G.O. 2005: Namibia (pt. 8)

From A Distance (pt. 3)
God is watching us…
Of all the personal connections we made, it was the children of Vyf Rand that captured the hearts of this team. Each time we pulled our vehicles through the neighborhood children would spill out into the streets and follow us to the soccer field to play. Many of our team members seemed to form a special bond with one or two of the local children, so that on each visit those same children would come to find that one special visitor that they had connected with earlier. Our team as well, scanned the children for that one child who had so captured their hearts.

Pulling out of Vyf Rand at the end of each day’s visit proved difficult. The children were so sad to see us leave that they would often cling to us, climb on our vehicles or run alongside, dangerously close as we attempted to drive away. We managed most days to send the vans out one at a time, the group in the last van keeping the children at a safe distance. My van was often the last to leave. To keep the children back as we began to leave, Stephanie and Samantha would walk behind the vehicle and as we were at a safe distance they would say goodbye to the children and run to catch us. That worked for a few days. On one of our last visits Steph and Sam began to run, Sam made it to the vehicle, Steph didn’t. As I looked in the mirror, I saw that the children had grabbed on to her and were keeping her from getting to us. I also saw that Steph’s expression had changed. She looked scared. I stopped the van and ran back to her. As I approached I shouted to the crowd, “Okay! We need to leave now! We will see you tomorrow! It’s time for you to go home! Goodbye!” The children immediately let go of Stephanie and moved away. So we got in the van and drove back to our camp. As I replayed that scene in my mind it hit me: As I approached those children and as I raised my voice, they appeared to almost cower. It almost looked to me like a dog who has been abused will cower when someone raises a hand to pet it, as if expecting instead some violence. I described what I had seen to Dieter and Joan and they shook their heads, “Darin, these children know all to well the sight of an angry, approaching man.” That experience is forever etched on my heart.

There were many more personal connections that seemed almost God-sends to me for our team. Among these unplanned connections, Richard Hanna with Northland’s team was a great source of encouragement to many of us. His light-hearted playfulness put us all at ease, but conversations with him could turn on a dime to meaningful openness and honesty. More than a few members of our team commented to me that their encounters with Richard seemed more than coincidental.

Another unplanned encounter happened as several of our dancers shopped for souvenirs in Windhoek one day. As they walked the sidewalk in the capitol city a woman approached and asked the girls “Are you born again?” She shoved some literature in their faces and the girls politely sidestepped her and moved on. But, her question struck deep. Many a conversation from that point on in the trip returned to that encounter. What does it mean to be born again? Am I born again? Are you born again? I had a crazy Aunt and Uncle who called themselves born again… and on and on. Again, by trips end many of our group were asking, was this encounter a coincidence?

On these trips the relational connections within the team are always a special part of the experience. We all recognized that this team coming together was more than a coincidence. How was it that these 29 people, many of whom had only in recent weeks gotten to know each other, would find themselves sharing every moment of two and a half weeks together on the other side of the world? How was it that these teammates could come to genuinely care about one another so quickly? How was it that people who seemed to have very little in common before the trip discovered that they had very much in common as the trip unfolded? Each team member wrestled in some way or another to make sense of it all. Many wrestle still.