Namibia

I had my first meeting last Saturday with the group going to Namibia this June. I cannot believe I am really going to be able to go and talking with some of the others who have already been there just got me more excited, if that was possible. First off, travel will be a drag. You know the old bit, a person is up in New England and stops to ask for directions and the answer they receive is, "You can't get there from here (pronounced with an accent of course)." Well I think they were talking about Namibia. So far the tentative schedule is this, We meet in Phila. airport at 3 in the afternoon, fly over night to Frankfurt. We arrive in Frankfurt at 8 am and then don't leave Germany until 10:30 that night (I get a day to play in Frankfurt.) We fly overnight and arrive in Jo'burg, South Africa at 8 am and leave there at 11:30 am finally arriving in Windhoek, Namibia at 12:30 pm. From there we will travel a bit around the country visiting a few different congregations. One of the main things is visiting with the sister churches to our churches in NJ. We will get picked up by someone from the congregation we will be visiting and taken to their home. This can mean a short drive on a highway or a few hours ride off-road on dirt trails. Any questions I am hoping to go off road? One of the regions someone will visit is where their language is one of the ones where they use clicking of their tongue along with words. I am so hoping to go there. I heard that when they are singing praise it is like they are being accompanied with a percussion instrument. I hope I get assigned to that region. Another cool thing is that we will be able to go a safari for a day at Etosha Park, one of the top game parks in all of Africa. Can't wait for that. We will be visiting an orphanage- there are more than 1/4 million children in Namibia who have been orphaned by AIDS. UNICEF has reported that if things don't change drastically in Namibia that by the year 2021 it will be a country run by children. The ELCA in NJ has been supporting the orphanage that we will be visiting. We will also be visiting a seminary school and encouraging the students there. After close to 2 weeks of traveling around and visiting with people, we will head for the airport and deal with the travel back home, but after looking at our schedule, I think I will be sleeping the whole series of flights home.