Christ is our hope!

Merry Christmas! Well, actually, to you it's Thanksgiving, but here in Namibia, we celebrated Christmas today at Kwakwas Primary School. Tomorrow is their last day of school before break for holiday (their summer break and Christmas break are on in the same here) and they will not return until the second week of January! (I will write soon about what I have planned during this holiday...God has provided some great opportunities!)

What a blast it has been preparing for this day with the kids. They were so very excited for their part in the program. I also had some incredible opportunities to share about the real meaning of Christmas with them, and why it's a holiday I am so excited about. What a sweet reminder it has been for me as I am teaching them... Christ is our hope, the long-awaited Savior. During our Christmas assembly today, the kids repeated the phrase "Christ is our hope" in Afrikaans...it was a great moment, of knowing that Jesus was being celebrated above all else.

Thanks to your incredible support, I was able to use some of my ministry money here to buy each child at the school (80 in all) a Christmas present! There are also a few organizations who sponsor the children at this school who sent presents as well, so the children had a really special celebration.

Some of the kids opening their presents... airplanes for the boys and hair accessories for the girls!


The grade fours getting ready for their part in the Christmas program. I was SO proud of them...they were the only grade who did their part in English. Quite an accomplishment!

The staff of Kwakwas and Father Christmas (who was really just our cleaner, Elizabeth!) Too funny!

Making all the Christmas preparations...including our very own Christmas tree!

I had the grade four class act out the Christmas story in preparation for our big celebration. These are the angels singing "Glory to God in the Highest!"

The grade four class with me on Christmas Day at Kwakwas! I love these kids so very much.

Happy Thanksgiving to all of you. I pray that you are finding your joy in Christ today as you share time with family and friends. I'm so very thankful for your support and love... God has blessed my life through you all.

Much love and gratitude on Thanksgiving,
Kristen

Some of the sweet gifts that point me to Christ...

This is Magdalena, a sweet fourth grader at Kwakwas. I just love her.

These are two of the girls that Mackenzie and I have gotten to know very well from Rehoboth High School. Fabiola, 15, and Luzelle, 14. They both have such a desire to know more about Christ, it is a JOY to talk to them every week!

Courtney and Jaydon are the daughters of a wonderful couple on our team here in Rehoboth. They are amazing girls, and have been spending one or two afternoons each week with us, as their mom has had to be back home in England for a little while. This picture was taken at our team Thanksgiving celebration (halfway between Canadian Thanksgiving and American Thanksgiving!)

The team of six girls is becoming a team of four this week…we will miss Cathi and Alli so very much. Fun meetings and outings with these girls have been such a blessing!

The grade four kids LOVE puzzles (and they call them "spussles" which makes it extra cute!)…we had an incredible day together beginning preparation for our Christmas program and having enough extra time in the day to do puzzles. (Thanks Mom for sending these!!) :) Their smiles and laughter are precious.

The hard road and the good gifts along the way...

Since the beginning of my time here in Namibia, I have continued to be amazed at the way God delights to give good gifts to His children. There have been many hard days—days of feeling clueless, helpless, inadequate, days of missing home so much it hurts. Sometimes the hardest thing about those days is knowing that Christ has not called us to an easy road, or a comfortable life…He has called us to take up our cross and follow Him (a hard but not joyless road). Knowing that, because I follow Christ, hard is going to continue to define my life for the rest of my life is often difficult to swallow. Deep down inside of me, though, that’s what I want because looking to the JOY, the reward set before us, makes the “hard life” seem like no sacrifice at all. And that’s how it should be.

To live radically, following Christ at any cost to self, and to still be able to say at the end of it, “I never made a sacrifice,” because Christ and His presence is beyond worth it. We trade all that we have for all that is BETTER.

Knowing that hard is good, that God has my best interests at heart and is always working for my good means that any sense of entitlement I might have that things should be better must go out the window. Instead, the accurate response should be an awareness of my sin, and that I have earned NOTHING, I deserve NOTHING from the king of the universe.

And yet, even though that couldn’t be more true, the great king of the universe still delights to give good gifts to His children…to provide for their needs, to satisfy the desires of their hearts. He does all those things by giving us HIMSELF.

It’s an amazing thing to be aware of how much you don’t deserve it, and yet still receive His grace… His love without condition. God has been so, so good to me, and I am often most aware of this on the days that feel the hardest. Because even in the midst of it, God offers His presence to me in ways that I never would have expected.

Whether it be the beauty of the stars in a cloudless Namibian night sky, an encouraging e-mail from home, the smiles of the kids at school, a sweet conversation with one of the high schoolers, a good laugh with a best friend, a long run, a great song, fellowship with my team, or even just waking up with JOY, God has been giving me sweet gifts, even on the hard days. Especially on the hardest days. And I have never been more sure than I am now that the sweetest of all these gifts is the awareness of the PRESENCE of Jesus in all of these things.

When God opens my eyes to His goodness (and believe me, I am dependent on Him to even make me aware of it), there is nothing but gratitude no matter what is going on around me. Whatever He’s doing, I can rest in the truth that He is GOOD and longs to satisfy His children with the gift of Himself.

Thank you, Jesus, for BEING our reward, our hope, our help in times of need, our comforter, and the source of every good and perfect gift. May the good gifts of life, joy, comfort, hope, community, and creation ALWAYS, always point us to the Giver.

And for my faithful prayer supporters, here are some ways you can be praying:

-We are nearing the end of the school year here…pray that my last two weeks with the kids provide opportunities to teach them awesome truths about Christ that they can understand. Pray for the kids—that they would know and experience the love of Christ this Christmas, no matter what their life is like at home.

-The high schoolers that we have been spending time with will soon be going home for Christmas and summer holiday (its one in the same here!), so pray that the these last two weeks with them will be great time of continued relationship building and conversations about how Christ transforms our lives.

-For wisdom and creativity as we brainstorm how to best reach the high schoolers we have been building relationships with next term (we are thinking of starting a club, a discipleship group, etc.)

-Cathi and Alli (from our original U.S. team of six girls) leave for home on Sunday! We can’t believe their time here has already come to an end…pray for them, that God would give them peace to leave and a sense that He has used them here.

Thank you for your encouragement, your faithful prayers…they are one more way that I find myself absolutely blown away by the goodness of our God.

Much love,
Kristen

wanting what HE wants...

Some of you probably know that I just returned back home for my
brother's wedding for a quick 6 day whirlwind visit. What an amazing
time it was—not only to see my wonderful family and precious friends,
but to celebrate the sweet gift from the Lord that Matt and Shea's
marriage is. I could write a whole post about how proud I am of both
of them, how much I love them, and how excited I am for their life
together, but I'll save that for another day. :)
Leaving home (again) to come back to Namibia was much harder than I
could have ever expected. I was hoping that time on the plane and in
airports would bring more motivation and passion to return, and yet I
find myself back in Rehoboth safely but lacking the motivation I need
to be here.
I have found myself wondering exactly why I'm here, and even more why
I don't love the place that God has brought me. I want to love it
here. To be so fulfilled by my day to day life that I'm not
constantly longing for home.

I realize that part of the reason it is, and probably always will be,
so hard to leave home is that I have an unmatchable community there of
people I love and people who encourage me in my walk in the Lord. It
is so unique and so precious, and I am slowly learning never to take
it for granted. But these last few hard days of leaving once again,
and coming back to a place that still feels foreign to me, I have been
brought back to a sweet moment I had with the Lord before I left.
It was a moment that we can all relate to…one in which something you
have known for a very long time in your head suddenly becomes
understood in a new way by your heart—where you FEEL the truth of it,
and it becomes much more real.

The truth that became real in that moment was that following Jesus is
far better than all the world. Including God's sweet gifts of
community, friendship, family. That loving Him more than those things
is not a burden—it is a joy, and I must fight to find that joy at any
cost. And like Paul, I want to count everything as a loss (including
some of the best things in my life) compared to the surpassing
greatness of knowing Christ Jesus, for whose sake I have lost all
things. (Phil 3:8)

I don't feel the truth of that right now…I'm not where I want to be.
In all honesty, right now, I want to be home. And at the same time, I
want to be in that place in my spirit where I feel the truth that
following Jesus is far better than being home would be…to be in a
place where it is my delight and my joy to be here because THIS is
where He has called me, and He has a plan for me here.

One of the most important people in my life wrote these words to me
before I left in September:
"May the gospel go forth, may Jesus be known, may God be glorified,
may your joy be full, and may you count everything a loss compared to
the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus our Lord… May Namibia and
your life never be the same."

And still, even months later, these words bring tears to my eyes. Oh
how I long for these words to become reality. And even in spite of
all the sadness I feel in being away from the people I love, the
church that I love, the family that I love—I know that God is enough.
That He is the satisfier. And that my desire for the gospel to go
forth, for Jesus to be known, for God to be glorified, and for my life
never to be the same must outweigh my desire for comfort, for presence
of family and friends, for home. My desire for Christ must be greater
than my desire for His good gifts.

An amazing song by Charlie Hall has been an encouragement to my heart...
"I wish this thing could pass from me, but I'm wanting what you want. So bring me high, or bring me low, just hold me in your love..."

Will you pray for me—that God would remind my heart of the precious
truths that my mind is sure of? That He would allow me the privilege
of being used to advance His kingdom here in Rehoboth and that it
would be my joy because He is who I delight in.

And let's pray these words together—
Jesus-- may the gospel go forth, may You be known, may You be
glorified, may our joy be full, may we count everything as loss
compared to the surpassing worth of knowing YOU, and may our lives
NEVER be the same. No matter where we find ourselves—will you do these
things in us because THAT is what is best for us. THAT is what counts
for eternity.

So grateful for you all and the support that you give—more than you know.
Much love,
Kristen

Here are some pics of the most beautiful wedding I've ever been to...

Me and the beautiful bride...who is now officially my sister. :)