Clownin' Around, All Around Town

The amazing black jellybeans Stephen's mom sent us for Easter. There was no sneaking around to eat them...

Our Thursday Bible Study (minus Larissa, from L to R): Janie, Gada, Steve, Benita, Valencia, Verooshka, and me.

Wow! What a week! Monday, our YC team met with Pastor Anthony and Pam Brown (a woman serving in Windhoek for a few years) to talk about the goals and vision for the Youth Center in the next few months. I have accepted that I won’t get to see it reach it’s full potential while I’m here--which is a little disappointing--but I do not feel that I wasted my time working there, and I know that God will bring good things from both mine and my team’s labor, as well as from the building. I WILL get to help plan and run the mini-daycamp there coming up in a week and a half, though, which should give me a small taste of what the Youth Center will be like once it’s completely finished and furnished. There is a lot of work left, but we’ve painted various parts of 6 rooms, bought 4 chairs and a table, fixed the leaking ceiling (some, at least), got electricity going in some rooms, and cleaned, scraped, chipped, puttied, and washed with the best of them…So it’s had a definite facelift, which has been fun to be a part of! I also found out Monday that my cousin Julie and her husband Greg are the proud and recovering parents of their fourth little girl, Makenzi Lynn! It was a difficult pregnancy/delivery, so I’m thankful both mom and daughter are doing well and home healing. I am going crazy not being able to see the baby and hold her! I feel like she will be all grown up by the time I get home but…she will actually only be 1 or 2 months old, so I guess she’ll still be pretty little (: Praise God for His beautiful little miracles of life. The flat, flat, very flat tire on the way to Kwa-Kwas.

At Catherine's school...the Sin Clown just popped his sin balloon! Hurrah!

Kristen and Nicky

Tuesday was the big theatrical debut day of Clown Worship at the Farm schools. Josh, Nicky, Step-hen, Mackenzie, Kristen, and I crammed ourselves and all costumes and props into Heidi’s bakkie and headed off for Kristen’s school, Kwa-Kwas Primary, first. We had driven about 15 minutes when it began to sound like someone was shooting as us from the bush. Don’t worry--no guns in sight when we climbed out, but there WAS the most horribly shredded and destroyed flat tire I’ve ever seen in my life. Luckily, there was a spare and two men (Steve and Josh) who knew how to fix a flat. Kristen and I also helped by finding a big rock to put behind the front tire. That part was crucial. Good thing we were with. So, the flat got fixed, we got back on the bumpy, rocky, deserted road in the middle of nowhere and traveled very slowly the rest of the way. Once we got closer to the school, the “roads” became more like huge rock piles at steep angles with huge ruts that we were supposed to drive over. Josh also had to honk multiple times to clear the goats/sheep off the road. I laughed a lot…especially because I was in the back of the bakkie, which meant every bump we hit, I went flying. The BEST driving, though, occurred at Catherine’s school when we had to cross the dried up river (probably would have been even sweeter if there was water in it--which they DO have to do during rainy season…or else get out and cross by foot and get soaked). We were following Catherine so we could find her school, and she stopped to tell us before crossing, “This part is really bad, but you just have to keep going, ok? Don’t stop--just go as fast as you can to get across.” The river was super sandy and impossible to get any traction in, so Josh gunned the engine from the bank and then fishtailed, bumped, and literally at times, flew through the air across the riverbed. Ah! Haha I was laughing so hard and screaming and bouncing around in the back of the bakkie like out-of-control popcorn. I felt like we were in a car chase in some action-packed movie, and it was great. As for the Clown Worship--it was amazing. We had an outdoor stage at Kwa-Kwas, and the kids thanked us by singing us some songs in English and then Nama, which was so cool. Catherine’s school was next, and she said that the kids kept talking the rest of the week about how their favorite part was that the Cross burst the clowns’ sin (the balloon). She also asked them to share what they’d learned from it, and it was encouraging to hear their responses since we didn’t have to speak a word during the performance, which meant--they understood everything! We mustered our energy for the final play of the day at Heidi’s school, and then packed our tambourines, bubbles, puppets, and tired selves back into the bakkie for the drive home. I went to Kristen and Mackenzie’s Bible study that afternoon at Rehoboth High, and we did Soularium with the girls. They shared some really good thoughts about their lives and views of God. Finding ways to talk about God without actually talking too much (since the language barrier makes it hard sometimes) has been such a challenge but so rewarding when it works. And funny how communication can work almost as well with pictures and action instead of just words.

Making the dye-baths with the boiling water!

Line drying...

Thursday was another big day…drum roll please…TYE-DYE!!! We packed 30 tiny, bright white T-shirts that Steven’s mom sent, as well as the classic red, yellow, and blue RIT dyes, out to the preschool. We brought buckets, salt, vinegar, forks, rubber gloves, and rubber bands. The school doesn’t have electricity to boil water though, so I had decided we’d just use cold water to mix with the dye and hope that the colors still turned out okay. When I mentioned this to Selvia (the principal) she said, “Oh, I’ll just bring some wood and a pot and boil the water in the yard.” What?! I was SO excited! When we arrived to school, she already had the little fire going with her black, cast-iron cauldron bubbling away with toasty water. We spent the morning bringing groups of 6-8 kids inside at a time to choose between the spiral, polka-dot, accordion, or bullseye tye-dye patterns. I used a small tin cup to spoon the boiling water from the pot into the buckets of dye, and then we gathered the kids around and got started! It’s been really windy lately in Reho, so we clothespinned the shirts to the wire fence running around the school yard and let them flap dry in the wind. At the end of the day, Selvia brought the shirts in for the kids to wear, and some were so excited that they started pulling off their other shirts as they waited to be handed their new shirt to put on.

Friday night was “American” night at youth group (: Me and Steve planned songs to teach them (Radical God, Shake Another Hand, Romans 16:19, and To You Oh Lord), games (Shidoh…SO much fun!), and a skit that the kids acted out themselves. Nicky and Josh shared with the group about their courtship and marriage and more on the idea of purity. It was a fun night--and really cold when I was waiting for a ride home after! The days are still hot, but the nights are freezing.

Saturday, our team went to Windhoek to visit the Craft Shops there and then to Joe’s for a goodbye dinner for Mackenzie and Kristen. For dessert, I ordered a “Treasure Bag”…doesn’t the name alone make you want to try one? It was delicious, and I had the first strawberry I’ve had since getting to Africa! And cherries. Mmmm! I miss the girls...our team is shrinking! They were such a joy to serve with and laugh with (:

more to come...the internet is slow today.

love,b