Oh My Goodness!

Can you believe it, my last post was in October last year.. Does that mean nothing has happened in the past few months? Not by any means..

Let me take you on a relatively quick overview of the past few months, highlighting some of the major or critical events in our lives..

1. At the close of October 09 Faye and I had come to the agreement that our time of ministry and service within Christ's Hope International was coming to an end. So many thoughts passed through our minds, so many issues presented themselves and we found ourselves looking to God for some very clear guidance on the next step. That God was giving us the go-ahead to leave Christ's Hope was not the issue- it was the question "Where to?". Like Abraham we felt God was saying "Arise and leave this place to a place I will show you".. So that is what we did.. I am happy to once again be able to declare that God is faithful.. He has connected us with an American Missionary couple who have been serving in Namibia for the past ten years or so, and as we spoke it became clear that this is where the Lord was opening the door for us. We are now serving in a ministry called Leadership Outreach Namibia.. Our goal is to serve the local church and Christian Organisations in Namibia by providing training, equipping and community involvement to develop emerging leaders and to assist these organizations in being more effective in their endeavours. Faye will serve as the business manager and will be training up a young Namibian lady in the areas of bookkeeping and general fiscal management principles, as well as taking care of the books for the ministry.

I will serve as Co-Executive Director responsible to lead the team when the Executive Director is out of the country (which is the case at the moment) and to train and equip our team and give input to the churches and organizations we partner with. An exciting development is my being released with the blessing of Leadership Outreach to serve the local community as the pastor of a local church here in Okahandja. This is probably the only church in Okahandja that conducts services in English. The Church is called " Victory Christian Church". These are indeed exciting times..

2. In December my father and mother and My sister (Lisa) and her husband (Ozzie) travelled to spend Christmas with us. It was such a joy to have family with us and to see the children playing together.. In 2008 we were blessed with a 3m (circular) splash pool and this past December we had the joy of seeing the children make full use of the pool. The temperatures were oppressively hot and so the pool was a most welcome place for relief..

3. We used the last week of December to move our possessions from the International Training Centre to the flat which now has become home for us. Yes we now live in a small 2 bedroom flat on the fringe of the CBD. It has been quite a welcome change of environment and Sydney and Joshua have already made friends with two of the children who live in one of the other flats..

4. Larnelle excelled in school and finished at the top of her class. We are so proud of her, she has grown in her maturity and grasp of some key Biblical principles..

5. I was invited to be a camp speaker at Youth For Christ's end of the year SUMMER CAMP. "All for Jesus" was the camp theme and it was a privilege and joy to see God using us to impact and influence the almost 300 (298)campers who travelled to Hodygos (YFC campsite) for the week long camp.

For us, the new year, NEW decade began without much fanfare and fuss. The momentum picked up slowly and we are finding our feet in the new ministry, and giving thanks each day for the Lord's goodness toward us.

I gotta run for now, but will be posting some more info and hopefully some pictures, later this week so please do pass by this web page in the next few days and do drop us an email from time to time

Blessings to ALL.

An Eventful Journey

Plans were being made in September for me to visit Zimbabwe with my colleague, Tony Duran. It would have been a wonderful opportunity to see friends and family during the ten days or so that we would be home. Unfortunately the trip to Zimbabwe did not take place, but I was offered a ride to Johannesburg with a friend who is currently the National Director of Youth For Christ-Namibia.

The journey to JHB was quite eventful--The plan was to travel through to Gaborone on a Saturday and spend the night with very special friends - Toby and Doll Ralph. We would join them for fellowship on Sunday morning and then move on

to JHB after lunch and my friends would collect me from the YFC centre in the Magaliesburg area..

We left Okahandja at 6am on the Saturday and after 15 mins of travel had a flat. Now the fun began. The jack did not lift the vehicle of the ground sufficiently for the flat wheel to be removed and the spare fitted.. So we removed the flat and began to dig a hole under the hub so that we would have space to fit the spare- sound like a good plan - Only one problem.. We are on the side of the main road and as a long haul truck passed the combi was moved and slid off the jack onto the ground.. Okay so we dig another hole to get the jack into position to lift the car BUT it was still not enough to lift it so that the spare could be fitted- Thankfully a good friend, Johnny Pedreiro willingly came our and helped us with his jack and we got the spare fitted and on our way.. By the time we stopped in Windhoek and had the flat repaired and resumed our journey about two and a half hours had passed. When w

e were leaving Windhoek we should really have already been at the Botswana border..

No problems getting through the border, except the shock of the new road taxes etc.. BUT .... Oh yes there is more to come..

About thirty kilometres before the little town of Kang (375kms from the border) we ??? Ran out of fuel ! Now way you say.. Oh yes.. Well what to do now? Walk.. That was our only option. So Stanley and I start walking.. We walked for about 25 mins before a vehicle stopped to give us a ride into Kang.. Yippee..

we get there and buy ten litres of fuel and ??? start walking back again.. We are now walking into the sun and carrying a twenty litre plastic container with ten litres of fuel - Had a nostalgia attack as I remembered what it was like in Zimbabwe with fuel containers etc.. At any rate God favoured us and a long haul

Namibian trucker stopped to give us a ride.. yes I finally got to ride in an air conditioned Scania rig.. Every cloud had a silver lining..

Okay so now we have the fuel, we're back at the combi and our journey resumes - Oh by the way - Travelling with us was Stanley's wife (Desiree), their son Justin (4yrs) and daughter Rachel (8 months).. Another two hours have passed -

so all in all we have had our journey extended by four and a half hours.. Arriving in Gabs at night and looking out for Toby was fun.. We found each other and were treated to a phenomenal chicken curry and roti dinner (prepared by one Mrs Gwen Harry..

Toby and Doll

Seeing friends we have not seen for some time was refreshing and a great blessing..

To add to this was the enjoyment of sharing in their worship service the following Sunday morning..

Rowan and Gwen Harry

The service was excellent and we were treated to a very special lunch- in fact it was so enjoyable that by the time we checked our watches it was already 3pm !! We still had to drive through to JHB.. Our trip to JHB was without any major negative event, we did get ourselves temporarily misplaced for about 30 minutes, but who's counting?

The next post will talk about JHB ..

Adding Value to Others

Both Faye and I consider it a privilege to be missionaries and to know that God is gracious enough to afford us the opportunity of adding value to others. We have both had the opportunity to speak at Encounter Camps, Faye to the ladies and me to the men, organised by a Powerhouse Family Fellowship - a church based in Windhoek.

Faye participated as a small group leader and came home so blessed and fired up after the weekend of ministry. Dad of course had the joy of babysitting.. Confidentiality commitments prevent me from giving details of some of the ways in which lives were impacted as the Holy Spirit worked through us. I can however say that both Faye and I were very conscious of the Lord's hand on us in giving us wisdom to know how to speak to and pray for people whose lives have been traumatised and who have come to such a camp looking for answers and looking for solutions, and some not even sure of what they are looking for.

Through a structured programme of big group and small group sessions we listened, prayed spoke and saw how God became more real to so many of the people and how eyes that appeared dull and without light suddenly came alive and lit up with hope as people experienced the person of the Holy Spirit and a revelation of Christ which brought hope..

I was invited to be a guest speaker at a youth camp and while taking the campers through the Biblical account of the prodigal son had the joy of sharing with them about the Father heart of God. On the final night of the camp I spoke on the value and importance of a father's blessing.. My dear friend Tony Duran and I then invited the campers to come to the front for prayer if they wanted to receive a father's blessing.. Almost all the campers came forward to receive a blessing and it was my singular joy to not only bless these young men and women, but my own daughter (Larnelle) was on the camp and I was honoured and moved as I held her in my arms and blessed her and spoke words of life and destiny over her..

Parents you know how your heart lurches and questions go whizzing through your mind when you receive a message that the principal of the school your child attends, requests that you come in to see him ? Well I did get just such a call from Larnelle's school.. I had no idea what to expect and was just about blown off my feet when the principal explained the reason for his wanting to see me.. NO Larnelle was not in trouble and in fact there was no problem with her at all, in fact to the contrary. Because of how well Larnelle is doing at school (and at the end of the second term she got all A's) the principal informed me that there was a scholarship/sponsorship being made available specifically for Larnelle that would cover her school fees for all of 2010 ! This comes to a total of about twenty four thousand rand for the year !

While still giving thanks to God for His provision for Larnelle I received another call and on going to see this precious person was told that he and his wife wanted to cover Sydney's school fees for 2010.. This amounts to an annual figure of fourteen thousand four hundred rand. How awesome is that ! God is indeed Jehovah Jireh (Go our provider) and he does meet our needs.. It seems as though God has been pleased with us adding value to others and so moved others to add value to us..

Catch UP..

It has been said the 'time flies' and when I look back at the last posting on this blog I cannot believe how much time has passed. An update is way overdue..

In June we had the joy of a few days break to attend a sports festival in Swakopmund. Due to the large number of people being in the town for this important private schools event, we had the benefit of excellent rates at the Municipal Bungalows. Despite the cold June weather of this picturesque seaside resort we simply enjoyed some quality family time. It was so good to be without a rigid and fixed schedule for a few days it gave us a time to unwind..

Sydney and Joshua in the Bungalow Larnelle in full flight

Larnelle's team played fairly well and although not emerging as champions the players all seemed to have enjoyed the tournament.

On the way back to Okahandja we stopped over to visit our friends Calvin and Koesha Martin

who live in Karibib. We first met the Martins whilst they were living in Okahandja, and have continued to keep contact with them even after they moved to Karibib where Calvin took on the post of principal of a private school. During our visit Calvin mentioned his wanting me to conduct a church service for the school boarders one Sunday. We looked at the calendar and set a date and I had the joy of travelling to the school and running a chapel service one Sunday morning, and of course we all enjoyed our fellowship with the Martins.

We were very blessed to have my Uncle Ernst and Fay pay us a visit in August. They first travelled to Cape Town to attend a family wedding and then came up to Namibia where they spent a few days with us. During their short visit they were able to see the beautiful Etosha Game Park and then spend time in Swakopmund as well. From Namibia they travelled on to Zimbabwe to see family before returning to Switzerland.. The value of seeing family face to face and spending time with each other cannot be fully quantified and both Faye and I have come to treasure these times.

One Sunday afternoon I went out to play tennis and on returning home discovered that my laptop was not functioning properly. All my efforts to get it sorted out came to zero and finally I sent it in for a check up - the diagnosis- the motherboard is faulty and it would be best to replace it - cost of a new mother board? +/- R 4000.00 The lady at the computer shop very gently suggested that rather than replacing the laptop I should simply consider purchasing a new laptop. Yeah right ! Now you know we Christians are an interesting lot and we tend to talk to God about such situations.. wonder of wonders we often receive answers and solutions to such situations .. I am happy to report that some good friends who had purchased new laptops for themselves had one that was gathering dust on the bottom shelf of a closet.. They knew about my chronically 'sick' computer and decided to bless me with their extra laptop. Whilst it may not be brand new, it does work and has sufficient resources and facilities for me to do all I need to..

The winter this year was not unbearably cold and we were thrilled that our children did not suffer too much in the way of colds and/or flu.. However our Joshua had a nasty fall which resulted in his two front teeth being damaged quite significantly - thankfully they are milk teeth which will be replaced with permanent ones.

Joshua was pushing himself along on his little racer, and going very fast.. He accidentally put his feet in front of the front wheels which resulted in him flying over the front and landing face first on the concrete floor. It has been a while since this very painful and unpleasant event and we are happy to say that there have no further mishaps. Joshua has recovered from it quite well, although Faye and I are thinking that perhaps we should take him to the dentist to have the two front teeth removed as we wonder if the damage to the milk teeth may not create problems for the permanent ones..

Faye and I are well, our work keeps us fairly busy and we have the added joy of being active in a local church and are building some very good friendships with folk here in Okahandja and Windhoek. We both have noticed a few more grey hairs and we tend to move at a more royal pace than before !

The Garnie Kids Band

This is one of those sweet and blessed moments that reminds us of just how pecious our children are. Sydney and Joshua were having such a blast on this day as they sang at the top of their voices. Needless to say the TV was silent (muted), whilst these two entertained us. Joshua then casually walks over to us and instructs us to stand up and it soon becomes obvious that he wants us to join in as well. "What's the name of the song Joshua ?" "Sing sing".. comes his reply So we sing and make a joyful noise just as the Bible says we should..

Random Pics and Comments..

Joshua the fireman- in the back ground are Max and Mary-Jo.  We were visiting Carven and Juanita in Windhoek.

Joshua exploring the Swakop River bed.. Well it's easy since there's no water now !

Max and Mary Jo with Sydney on the floor.. Joshua in his own world of enjoyment..

Max the man trying to get Sydney interested in his game, but not having much success..

Bath Time is FUN time..

Tony Duran our projects man- Doing business the American Way.

Choose To Wait Participants having a break in the sun- yeah it's winter time again.

Faye hard at work..

Mother's Day special- breakfast in the bedroom- Don't even think about the bed when you have Sydney and Joshua around !

Our Centre converted into a temporary construction site.

Tony and I at Rock Lodge for a Pastor's and Leader's prayer and equipping time-  We start at 6:00am on a Saturday- once every 4-5 weeks..

Oops- a thousand apologies for making you have to turn your head to the side to see Catherine and Johnny practicing at the church we attend..

The church we attend has changed its name to Victory Christian Church- 'Where Everyone is a Champion'

 

The Teen Years

On the 23rd May 1996 our first child was born and what joy she brought into our daily life experience.. It is now 13 years later and the baby girl has grown into a wonderful and very beautiful young lady.. Yes our daughter Larnelle has entered the TEEN years. 

Some have said to me that I now have a teenager in the house.. My response is that I have a young lady in my house who is 13 years old.  You see I am persuaded that using the term teenager does not help a young man or young woman as they face the many physical, mental and emotional changes that are experienced in the years 13-18.  On thing I desire is that Larnelle has no confusion about the fact that she is a young lady going through many changes.. Teenager has no gender, no indication of experience and it is way too generic for my liking.. When I call my daughter young lady I do a few crucial things;

1. I confirm her gender. She is a lady, a woman.  This helps her understand her sexual identity and also affords us as parents the opportunity to instruct and guide this young lady as she meanders through this period of life and has to negotiate the many changes and also make decisions.  She is a young woman not some generic and fairly meaningless teenager !

2. I confirm her level of maturity and experience - she is young, inexperienced and needing guidance. It also reinforces the God established order in the family of having parents who are to guide and instruct and train up their children in the way they should go.  Is Larnelle capable of making wise and grown up choices ?  YES she is.. However her limited experience, youthfulness and continuous changes cause her to be unable to consistently make wise and adult choices..   Larnelle is aware, that at this crucial time when she, like a tender shoot is growing into maturity and in preparation to face life, she will need Godly counsel and Wisdom to help her pass through this phase of her maturing process and emerge on the other end with much wisdom and few scars.   

Faye and I realise that our children are and will be our primary focus for some time.. We also are very conscious of the reality that unless God imparts to us a spirit of wisdom, insight, understanding and revelation then we are most likely going to blow it with Larnelle.  Pray for us as we walk this road.. Many of our friends have children who have passed through these teen years, some have seen their children do well and others have agonised as they saw their children experience pain and hardship- Your prayers for us as we begin this new era in parenting would be so greatly appreciated..

Larnelle invited some of her friends over for a movie night to celebrate her birthday and of course dad and mum had so much joy helping her prepare for her night with close friends..  We were there to prepare and set the tone for the evening and then we withdrew and left them to enjoy themselves.. It pleases me to let you know that everybody had a great time and we did not have any complaints from parents.  

Sydney and Joshua have helped me to keep a youthful and adventurous view to life.. We experience some temper tantrums as the two of them tussle over control of the toys, that particular cup or plate etc etc..  Sydney is realising that her younger brother is fast becoming somebody that she is not able to freely push around..  They both love to sing and on Sunday mornings as I often lead worship I see them clapping hands, dancing and singing to the Lord.. The joy this brings is just about beyond description.

Both Sydney and Joshua are adventurous and whilst we have been doing construction work at the training centre we have found it necessary to regularly go outside and check that they are fine.. We find them on the piles of sand, playing with water, trying to get at the cement.  Of course it goes without saying that all their enjoyment and fun does come at a price- DIRTY CLOTHES, FREQUENT CLEANING OF THE HOUSE- would I change it ? Absolutely not !!

Faye and I have had the joy of being invited to minister at some churches in Windhoek, and having a wife like Faye who is a constant encourager is the best.  In addition to having the joy and privilege of presenting God's Word to other believers we have so enjoyed building relationships with new people.  One of my regular statements to our leadership and believers in the local fellowship is this:  'Life is Relationships!'     The quality of my life is vested not in the position or possessions I have, but rather in the depth, meaning and excellence in the relationships I have.   

I had the joy of speaking at a children's camp at the beginning of this month and was thrilled to have the opportunity to present God's Word to children who live in one of the three Arks that Christ's Hope runs here in Namibia.    One of the young lads asked me where I was from.. My response was to ask him if he had any ideas.. Well at first he thought I came from Rehoboth, then it was Windhoek, followed by a string of of towns in Namibia.. Finally he decided that I must be from Cape Town !   The look on his face was priceless when I told him I was from Zimbabwe..  Of the 18 or so young men who attended the camp, six indicated they wanted to commit their lives to Christ and be born again - 

I end this post with news about a friend who recently went in for a medical examination and was found to have a very large tumor in his pelvic area. So serious was the view of the doctor that he recommended that my friend return to the USA for further tests and treatment.  Lon has been serving in Namibia for more than 10years and in recent months he and I were working very closely together to bring leadership gift to the church where we fellowship.  Lon was leading one of the recently launched cell groups and was a regular when it came to preaching on Sunday mornings.  We are praying for Lon and his wife Val and are trusting that God will make a way for them and bring healing to Lon.   For those of you on Face Book you can find Lon Garber and read more from him..

Till the next post - walk in the power of the Holy Spirit, live at peace with all people (as far as it is up to you) and above all seek to bring praise and glory to Christ in all that you say and do..