I am in Namibia!!!

Oct. 24th 2010
Friends and Family,

I’m in Namibia! Yeah!! The last week has been a bit of travel (that is an overstatement), but thankfully none of it has been stressful and I have not gotten sick!!

Oct. 16th, 2010 – Said goodbye to Michigan.
Oct. 17th, 2010 – Said goodbyes to my parents and brother and close friends in Indianapolis. Flew to New York City.
Oct. 18th, 2010 – Meet up with other orientees and my unit member for at Africa Inland Headquarters in Pearl River (about 40 min. north of NYC).
Oct. 19th, 2010 – Orientation all day
Oct. 20th, 2010 – Left for Namibia via London. Flight took off from NYC to London at about 6 p.m. and arrived to London what would have been about 1 a.m., but in London is was 6 a.m.
Oct. 21st, 2010 – London! We had a 12 hr layover!! So we went into the city. We had our 2nd red eye flight to Johannesburg, South Africa arriving early on the 22nd.
Oct. 22nd, 2010 – We arrived in the early afternoon in Winehoek, Namibia! The remainder of the day was pretty low key.
Oct. 23rd, 2010 – Winehoek. Orientation, leaning history of Namibia, a tour of Winehoek (it is the capital of Namibia), getting a cell phone and a little shopping. Last night we had a pizza dinner and time to spend with other AIM missionaries.
Oct. 24th, 2010 – Church and a day of rest!!

That is my life for the last week in short!
Tomorrow we will drive about 8 hrs up to Rundu, Namibia. Rob said that it is not very safe to drive after dark (could run into wild animals – aka cows!)

Lowlights/ Highlights.

Lowlights- Saying goodbyes to family and friends. Long travels. Tiredness.

Highlights-
Meeting the other orientees and my unit has been great! I am so thankful for each of them. We were able to hang out with the girls going to Uganda in London and I really enjoyed them.

London was great. I was tired, but still SO cool. We did a ton of stuff. I will try to post some pictures soon or all the places we saw or went.
As soon as we came up from the tube we saw Big Ben! Absolutely stunning. Also saw the London Eye, Westminster Abby, walked to Buckingham palace (no changing of the guards that day), took a double-decker bus to the British museum, drank a cappuccino and croissant (in honor of Jenna), and fish-n-chips! At the British museum, I saw lots of Egypt artifacts and Rosetta Stone – that is incredible. We also walked about a couple parks too. It was a beautiful day and sunny, yet quite cold (maybe 40 degree)!

Yesterday we had Naf, a native Namibian, give us the history of Namibian (mainly the last 100 years) through oral history account of his life and story. It was very interesting to hear from him and we could ask him tons of questions about the culture, way of life, history etc. I really appreciated how they have taken the time to make us truly aware of the complexities of this culture; there are many different facets to the culture here. The complexities of a Namibian culture is something I will dive into more as I am here longer and understand it a little more fully.

Last night, I was also able to sit at talk to Margo, a nurse through AIM (who is going home tomorrow) that has lived in Rundu the last year and a half. It was very helpful to just sit and gain wisdom from someone who has experienced what I am about to experience.

I have been able to read a bit more than normal. I highly recommend, “When Helping Hurts” by Steven Corbett & Brian Fikkert. It articulates of many holistic ministry concepts I would like to adopt to ministry.

Miss you all and wish you could be here with me!

Love in Christ,
Alysse

FYI’s:
- I will have internet in the house I am living in up in Rundu. Although it is not a strong connection.
- My cell number in Namibia is: (+26) - country code.
For overseas dial: 26 481 662 628
- I will give you my address on a later date.
- Time difference: 6 hours.