Divundu. He has gathered a group of young people who have finished school but have no work. Some sponsorship has been arranged so that they can study the NETS distance material. After some time with him alone, the rest of the group joined us. As a part of a unit they are doing on prayer, I taught about the role of the Holy Spirit in prayer, and using the Bible in our prayer lives. We then had a time of open questions. The questions ranged from, “Who wrote the letter to the Hebrews?” to “Why are Matthew, Mark and Luke so similar, but different?” There were lots of other questions as well but the maturity of these young people and their familiarity with the Bible was a great encouragement. They are quite obviously being well taught.
Although they attend all sorts of different churches, their teaching primarily comes from this pastor who meets with them each week and now leads them through the NETS material. He is a bright shining light of Christian leadership. He is being encouraged by others to take better paying jobs and to study outside of Namibia, but up ‘til now he has remained in his home village. When we asked him about this and talked about how he deserved to be paid properly for his ministry, he replied, “If I go who will take care of these people? It doesn’t matter if I get paid or not, God will provide. This is more important.”
He is an exceptional Christian leader and pastor, and the love he has for God’s people in that small community is a great inspiration.
Thursday
Divundu Prison - Language: Afrikans, Oshiwambo
Before we even got to meet with the students, we spent some time with the Senior Officer at the prison. He told us how glad he was that we were there and how much he appreciated the ministry that David has in the prisons. I nearly fell off my chair when he said something like, “We can feed and cloth and look after the men, and teach them skills, but unless they know Jesus they will have no hope in life. They need to know the Word of God to be changed men… we can’t change them, only God can.”
I asked him if he was a preacher in his church and he said, “No, that’s your job. Now I’ve held you up enough already, you’d better go and do it.”
And so for the next 3 hours or so we did! Again some great questions came out and the prisoners were especially interested in how to talk with people from different religions and how to relate to traditional healers (witch doctors).
Caprivi San (Bushman) church elders - Language: Afrikans, Khoisan
In the afternoon we drove about 200km along the Caprivi Strip to meet with a group of church elders from the surrounding area. Although the meeting was planned well in advance and seven people had indicated that they would be there, only two showed up. This was really disheartening, especially for David who puts so much effort into making these things happen. In the course of our time together these two church leaders also took the chance to ask questions that were on their minds. One asked, “The traditional healers tell us that there is a male and female god. Is that right?” The other asked, “I’ve heard about Martin Luther. Was Martin Luther God?”
Doesn’t your heart just break to know that there are prisoners and teenagers just a couple of hundred kilometres up the road with a firm grasp of the gospel… but in this area the leaders of church… the ones who preach every week… don’t have much more than the first clue. Please pray for them and the people they minister to, that God would protect them and reveal himself.
Friday
Tourist Lodge, Rundu - Language: RuKwangali
We arrived back at the lodge we were staying at in Rundu very late on Thursday night. The Lodge owners are great Christian people and are involved in all sorts of community projects for orphans and vulnerable people in the area. Recently he decided to start studying the NETS course and to help a few of his young staff also study. They became excited about the course and one thing led to another. They came up with an incredibly bold plan. He sponsors 3 local soccer teams and people on his staff are captains of each of the teams. They each invited their players to come and hear about an opportunity to learn more about God on Friday morning (3 days notice given).
David and I arrive a little bleary eyed for breakfast to find a crowd of young blokes waiting for us. From the 3 teams, 40 young men turned up to hear more about Jesus! David spoke to them about the power of God’s Word teach, rebuke, correct and train for righteousness (2 Timothy 3:16). We asked who was interested in this training and almost all of them showed some interest. They are all unemployed with no money at all and so no capacity to pay for the course material, so what was to be done? The owner of the lodge has agreed to give each of them 2 days work and in return to pay for their study himself!!
This was a wonderful way for us to bring our trip to a close (apart from the 9 hour drive back to David’s home). Again it was such an unforgettable week for me and a wonderful privilege to tag along with the great ministry that David has. Because of my complete incompetence with any language other than English, I really have no idea what I said all week long! At one stage something I said was translated into Oshiwambo but David, who was translating me into Afrikaans at the time, said in Afrikaans, “I don’t know how to say what he said.” Hearing some jumble of Afrikaans words, I assumed the job was done and so kept right on talking. I couldn’t remember making a joke, but it was nice to see so many people smiling at me.
(I can now say ‘hello’ in 7 different languages… but the conversation dries up pretty quickly after that.)
Praise God for his faithfulness in drawing people from every tribe and tongue to himself. Pray for David, Alisan, Ettiene & Caris who continue to ‘take the ball up’ in often difficult circumstances. Rejoice with us that through the NETS courses men and women and coming to know the Lord Jesus and are growing to maturity.
