Namibia

We were fortunate to accompany the Mission Leaders to the Zone Conference in Namibia.  We only have a handful of missionaries in Namibia, because of visa issues, which are starting to be fixed.  We went partly to review the missionary housing situation (we will need more).

Windhoek is more ‘European’ in feel.  The population is about the same as Gaborone, but the infrastructure is more finished. More stores, more European and Indian people.

We stayed at the Windhoek Hilton.  It’s in the center of town.  We walked past the street vendors selling African Cultural items, to the Zoopark (which surprisingly, has no animals!) Then up the hill to the Christ Church.  It’s part of the German-speaking Evangelical Lutheran Church.  “The church was built as a symbol of peace following the wars between the Germans, and the Herero and Nama”.  There is a lot of Germanic influence seen in the city.  Street names, building architecture, grocery store supplies.

We crossed the street from the Christ Church to visit the Sam Nujoma statue and memorial.  He was the founder of Namibia.  As we were walking back to the hotel, a vehicle honked and pulled in right beside us; it was the mission leaders!  There is an advantage to dressing in a way that sticks out.  They needed to stop by a grocery store to get snacks for the Zone Conference, and they were coming back to the hotel to fetch us.  They saved a bunch of time by spotting us.

Zone Conference was nice, since we only have 8 missionaries, plus a couple potential missionaries that came to see how it works.  The pews are really comfortable, compared to Botswana.  One of the APs indicated that he might just fall asleep because they were so comfortable.  He did seem to be deeply meditating at one point in the conference!  After the conference we had lunch at Joe’s Beerhouse.  Lynn thought that to be an unusual place to take missionaries.  The food was really good.  It was a bit like a western barn restaurant with lots of old things hanging around on display such as old suitcases, woven baskets, a guitar and an old metal bucket.  The support beams were designed like trees and the missionaries hung their suit coats on the broken limbs while we ate.  There was a circular fireplace in the middle.

While there are probably more wealthy people in Windhoek, the poverty level is also worse.  We drove through Havana, which is a corrugated metal constructed shanty shack town.  So, there is a wider swing of wealth.

On the way to the airport (which is 50 kilometers from the center of town!!!) we saw a baboon crossing the road. When we glanced in the direction from which it came, we saw a wire fence with baboons sitting on top of each fence post.  What a strange site.