Youth Retreat Video

Here is a video I made of the youth retreat from this week.

Youth Leadership Retreat

This past week I took 10 youth on a leadership retreat.  We went south a few miles to a very nice camp site in the bush.  It is a wonderful place to have a retreat, and the fact it only costs $8 USD a night to stay there makes it all the better.

The focus of the retreat was on youth leadership.  We focused on what the Bible teaches us about being leaders, more specifically I wanted them to learn how to be a Christian leader in our youth group.  I am working to get the youth to take more responsibility over their youth group.  Youth need to be given more opportunities to serve inside of the youth group that they are a part of.  Taking time to encourage other youth in the group, walking along side new Christians and new members coming to youth. 

I am training them on how to serve in the church and why they should serve in the church.  Some are already serving as teachers for children, leading Bible studies at home and school, and one day some may go into missions themselves or be leaders in churches.

We also had different times during the retreat to have a quite time with God and to meditate on Psalm 119.  We focused as a group on the first 40 verses of this long chapter, but God used it to really open the eyes of the kids on how we are to treasure God and His laws for us.  It taught them how to talk with God, to ask God for help in teaching us, caring for us, giving us understanding and wisdom.  These things are mostly overlooked and under emphasised in churches today, and most definitely youth are not getting taught these principles.

When the retreat was over, the kids were quite excited to get back to our town and start using what God had taught them.  They are also excited about getting more youth involved in "THEIR" youth group so that more youth can learn about God, Christ, and salvation that only come from God and through Jesus Christ.

Attached is a link to all the pictures from the trip.

Gardening in Namibia

Finding fresh vegetables are not always easy in the stores here in our town. Some weeks are good, and some weeks are bad. The one good thing about the weather here is that you can plant most vegetables year round here. You do not have to worry about frost, and the temperature gets into the 70's during the winter time.

So I have been working hard on learning how to grow vegetables here in this arid environment. So far so good. My leafy greens have been doing well, and we have begun to reap from the harvest of swiss chard. They have been quite delicious.

I have now worked on getting broccoli, spinach, okra, onions, carrots and cabbages to grow well also. It is nice to have little helpers as well. It is also a good thing that God gave me a job working on a farm last summer back home to prepare me for this.

Hope that everyone is doing well.
God bless!

The Great Commission

Matthew 28:19


19Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,

The great commission given to us by Jesus was to go and make disciples of all nations.  In other words to go and spread a passion for Jesus Christ in all areas of the world, to a point to where they too will want to understand God more, and to ultimately be a follower of Jesus Christ.

It is not any easy thing to go into a new world, with a new culture and try to effectively reach everyone with the gospel. There are many road blocks, such as language, culture, many can not read or write, and worst of all trying to work with people that have received a poor presentation as to what the gospel really is.

So then how do you go into a country that has more than six different language groups and effectively reach them with the gospel message? The answer is through making disciples. I am now working with some young men in Grootfontein just this way. They both can speak English well, and have a foundation of the gospel, and Christianity. We are now meeting on Monday's and really going deeper into the Word. I am taking them through Wayne Grudems Systematic Theology, and many of the major doctrines of the Bible.

You would not believe how hungry they are for this teaching material. The excitement of learning about God and Jesus and the scriptures in a deep way is so important to reaching the nation of Namibia with a good sound teaching of God's Word.

God is working in these two guys in a tremendous way. Jeremiah is at my house every day wanting to learn more, and to have a better understanding of God. And not just for himself, but because he wants to take his learning back to his village in the north so that God can use him to share the gospel with his family and village.

This is what missions is all about. Training the people of the nations, so that they can take it to there nation and further the Kingdom of God for His glory!

In the below picture are the two guys that I am working with, but there are a few other men that are now interested in coming as well. So pray for God to use me in such a way that they can take God's message back to their villages and plant seeds for the Kingdom.

Youth Group in Center Town

Today we had our first youth meeting down in the center of our little town.  It was really great.  I enjoyed it and the youth did as well.  We had a time of praise and worship with my guitar, time of prayer, and then we continued our lesson from the book of 1 John. 

We had a few people stop and listen to the music, we had some watch from a distance, and we had some that sat and listend to the message.  We are going to continue to have our youth meetings there from here on out.  We are going to continue to pray to God and ask that He bring more people each week to here His Word preached.  And we will continue to pray that God will open the hearts of the people in Grootfontein, and take away the blindness to the Light of the gospel so that they might be saved!

Please continue to pray with us!

Pizza, Banana's and Gardening

Here are some random pictures as of late.  Brian has become a baker, making home made bread, sour dough bread and pizzas. 

There is a picture of our harvest of banana's from our banana tree.

Then some pictures of Brian's prized garden. The roses were already here, he just takes good care of them, but he has started a garden with swiss chard, spinach, spring onions, broccoli, chinese cabbage and okra! Some of his swiss chard is coming in and it has been really good!

Church in Town Center

We have been here in Namibia 4 months now.  Boy how time zooms by!  We have been gathering weekly for our youth meetings at the church since we arrived.  Our church is on the north side of town and not close to where most of the active people are coming and going during the day.

So beginning this Saturday we are going to start having our youth meetings outside at the town center.  There are tons of people that are all about in the town center.  Our thinking is that most unbelievers are intimidated by coming to a church, so by God's leading I have decided to take church to the people.

We will be having praise and worship, along with our normal Bible study, just out in the open where anyone can come by and listen to what is going on.  We and the youth have started to pray this week for God to richly bless this new way of reaching the people of Grootfontein with the message of the gospel.  We are praying that God will lead people to stop and listen to what we talk about, and what God says to us through His Word.  Paul tells us that the power of the gospel is in the Word itself, and how will people believe if they have not heard.  So this is why we are going to take the gospel to the streets of Grootfontein. 

Please pray with me and our youth for God to move mightily through His word, and our bold youth, so that for His glory many might come to know Jesus Christ as their Lord and savior!

A Big Problem In Grootfontein and Namibia.

Three years ago when we began planning our move to Namibia, we knew first hand about the poverty in our area.  We also knew about the HIV/AIDS problem as well.  One thing that I never thought I would have to deal with to a large degree would be alcohol abuse.

Over the last month I have found out just how bad this problem is here in Namibia and in our town of Grootfontein.  The drinking age here is only 18, and that is part of the problem.  The other problem is that the age limit is not regulated as tightly as it probably should be.  It is quite easy for kids under 18 to walk into the local bars here in town and purchase beer.  Top it off with the fact that there is nothing for young people to do here, so they mostly hang out at the bars and the billiard place and drink beer.

Beer is one thing that Namibia does not have to import, because they have a large German Brewery in the capital and it is heavily marketed.  You can actually buy a Windhoek Lager for cheaper than you can buy water and any other cool drinks in the store. Normally a beer cost around .67 cent in USD. 

I have many of my youth every week come to me and ask for prayer for a parent or a sibling that has an alcohol problem.  Lots of people will spend more than half a months salary on beer and then call our church staff for prayer that God will help them with their finances because they do not have money to eat. 

So please pray for the young people here as so many here are struggling with this problem, either themselves or because of a family member that has the problem.