First days in Rundu

Dearest Friends and Family,
Once again it has been a week full of much change and the Lord has been so good!

Monday, Oct. 25th – Went to Family of Hope Services (FHS) in the morning and a Day of Travel.
FHS: Family of Hope Services is a program which Africa Inland Mission helps children who are not in school (and should be) or need extra help with school (tutoring).
Children from 1st grade through high school years can come and get help.
It is a great program, but there is still so much need. This program works with children that are underprivileged, and they also serve lunch for them. Around 400 kids are enrolled.
Travel: About an 8 hr drive from Winehoek to Rundu. 8 passenger van with 13 people. I sat in the back with all the children, but they were well behaved! Who would have known that a deck of cards and pens a paper could be so entertaining!
Things I saw on the way include: Giraffe, and baboons and cows and goats roaming in herd on the side of the road, At a lodge we stopped for about 15 minutes and saw a Lion - Muphasa (in a cage), Leamu (type of cat, but I am not going to mess with it), ostrich (baby ones too), and Mercat.

Once getting to Rundu, at about 730 p.m., we had a meal already prepared for us by David and Mackenzie! In Rundu already serving are short termers – David and Mackenzie (from Montana), Blair (Australia), and now all our team (Laura, Mark and Julie, and Me). Rob, Alisa, and family (which equals nine- 7 kids and 2 adults) are also serving. The meal was great and we were able to then start to get settled in our own house right next to Rob and Alisa’s house.

Tuesday, Oct. 26th – Rundu tour, Start of Rundu orientation, OVC project, and
Meal with Blair’s cooking!

Rundu is a fairly small town, but many grocery stores and a small mall. It is really hard for me to tell how big is truly is for many of the people that come to Rundu travel long distances to reach the city. The hospital serves a VERY large number of people. One fast food place – The Hungry Lion! Alisa drove us around town and allowed us to get a bearing of the place. We also went to the store and picked up a few basic food needs.

Every afternoon this week we have met as a small group and discussed and talked through and about many different topics. We have discussed basic safety, expectations, mentoring, HIV/AIDS, gave our testimonies and a portion of our life story (how we got to Rundu), and cultural issues and trends. It has been so helpful and so good!!

We went to the Orphan and Vulnerable Children project (OVC) on Tuesday early evening. I will tell more about this later. After OVC, Blair made us a meal including fish. Blair, David and myself ate fish eye!



Wednesday, Oct. 27th – Hospital tour and Team day.

In the morning Rob took on a tour of the Hospital. It is quite large and in many ways much nicer than I ever thought it would be! The operating room or theater, as they call it, was very clean (not completely sterile but very clean). Next week I will be starting at the hospital.

On Wednesdays traditionally the team of people in Rundu have team day. This typically includes time dedicated to worship, praises and prayer requests, and they study of the Word or a book. We will be studying “Walking with the Poor”. This week we told our testimonies and watched a Nooma video “Dust”. It was a very good time of fellowship and bonding.

Thursday, Oct 28th – Shopping, more orientation, and meal at Kavango Lodge.

We went on another shopping spree, because as of now Laura and I will be cooking for ourselves. They have almost all the typical food I have eaten in the past here, but I am looking forward to cooking more often.

Thursday afternoon we had more orientation. There were some heavy discussions on how to handle many of the difficult situations that may be thrown our direction, but I am so thankful that we are addressing many issues prior to them.

We ate at Kavango Lodge. It is about a mile away and we walked there and back. The food was amazing and it was great to just chill with everyone. If you come visit me, I will take you there!

Other interesting things:
+ Buying electricity for the first time. Yes, you buy it by the Kilowatt and prepay!
+ Everything is Sandy here. We do not have any grass in our yard – only sand. It is nice sand too, beach type!
+ It’s SO HOT!!! I think today the high is suppose to be 35 C. That is HOT if you did not know it! Thankfully we have and air conditioner in our bedroom!
+ We are pretty well settled in our house (Laura and I share a LARGE house)!! I will try to take pictures or post a video of it sometime soon. It is very nice to have our own place and I am also gratefully to have a roommate.

Hope this gave you a glimpse of my life thus far in Namibia! So much more to come, this is only the beginning.

In Christ’s Love,
alysse

“They will say of me, ‘In the Lord alone are righteousness and strength.” Isaiah 45:24