Warts an' all

Newsletters from missionaries are meant to tell you how many people have been converted, how full the church is, how effective the programme, how grateful the locals. Then, we say, our supporters will feel their money is being well-spent.
And that is true, in its way, for we have been sent here by you to be used of God to see lives being transformed by Christ.
However, ‘real life’ is about downs as well as ups.
Which is why you sow in prayers into the work of God around the world.
But, be assured; even the ‘downs’ are in the providence of God, and can be used by God for his glory. So, please do not weary of prayer, or think that we don’t really need it, or feel a ‘down’ means God has not answered.
Here is a ‘warts n’ all’ of how God IS answering your prayers for us, and for his work here in Owamboland. And please note that the downs have ups - so praise God, too, with us …

Wear and tear … on the vehicle
As you will have no doubt seen from our blog, the word ‘road‘ in Owamboland can simply mean a dirt track of soft sand or gravel and now, after the rains, there are often more holes than ‘road’. Two weeks ago, the car went in for yet another service and had the broken/worn bits repaired. Two days’ later David drove off into the recently-flooded Bush and spent the usual Saturday of 12 hours, doing workshops and having meetings etc. A lot of mileage was covered in places one would NOT want to break down. (How would one get the car back home? And an unattended car would soon be stripped for parts.)
As David wended his weary way back, 3 kms from the house the car began to struggle and he limped home in it. The next day the car was dead – the alternator was damaged. How grateful we were to God for bringing David safely home.
The garage said a new alternator would take 2 weeks to arrive from South Africa. Two weeks?! That is a long time to be ‘stranded’.
But God was merciful and they found they could fix the problem … and we got the car back the SAME DAY!
Apart from the car accident David had last year when he thought he was a goner but a boulder knocked the car back onto the track, we have had safe travel. Thank you for your prayers for safety.

Wear and tear … on the tongue
David’s ‘parish’ encompasses many people groups and their languages. Usually, though, someone in the non-Owamboland areas will understand English or Afrikaans and can translate for him into their tongue. Here, David gets by with Kwanyama, which most people can understand, even if their mother tongue is one of the other dialects. However, last Sunday, David was asked to preach and he carefully prepared his sermon in Kwanyama … only to find virtually no one could understand him as they were Kwaluudhe! But one chap could speak Kwanyama so, as David preached in Kwanyama, he translated into Kwaluudhe!
The NETS course is offered in English, Afrikaans, Herero and Oshiwambo. The Oshiwambo option has half the course in Kwanyama and half in Oshindonga, which is hard for students when half the course is not in their mother tongue. But even tougher for David who has to mark tests in BOTH these languages! But he is coming on well. Sometimes, though, he has to teach in English simply beause there are too many languages present. Thank you for praying for him.

Wear and tear … on the body
We always know when Étienne is sick because he is quiet! However, it has been no fun for him for the past 2 weeks as he has been unwell (and shared his germs with me!). However, what a blessing it is to have the new medi park (which was built in Ongwediva last year), where we can see a good doctor and have access to a pharmacy. Previously, if people were sick and they could afford it, they would travel to Windhoek rather than go to the state hospital in Oshakati. There is now a dentist (very recent) and, when David took Aune there yesterday to have two teeth filled (her first visit to a dentist), he was impressed with the dentist and said he would happily go there himself. We are very thankful to have the privilege of these facilities. But we also thank God that he has kept us from any serious illness, despite cholera, malaria and polio outbreaks since we have been here. We thank you for praying that we would be kept healthy.

Wear and tear … on the emotions
As some of you know, I am struggling with ‘teaching’ Étienne maths and science, and both children music. Having failed every maths exam since grade 1, I am delighted to see the Caris is already getting ahead of her mother and coping well with multiplication and division. I am also glad that Étienne is around to teach her long division (too confusing for me), and that David can help Étienne with his maths when he is home. We try and schedule the science lesson to coincide with David being around, too, as I feel out of my depth with electrons and protons and neutrons and klingons and whatever! Étienne seems very gifted in music and is doing well in piano and guitar this year. David has been able to give Caris time with her piano, too, and they both recently played their instruments at a mini concert in their drama class. So the Lord IS undertaking DESPITE me! But please continue to pray that we would find someone to come over and help us when we return after home assignment. I will be out of my depth and it would free David up a lot if there was someone here, for at least some of the time, to guide the children.
And I am, today, suffering emotional wear and tear after yesterday becoming a ‘statistic’ as a victim of a mugging in Oshakati. (Oshakati is known as being unsafe; a melting pot of all sorts.) Two men came from behind and grabbed my bag from my shoulder, pulling me to the ground. Refusing vociferously to let go, I was dragged a distance until my phone fell from my pocket. Distracted, they let go of me and ran off with that (I kept my bag, though). I set off in hot pursuit but could not go far as Caris was crying, having witnessed the whole thing. Not for the first time, we thanked God to be living in Ongwediva, where one feels safe walking about. As so often happens the world over, no one intervened at the scene. When I found someone willing to let me send David an SMS to come and get us, I was shaking too much to even type it and the woman helped me compose a linguistically garbled message to him – it seemed no one in the suddenly-materialised had much English, so I had to try and use Oshiwambo, though I had never learned words for ‘stolen’, ‘attack’ etc. When confronted with this sort of situation, one realize how much being understood by those around us is a great gift. The confusion at Babel must have been enormous. Pray for those missionaries who have gone out this year for the first time and feel, most of the time in these early months, much as those early Babalites felt.
And today, we gave thanks to God again for, apart from some bruising and stiffness (and no phone, which was a small price to pay), I came out relatively unscathed … as did Caris, for which we are even MORE grateful.

He only is our rock and our salvation, our fortress; we shall not be greatly shaken.
(Psalms 62:2)
He who calls us is faithful; he will surely do it. Brothers and sisters, please continue to pray for us. (1 Thessalonians 5:25)