Out of Athens

I am sorry that it has been so long since my last post. We have not had home internet service since the beginning of April and work has been hectic to say the least. Last Sunday the 25th was my last Sunday at St. Timothy's Church. We had a great 4 years there and will miss all our friends. It was a sad farewell but one that saw me stand on the pulpit to remind everyone again that God loves them more than anything.
The next month will be another busy one. We are in Birmingham and Gadsden for a few days before we leave for NYC. We will be on Staten Island for 2 weeks at the Episcopal Church Mission Orientation. It is also known as "How to not make a complete fool of yourself in a foreign country, but you're going to anyway but at least we tried" We will be there till the 16th of June. As part of the orientation we will be going to the Everyone Everywhere Conference in Baltimore. So far over 350 people have registered for the conference. Check out their page and make plans to come. It's not too late.
I will be preaching at St. Peter's Church in Chelsea, NYC on Sunday the 15th of June about our upcoming work in Namibia.
We will be leaving for Namibia on June 23rd. We are scheduled to arrive in Windhoek on June 25th.
I will be posting more stories about our last days in Athens, including how St. Timothy's took up a gold offering and people actually gave their gold teeth. Peace.

U ha pandula novake

U ha pandula novake, I am told by my friend Lukas is a proverb in the Namibian language of Ohsikwanyama. I means that if you have great and good things done to you and you do not appreciate then, you are bound to steal one day!
This simple proverb is like so many other proverbs in that it seems so simple to begin with and then continues to expand the more you think about it. In this case the relationship between thankfulness and theft. This proverb suggests that our daily exercise of being thankful or not has future consequences for our life. If we are not thankful it leads us on a path to stealing in the future.
But I think that there are more present realities in this proverb. In many ways if we are not thankful for what we are given we are stealing right now. We are appropriating things for ourselves that we did not create and acting like we did. We are acting as if we created all of our wealth and in this way we are really stealing from God.

In this line of though Penny and I want to publicly thank everyone who has supported us up to this point. Before we leave we will publish a list but for now from the bottom of our heart thank you for sharing your gifts with us.

What a Month

Dear Friends,

March went by so quickly and we were busy non-stop. We sold our house in 10 days and had to be out by the 28th. We packed over Holy Week and Easter and moved the week after Easter. Most everything we own is now packed in boxes and stored. We will only be taking clothes our computer and a few books with us when we go. We are now living in a great house on the Elk River until w leave for Birmingham at the end of May and then Namibia at the end of June.

Our last Easter at St. Timothy's was made all them more special by the presence of our family and our friend The Rev. Lukas Katenda. This is a photo of Lukas and I after the Easter service. He saved me this year by preaching the Good Friday and Easter Vigil services. He was incredible. Lukas was featured on the front page of the Athens News Courier on Easter Day in a story written by our friend Vickie Johnston and we were in the "Meet the Neighbors" section the same day. Who says we don't know how to get publicity.

Last night we were hosted at Grace Episcopal Church in Anniston, Alabama. it was a great evening with friends from the Anniston and Jacksonville churches. Today was recieved word of a very generous plege of support from an Episcopal Church in Birmingham. sometime over the next month I plan on putting together a list of the pledges and gifts we have gotten so far. We think it is important to highlight churches that are putting their money and support where their mouth is. "Not only with their lips but in their lives"

We have truly been overwhelmed by the outpouring of support and we thank each and every person that has given of their time, talent and treasure to Mission to Namibia.

Flooding in the North Update 1

Here is an email I received today updating the flood situation in the North of Namibia. The first part is from my friend Fr. Lukas Katenda. the second part and photos are from Nancy Robson who lives at the Odibo mission. Please keep the people of Northern Namibia in your prayers.

Dear People of God,

This is another update on the flooding waters in Namibia. These photos were taken today or yesteday by Mrs. Nancy Robson at St Mary's Mission Odibo. Her message speaks it all. Take a look, we have one main town in the north called Oshakati. I understand that, the bridge that links Oshakti to the rest of the country has begun to crak as the waters are too much. The main shopping malls are there, the Intermediate Hospital is there, Banks etc. No body knows what will happen, the rivers are still overflowing, as the rains continues in southern Angola and Northern Namibia. Peace Lukas

Today (Saturday) I managed to get a lift to Oshikango with a local storeman who is still prepared to take the plunge through the deep water at the far end from Odibo. He said the water was more than yesterday. It was not one of the big bakkies but the door was higher than my knee and the floorboards were flooded but luckily the car did not stall. On walking back, I was not so lucky with a lift, the water came to my crotch. I was dressed in shorts & prepared for this. For those of you who have not been here in the past 4 years or so this road leaves Oshikngo on the far south of the town & runs south of the mission. The bakkie stuck in the water is on the Odibo -Oshikango road.
I had heard on the TV that Engela, Ongenga (to the west of Engela) & some of the other clinics in the district were cut off by the floods so I took the opportunity (by taxi) to go and view the Omafo-Engela road. In the first pic you can just see the old Engela hosp on the right of the pic. The 3rd pic shows the force of the water going through a culvert under the road. You will see from the first pic how the tar road has washed away. That happened last night I believe. For some days now the water has been flowing across the road but then it caved in. Odibo will now have to take their patients to Eenhana. For some time now the Odibo transport has had to go via Ondobe which is half way to Eenhana & then hit the tar and return to Engela. As the Efundja floods is bringing more & more water down we do not know what we are really in for yet.
The President has declared the north as a state of Emergency. As yet I have not been to Oshakati but plan to go on Wednesday (with a driver) We have to go via Ondobe which adds another 55km to a single trip to Osh. I understand that the eastern part of the town is one big lake. There was also mention in Wednesday's paper that there were signs of 2 cracks in one of the bridges due to the force of the water going through. If any of those bridges packs in Oshakati will be cut off from everywhere and everything! I think it is time to do some stock piling of food while at Oshakati!
These floods are unprecedented. A month ago it was said that the volume of water was equal to the 1950 floods but since then there has been much more. In 1950 there must have been at least half the number of people living in the north. The many, many homesteads that have been washed away is because many of them were built in what was traditionally flood plains but with these floods ever having been much in the intervening years and ground being scarce people have built in them.
The last pic shows the tent town at Oshikango which is housing about 200 people. However many flood victims have gone to family or friends. These are ones who had nowhere to go to. The tents house about 10 people each. More are needed but none are available.
Our Orphan project is looking into doing supplementary feeding at the schools where flood victims attend and today I found the headman's right hand and we will try and organise some food from Portuagal Wholesale for him to collect. Children from Grade 1 - 3 are not attending school as the water is too deep for them to get there. We need to see if the Education dept can find someone to go out there to help in that area. Next week!

Report of Floods in the Oshikango / Ohangwena Constituancy
Oshikango 28 households 212 people in 16 tents (about ? are children)
Ekango - 5 households 41 people in 4 tents
Onaminda - 1 tent 15 persons

22 in their own corrugated shelters but fed by the constituency
Onamunama 21 households 142 people 4 tents (rain flooding)
Rain damage to homesteads extends to Omundangilo (over 100kms east of Oshikango)

The President has described these floods as "unprecedented proportions. As a result, the survival of a large percentage of our population in Namibia is under serious threat"
Impact of floods:

Farmers have lost 25,850 animals

17 Schools in Ohangwena affected - at Odibo CS teachers walk through 8 oshanas to get to school.

9 Schools in Kabbe affected

Yield prospects reduced by 40%

Cultivation are reduced by 50%

Nancy

Our House

Well it is official we have a contract on the house and we have to be out by the 28th of March. In the worst housing market in 30 years we sold our house in 10 days for the full asking price. It seems surreal. For months now we have been waking up to NPR on the radio with story after story of how bad the housing market has collapsed and how the economy is in a tail spin. I am happy that we are the exception.
But just to show what a wonderful sense of humor God has we have to be out in a little over 3 weeks. One of those weeks is a pretty busy week for priests called HOLY WEEK. Now don't

get me wrong we are not complaining, just trying to enjoy the wonderful light hearted nature of our God. We are really going to miss this house. Penny and I have lived in it longer than we have lived in any other place together. We got used to the changing seasons and the comfort of having a home. We loved watching the life and death struggle of the aphids, river birch and lady bugs and the hatching of a new generation of preying mantis. It has been a great house and in 23 days it will become a memory; that place we lived when we were in Athens.
Yesterday was also the day I mailed our work and temporary residency permits to Namibia. In case you are wondering how much it cost to send documents to Namibia from Athens via DHL it was $89.

Flooding in the North

I have been on a whirlwind tour of the Diocese of Alabama this week raising money and asking for support. This week took me to the southernmost part of our diocese to Trinity Church Demopolis and St. Paul's Selma. I had a wonderful time staying with my friends Candice and Steve Frazer and even got to visit Craig Field were my family was stationed in the Air Force back in 1974-75. Thanks to Rev. Dick Cobb at Trinity and the wonder folks who fixed a great lunch on Tuesday and Rev. Polk Van Zandt and Rev. Joe Knight and the breakfast crew at St. Paul's who fed me on Wednesday. Penny and I have been overwhelmed with the love and support from every place we have visited.

I spoke at both Trinity and St. Paul's about the severe flooding in the North of Namibia. I am attaching photos from Nancy Robson at Odibo showing just how bad the situation is. This year they are expecting food shortages and severe malaria outbreaks. Although Namibia is a mostly desert climate some places on rare occasions get more rain than they can absorb. To show how important water is in this context the President said a few weeks ago in a Newspaper interview that "We cannot pray that it will stop raining" Rain is life. It is part of the daily conversation in Namibia almost year-round. Prayers for rain are said at every service. Pray for the people of Namibia that even though that cannot pray that the rains should stop, there will be adequate aid and support as the recover from their losses.

Getting Ready

I'm not sure how many of you have ever moved to another country but let me say for those of you that haven't it is a logistical challenge. We will be putting our house on the market this week and praying that it sells as soon as possible. We are finishing up the paperwork for our visas and work permits which seem to have taken months to finish. We are still traveling and preaching during Lent and trying to raise money for our mission. We were featured in our Diocesan newspaper the Apostle for February. I have recently looked at our countdown clock and we have 103 days before we leave for Namibia. Time is flying by.