December 2008
It was our aim to have sent you our letter before Christmas... We hope you all had a joyful and blessed time.
Driving past Karibib I (Birgit) noticed this little church standing in the dryness and heat of a semi-desert environment, surrounded by the shacks of very poor people. This sight really touched and challenged me: what is the degree of difficulty I am willing to face or endure in order to do and live what is important to me?
It has been 2 years since our last update, so this becomes quite a daunting task! Having both passed the 40 mark now, on the one hand we feel that life certainly doesn’t slow down, but on the other there are aspects that we enjoy much more:
Danilo (8) has started in Grade 0 last year (2007) – also called “Bridging Class”, i.e. before Grade 1. Well, by the April parent-teacher meeting we were requested to transfer him to Gr. 1, as it was increasingly difficult to keep his attention and not lose the other kids in the class… So we had our first experience in home schooling during the May holidays to catch up the work of the first trimester of Grade 1: Danilo was so eager that he was right on schedule by the time the schools opened again. This year he had finished all his Grade 2 work by the end of June! What now? We didn’t want him to "jump" another Grade as at some stage he would then have to sit in a class with older kids, which could be very uncomfortable later on – ask me, I’ve been there…! So, while he started on Grade 3 work, we asked the teachers to occupy him with additional material: extra subjects, Sodukos, reading German and English books, extra Maths, etc. It seems that whatever you throw at him he just grabs as a challenge and runs with it.
The first one is our marriage: although we still have our ups and downs the downs are few and far between, and by God’s grace we manage to grow closer through each one of them. I stand amazed at my beautiful wife and everything she is.
I was particularly blessed by the book “Every Man’s Marriage” by Stephen Arterburn and Fred Stoeker, which gave me a new understanding of the concept “servant leadership”. The same authors wrote “Every Man’s Battle” – there is a whole “every man” series, including “Every Woman’s Marriage”.
Other marriage books that we’ve read in the last 2 years include:
“Love and Respect” by Emerson Eggerichs, who has based an entire marriage ministry on Ephesians 5:33 “each one of you must so love his wife as he loves himself and let the wife see that she respects her husband” – we have been able to bless a number of other marriages with this book.
“His Needs, Her Needs” by Willard F Harley – a good conversation starter, with systematic analysis of our respective priorities
“Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus” by John Gray – highly recommended
Currently we are reading “The Gift of Sex” by Clifford & Joyce Penner – definitely very helpful!
Our children also are a great source of joy: Andriko (10) has worked very hard to complete his Grade 3 work before the May holidays and he earned himself an MP3-player in the process. This is possible in the ACE school system, where every child can work at his own speed. Since we let all our children start school at age 7, he is in the “right” class now, with most children of the same age. The aim is now to finish Grade 5 by the end of 2009. He is a diligent and committed young man.
He lives for the afternoons where he does trampoline & tumbling training – he is somewhat disappointed every time we come to pick him up – we are always too early, no matter how much extra time we give him! The other joy in his life is computer games, but (unfortunately!) they are rationed to half an hour a day… Playing “Age of Empires” has awakened an interest in history, starting with historical battles!
Andriko progresses well playing the piano, although practicing remains a chore...
Danilo also does Trampoline & Tumbling now, but not yet at competitive level, like Andriko. Furthermore he enjoys soccer, where he excels in the defence and as goal keeper. At the school athletics competition he surprised us by winning the sprint events.
He also displays significant musical talent: currently he plays the recorder, which he really enjoys.
Would you allow us (as proud parents) to also share the following? Both boys won honorary awards at school for being the only 2 pupils that did more than 100 Paces during the year, where 72 is the “normal” volume for a year.
Our kids also enjoy attending a German church service occasionally. Once a month they go to the evangelical Stadtmission (“City Mission”), which is close to our house, and they also love going to the “Jungschar” (youth group) every Friday, as well as the annual “Kinderwoche” (kids week).
Tabitha (6) has enjoyed her first year at All Nations Christian School – she did Grade 0 this year. We will send her to the Montessori Kindergarten next year, before starting Grade 1 in 2010. It didn’t take long to become reasonably fluent in English – amazing how these little ones pick it up so quickly.
A couple of months ago Tabitha one day very seriously said to Birgit: “You know, Mommy, I have homework from school to do today. For me it is the easiest thing to do, of course, but for you, it would be very hard.” Tabitha lost her first tooth this month, so she really shows signs of getting ready to go to school.
The other side of Tabitha is just being a little girl with all that it entails. She enjoys dressing up like Mommy, and then she asked the other day: “Mommy, aren’t we the most beautiful women?” And she regularly asks: “Daddy, am I pretty?” She still loves pink, purple, glitter, hearts, flowers and butterflies. Therefore she usually dresses up like a little flower fairy. Since we started having her birthday parties (at age 4) Tabitha every year requested a flower fairy party with her little friends dressed as flower fairies. You can just imagine this gorgeous, heart-warming sight.
One day she fell and cried and very dramati-cally explained: “Mommy, the stone has stabbed me right into my veins!”
Recently Hellmut had to drop off something somewhere and invited the kids to come along, but they had more interesting things to do, so he left on his own. A guest asked: “So you’re leaving Daddy to go all on his own?” to which Tabitha replied: “But he’s never all on his own, don’t you know? Jesus is always with him!"
All of our children spend quite some time playing with our pets: Kiani (dog), Pauli (tomcat), canaries, hamsters, rabbits and a cockatiel (which unfortunately died recently). The only challenge is caring for and feeding them. The kids need lots of reminders and encouragement. We see it as an opportunity to train and educate them in taking responsibility.
Andriko and Danilo have saved up and bought their own "wave boards", (also called "street boards") and are quite proficient "wavers" by now!
For both of us it is a joy and a privilege to be part of a congregation that empowers, disciples and equips young Africans to make a positive difference in their families, our society and our country. Hellmut and I were asked a year ago to accept being commissioned as elders together with a Kenyan couple, which would mean becoming part of the church leadership together with the pastoral couples. At first I didn’t feel up to it at all and wanted to say No, but in His faithfulness God has confirmed this calling in a supernatural way. As such the responsibility for His People Christian Church in Windhoek is partly borne by us.
A highlight each year is the weekend with approx. a dozen families on the farm of the Jauss family, including camping, singing, braai-ing, doing trips around the farm, an evening of dancing, relaxing, etc.
Another highlight is our annual holiday at Hentiesbaai for about a week.
You can see that we are doing well as a family. Obviously we also regularly have to face challenges – be it personal growth, marital issues, kids’ upbringing, or relating to a variety of people and the circumstances they find themselves in. In all of these I (Birgit) am so grateful that I’m not confined to my own meagre resources of wisdom, but that we have a living, real Lord that leads, helps and strengthens us and gives us what we can’t produce ourselves.
Because we live in the city we are especially grateful to have grand-parents living at the coast and grandparents and uncle & aunt living on a farm. We try to visit regularly. We are grateful for the privilege of exposing our kids to nature and a different way of living via these routes. On the farm our children enjoy the company of their nephews and nieces and the contact with so many different animals. The last time we visited on the farm Danilo saw the cattle with earmarks (to identify each animal) and said: “Look, Daddy, all these cows are for sale!” On the farm the kids play outside most of the time. Joining the adults on a hunting trip, mountain climbing, getting into some of the caves, target shooting, making bow and arrows, shooting doves & guinea fowls, frying them on the fire, constructing a hiding place in the bush, etc. The kids have fond memories of these times. During spring we had a very hazy day here in Windhoek. Then Tabitha said: “I think Grandma and Granddad on the farm are having a braai today!” thinking that the smoke travelled some 450 km from the farm to Windhoek.
I (Birgit) am also grateful for the opportunities to visit my folk on the farm. I must admit, I do miss farm life at times. Except for just being there and enjoying the fellowship, I especially appreciate being able to take walks early morning with sunrise. During these times I enjoy doing my body a favour by getting some exercise, but also blessing my soul by exposing myself to the beauty of nature at this time of the day. These walks are also precious in that I have uninterrupted time with God for talking and listening to Him.
Amongst others this means that we are in contact with and walk a road with even more people than before – sometimes for a short stretch, sometimes a longer one. This results in significant time pressures and we are even more challenged to manage our time effectively, to avoid neglecting other priorities.
As we don’t always succeed in this balancing act our social interactions have suffered quite a bit. If you feel that we have “neglected” you – you are not alone! We know that some of our friends and family were disappointed, even hurt, by the fact that we have not made contact. We apologise for this and ask you: would you forgive us, please? Please be assured: it is not for a lack of good will.
A related matter is our telephone: we have resolved to not let the phones rule our lives, so while we appreciate you calling, we will often simply not take calls, including on birthdays – it just got too much! Please feel free to leave a voicemail message or send an SMS – we will respond as and when we are able.
We all need to make good use of our time. We would so love to please everybody – sometimes we try to do exactly that – and almost burn out in the process. So, often we just ask: “Lord, what do You want me to do now?”
In order to grow personally and enhance our ability to equip others we read and do courses like FFI (www.familyfoundations.com), Theophostic Prayer Ministry (www.theophostic.com) and Crown Financial Ministries (www.crown.org). Hellmut travelled to the Crown conference in Cape Town, which helped him in his tasks as board member of Crown Namibia. He was also in Cape Town for the His People Nation Building conference. This year we presented two Growing Kids God’s Way courses (www.gfi.org). Other regular involvements are: being on the school board of All Nations Christian School, the Financial and Management Advisory Board of His People, preaching one or two sermons and occasionally lecturing at our bible school ENLI: Every Nations Leadership Institute.
We don’t want to elaborate too much on matters of the extended family in this letter. The only “majors” were: Birgit’s dad had an unexpected heart bypass in Cape Town with serious complications early 2007. He recovered by Gods grace, downscaled a lot on the farm and handed over all cattle farming to Eckart. Helmut and Christine and their 2 sons moved to Tsumeb in April 2008.
You can read the latest about Hellmut’s family at www.ludwiger.com. We had a lovely family get-together at the Omaruru Game Lodge when Opi (Hellmut's father) turned 70 in August.
We realise time and time again how blessed we are – literally in every area of life. We know that this is simply God’s goodness and grace, something we do not deserve, but are very grateful for! A book that has helped me (Hellmut) particularly this year is Map 4 Life by Glen McQuirk (www.map4life.com). Glen challenges you to lead a balanced life and set goals in every one of 8 main areas: Spiritual, Family Relationships, Intellectual, Physical Health, Financial Wealth, Career/Business, Social Responsibility, and last but not least Rest & Restoration. I will share some highlights that came out of this process.
My first goal was to spend a lot more time with God, and while I have a very long way to go, and the target of getting up between 05h00 and 05h30 was only met less than half the time, some fruit of regular quiet time is already there, like the good attitude that comes from realising just how wonderful God is, how much He loves us, and how often he pours blessings on us!
Last year we attended a marriage retreat – we did not have the wonderful time that we were supposed to have, in fact, it was horrible, because we fell into the trap of only focusing on the areas that ‘needed improvement’, while not even seeing the 99% that were great and should have given us plenty of reason for being happy and grateful. Well, we learned from that experience, (the second marriage retreat this year was much better!), and when we start being critical of each other, we can remind ourselves to do it with the right attitude – and yes, we know that sometimes we have to talk about uncomfortable things, but in the right attitude, knowing that the partner is not the enemy – in fact, the partner is pretty amazing!
On the health side we have joined the Body Balance private gym a year ago, after doing regular Pilates exercises and other activities before. My (Hellmut) body fat percentage has dropped from 18% to 15% while my weight has remained constant at a pretty ideal 85kg – sorry, this might sound like I’m bragging, but it’s actually the result of a lot of hard work – and consistency! Birgit and I both have a genetic disposition to high cholesterol, so we also power-walk/run regularly with the Windhoek Harriers to enhance our healthy life style, since the forties bring with them some cm and kg’s, which is more of an issue than the greying hair...
Early last year we were introduced to Finkenstein (www.finkenstein-estate.com), a new development 12km outside Windhoek on the way to the airport. We always wanted to live a bit closer to nature, so we decided to invest an inheritance from Birgit’s parents into erf number 3! On second thoughts we realised that the extramural activities of the children would require too much driving, so we’ll probably only build and move there in 12 years...
In the mean time we decided to take the plunge and replace the old kitchen that was probably at least as old as the house itself (over 25 years) and actually was becoming an embarrassment. Well, after hours and hours of planning we lived in the guest room for 2 weeks before departing on holiday – sort-of believing the emphatic promises that the installation would be completed by the time we come back. Well, we returned to quite a sight: an empty kitchen and the lawn covered with half-finished furniture. After an extremely stressful week we could move in (with Reinhard’s help) the night before Christmas Eve. There were some last niggles to be sorted out in the New Year, but now we are still enjoying our beautiful kitchen every day, especially Birgit, of course. It is a great source of pleasure!
In June the new Audi A4 was launched. As I am a staunch believer in buying cars second hand and not new, due to the fact that a new car loses a lot of value in the first year or two, I just remarked to my pastor that I really like the new shape, but that I’ll have to wait another year or two before I could consider replacing my current A4, a 1998 model that I have been driving and enjoying very much for more than 5 years. He encouraged me to pray about it. I said: there’s nothing to pray about, it doesn’t make sense to buy new, besides I am the one that always ‘preaches’ about buying second hand... Anyway, he said, pray about it and if God says: Buy new then you buy new. So I went home and asked God what I should do: obviously I wouldn’t mind a new car, but this didn’t look like a real option. I could also sell the old faithful and buy a newer second-hand A4 (I will confess to being an Audi fan!), or I could continue driving my current “pride and joy”. I asked God to give me a scripture that told me clearly which of the 3 options was His perfect will. After struggling for some time I got Proverbs 3:10 “then your barns will be filled to overflowing, and your vats will brim over with new wine.” The sentence actually starts in the previous verse: “Honour the Lord with your wealth, with the firstfruits of all your crops; then your barns will be filled to overflowing, and your vats will brim over with new wine.” Well, I thought, that’s nice, and I certainly do endeavour to honour the Lord with my wealth, but that doesn’t tell me what to do with the cars. So I heard “look in the next book, Song of Solomon.” I asked: “Where?” – “also 3:10”. Well, the next book is Ecclesiastes (and not the Song), but the third chapter starts with there being a time for everything and the encouragement (v.13) “that every man should enjoy the good of all his labour – it is the gift of God.” I didn’t expect to find anything relevant about my question in the Song of Solomons, since it’s a book about love and marriage and so on. Anyway, Song 3:10 reads “Its posts he made of silver, its base of gold. Its seat was upholstered with purple, its interior lovingly inlaid by the daughters of Jerusalem.” So what’s that all about? Let’s look at the context and read verse 9: “King Solomon made for himself the carriage; he made it of wood from Lebanon. Its posts he made of silver, etc.” I was completely stunned. I don’t know where else in the bible it speaks about a carriage (or anything that comes close to a car, for that matter), but this didn’t sound like a second-hand vehicle to me, in fact, it sounded very much like a new, luxury model!
Ok, so I gradually got the message: It’s okay; you can buy and enjoy a new car. This is a reward for faithfulness. But there remained the not so minor issue of paying for it. I was not prepared to go into debt for the indulgence and I certainly did not have this kind of money lying around. While I preach debt-free living, I am comfortable with investment debt, and that is how I manage our finances: I have invested in quite a few shares in my employer, and as long as those investments (conservatively valued) are worth more than our total debt, I consider us to be debt-free (house and vehicles paid off). Well, you can imagine the “Wow” when I realised a week or so later that our investments were actually worth more than I had calculated; in fact the difference was – wait for it – exactly the price of the new Audi!
By now the blessing has arrived, and has been a source of greater joy every day!
In August Birgit and I fasted and prayed to seek God’s will for our lives – specifically asking what we should drop from our programme and what we should focus on. I (Birgit) was challenged to change my attitude and focus more on God’s grace, which will be sufficient for me. While we had no earth-shattering revelations, we realised that we needed to give more time and attention to our marriage relationship and to our kids. The church leadership requested us and we agreed to no longer present equipping courses, but to oversee connect groups.
At my (Hellmut’s) work there were 2 profound changes: Early 2007 Ms Antje Hennies joined me as my assistant. Antje has proved to be a major blessing – I can rely on her to keep the fort, and her professional, courteous manner and her dedication and commitment ensure the smooth running of our office. We share an attention to detail, and it amazes me again and again that I seldom need to correct something she has prepared for me to sign. The other profound change was that I could delegate the financial reporting responsibilities to another department: what a relief! No more daily creditor payments, monthly reporting, preparation of budgets and annual consolidated financial statements. As a result I can now at last do what I’m actually supposed to do: reviewing and enhancing our corporate governance structures, and enabling the directors to become better decision makers. This included attending and arranging seminars and training, as well as a quick trip to Zambia in October.
The last of the 8 areas of the Map4Life is Rest & Restoration. Here we fall woefully short, and the goals are to be far stricter with the Sabbath, schedule times to play as a family and to schedule times to read. As there are always things “to do” on a Saturday morning that were left over from the week and would not constitute resting, we have decided that our Sabbath will start at lunch time on Saturday and end at lunch time on Sunday. If someone asked us: “How are you, how are you really?” we had to reply: “We are just so tired.” Obviously the December holidays have really helped already, but we’re pretty sure that this isn’t God’s idea – to be tired all the time. So, with the right structures in place and the focus sorted out we will enter the next year, knowing that God will equip us and grace us for all the tasks He has for us!
May you also experience His grace and His presence in your life!
Much love
Hellmut, Birgit, Andriko, Danilo & Tabitha
Last update: 30 December 2008