“I need someone to help me…”

Our focus this week has been on the Khwe people. There are six to seven thousand Khwe in this part of Namibia scattered over eight or nine villages in what is now a national park. Three years ago, before Covid, we had made three five hour round trips to two villages, Peoples and Chetto, to meet with Pastors Wilson and Nelson, and their members. We encountered zeal with what appeared to be limited knowledge of the Gospel, not to mention a significant language barrier. We were provoked by the Spirit and so have spent the last three years praying about this.

Fast forward to last week when Pastor Wilson and Matthias from the Peoples church attended our Phase 1 training here in Katima Mulilo. We wanted them to get a sense of what we could offer their church leadership and it seems to have been successful in that regard. Then, this Wednesday, we drove out to Peoples and met again with Pastors Wilson and Nelson who warmly welcomed us. We enjoyed seeing them, and spoke about the continued development of our relationship with their churches.

Our other reason for visiting was to meet a man named Soleri in Chetto. Soleri is about fifty years old, is Khwe, is from Chetto, leads the Chetto church with Pastor Nelson, and lived in a South African Khwe community from 1990-95. More significantly for us, he has, over the last ten or fifteen years, traveled to Europe several times to help those studying the Khwe culture and language. He now has a foot in both cultures and speaks good English. We were anxious to meet him and learn as much as we could in a one hour meeting. We enjoyed getting to know him, and it seemed to go very well.

Soleri allowed us to videotape our discussion and he was very willing to answer our questions about the Khwe and their way of life, and about the churches there. We learned about their traditional animistic religion, the so-called healing churches that mix hallucinogenic drugs and trance dancing with pseudo-Christian worship, and the small Christian churches that are in desperate need of discipleship.

During our conversation, Percy asked Soleri what his greatest need was. His paused and simply said, “I need someone to help me.”

So, we offered to help.

Over the next year, Percy and Pastor Jack will spend more time with Soleri, Pastors Wilson and Nelson, Matthias, and the Khwe to get to know them and understand their culture better. Over the winter, Abby and I will research and develop a very basic discipleship curriculum appropriate for both the Khwe children and adults. Then, next year, we will begin training in earnest. In our minds, this is likely a ten year project. At least, that’s what we’re preparing for. We’ll see.

Please continue to pray for us. On Monday, we return to Livingstone, Zambia for a rest. On July 27th, we’ll welcome our friends and GTN colleagues, Scott and Sandra Bauer, and spend the following two weeks together training leaders in Musokotwane and elsewhere. This will be Scott and Sandra’s first visit to Zambia and we’re very excited to welcome them!

The road to the Khwe villaGes is pretty muCh a straight shot from Katima Mulilo.

We enjoyed meeting Soleri and are GRATEFUL for his warm welcome.

What a privilege It is to Know (L to R) Percy, Soleri and Pastor Jack!,

These beautiful khwe children were playing near us when we met with Soleri.

PastoR jack’s loVe for the khwe people has opened the door for us.