September Update

Dear Friends,

       Greetings from the beautiful land of Namibia.  Sorry we didn't have much to say for the month of August so this is going to be for two months August and September not much but still something to write.  It has been two good months.

The woodcarvers bible study continues to be a great part of each week.  We have finished going through the book of Romans and have now started I Corinthians.  So far it has been going well.  Things have been a little hard on those in the bible study because there has been so little business this year, but they continue to trust in God for all they need.  

The School bible study has been going ok.  This year the schools have decided to move up the dates on exams and add more afternoon classes and evening studies.  So this has then put a strain on the time to do the study.  We have switched from doing the study on mondays and wednsdays to just fridays since they do not have afternoon studies on fridays.  We have finished going through the discipleship booklets and will be next week starting to go through Acts.  We are really looking forward to starting this.  We will also by getting into a book of the bible having some of the older students take more leadership in the study.  We will probably have a student lead at least once a week to start out and then hopefully every week.  I am so humbled by the growth of these students.  Elmarie especially has really shown great leadership and spiritual maturity.  We praise God for all He has done with these students.  It's awesome!

The JG bible study has stopped for now due to the exams.  We will start back up next year.

Wedsday night service or bible study is going well.  We are still going through the firm foundations material with those that are coming.  After we get through this material we will be starting to go through a book of the Bible together.  

The Grace and the Glory Community Church is going well.  This is becoming my main focus.  I actually last week finished a sermon series on the church.  It was a great series, and there has been alot of really good feedback from it.  This past week I started on a new sermon series through the book of Acts.  I am looking forward to this series, that we will be studying what the early church looked like and the trials it faced.  It will be very practical for us.  Please pray that God would continue to lead, teach, and guide us through the early and sometimes hard times of this church plant.

  Coffee Bar is not going on anymore.  It seemed that each friday we would have one or no one come.  So we decided to stop the coffee bar, and are now looking at having a more focused youth group night.  This would be a night that will take more planning, but will be more focused on reaching the young people of our town.  Please pray for us as we continue to plan and put this together.  We are looking at some of the older school bible study students to be leaders for this.  We are excited, but are not sure yet when we can start.  We are hoping at the first of next month.

Well I think that is all for now.  This past month Julia and I have truly been humbled by the way that God has provided for us.  So with that we want to thank all our supporters.  This includes our monthly supporters and those that support us in prayer.  Thank you for coming along side us!  

God has provided us with a camera, so we will next month be posting some more pictures on our flickr site.  Thank you all for your patience with us during this time.  May God bless you with more of His grace.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/bahun_family_in_namibia/

       Serving Christ for His Glory,

                        Buddy and Julia Bahun 

July montly update

Dear Friends and Family,

Greetings from Okahandja! Things are going well. This past month has been one that God has strengthened and taught us many things. We are both so thankful to God for his grace in our lives, and that He would grace us to be doing what He has called us to do.
The school bible study has been slow this month...they are having exams right now and a lot of studies going on. They are having an afternoon study and an evening study and all have to be back to school for this, so we are currently only having the bible study on Fridays because they don’t have studies on Fridays. We are still going through the booklets on different topics, and we finished this week one on prayer. It has been very cool going through prayer with them. The students are responding very well to this material. We will be taking a break from the study over the holiday, but hope to have a youth night with these students.
We have taken a break with the JG school bible study for exams. We will start it back up after the holiday which is the rest of this month. We will also hope to have some students from JG come to the youth night if we are able to make it happen.
The Wednesday night bible is going ok. We are looking at do this study a little different to were we going in the community having the bible study at Jenny’s house, Christiaan and Nelda’s house and so on but to were we doing it in the community. This may give more out reach opportunities. Jenny got a new job so she has not been able to make it to the bible study but she has asked us to have a bible study with her on Mondays. She has got Mondays off so right now we will be meeting with her every Monday to study the Word together. Nelda also has not been able to make it to the bible study for a few weeks now…she has been taking care of Shufeni. Shufeni is Christiaan’s nephew and lives with them. He is about 7 or 8 years old and is HIV positive. He is really struggling with his health and it has been tough.
The woodcavers bible study is going very well, and we have a new lady that started to come. We are still going through Romans. We will be starting chapter 16 this week and will be finishing Romans this month. I am really looking forward to what the Lord has next for us.
The coffee bar has been going well. We are thinking about adding some games. It has been slow lately, and we are trying to think of new things to help draw young people in. We have basically two thoughts with one common part. 1) We change the coffee bar into a sort of youth night for the church. This would involve specific games and a devotional time. 2) We add more games and have special events on different nights. We would also have a time of reading scripture/devotional. At this point we are seeking the Lord on what direction He wants us to go. To be honest I am leaning more towards the youth night(option 1). But we will see.
The church is going well. We (Christiaan and I) attended a pastors fraternal with 13 pastors from all over Namibia this past month. We were able to use the MPMC to hold the fraternal. This was a group of pastors from primarily reformed Baptist churches in Namibia. We will continue to hold these meetings every 6 months. It was such a refreshing time. We look forward to the support and encouragement that will come from this fraternal. In the church I am continuing to preach through a series on the church. I am now 6 weeks into it. It has been a wonderful, and exhausting topic. I love to preach the Word. Sometimes I feel like Paul when he said, “Woe to me if I do not preach the gospel”(I Cor. 9:16b). I am currently preaching through “the 5 principals of Godly ministry”, taught from Rom. 15:14-22. It is a Joy!
Things have been going ok for us. Last week we went to Windhoek (city) and someone broke the car windows and stole my bag and Julia’s bag. We lost our camera, both my and Julia’s bible, Julia’s ID, her bank card, her health insurance card, etc. A day later a guy called from Windhoek saying they found some of our stuff in the bush, so we got a car from CHI and drove to Windhoek. The guy found Julia’s ID, bank cards and (paper) documents for our computer. We are praising the Lord for what we got back. See this is an amazing thing. The man took us to the area where he found the stuff and we found more papers that were in our bags and bibles. We praise the Lord for this man that took the time to do what is right where others would not have. We are trying to get the car fixed but its so hard to find parts for the car here since its an import, its even worse with the windows but we know that God is in control of everything and that he will provide the windows for the car. We serve a Sovereign God! We know that He is in control and that there is truly a purpose behind this. He gave the things we had, and He took them away, and He can give them back again or not. Either way we will praise Him!
Below you will find some prayer and praises that we have. Thank you for your continued prayer for us and the work that God has called us to.

Prayer requests:
1. Please pray for little Shuveni and for Christiaan and Nelda as they are taking care of him. Shuveni has been not doing well lately. He is vomiting a lot. Please pray!
2. Please pray for the church. Pray that God would open the hearts of the people here and free them from the guilt that so many “pastors” put on them. Pray that the church would be on mission for this town.
3. Please pray for Julia and I as we continue to look for a place to live that would be more permanent and would be closer to those we are ministering to. We found that if we went and financed a house, we would only be approved for N$140,000. This would barely buy a used car. So we are really seeking the Lord for provision in this way. All the houses we have looked at have been between N$280,000 and N$400,000. We would love to find a place to rent but nobody wants to rent there houses out. And the places we have asked about are around N$3000 per month. Please pray!
4. Please pray for direction and wisdom for us as we seek the Lord on the Coffee bar.

Praises:
1. We praise the Lord for His provision for needed dental work for Buddy. This was going to be a prayer request, but then we were contacted that already two of our supporters had taken care of all the costs. We are so thankful to the Lord for His provisions through our dear friends.
2. We praise the Lord for giving us the grace that we got back some of the documents and cards that were stolen.

Julia and I want to thank all our monthly supporters! Whether you support us with funding or you support us in pray we are so thankful for you. For those that support us with funding, please know that without your giving we could not be doing what we are doing. God has shown His grace on you so that you can join us in the ministry and calling the Lord has given us. For those that support us in prayer, we know when people are praying for us. Prayer is so needed for ministry here. We are so thankful for all the prayers!
Please forgive us for this month with pictures. All the pictures we had taken for the month were on the camera when it got stolen. Lord willing we will have pictures for next month. Thank you for your grace!

May God bless with His perfect grace, love, mercy, and peace!

Loving our Sovereign God,
Buddy and Julia

Engaged!!

Hello friends and family,


Well it has been a great year and a lot has happened. I look back on this year and I can think of both good and bad times. In everything I would say The Lord has taught me more than I could have ever imagined. So...why this email? I really want to tell you all about one of the good things that God has done in this past year.
I will start from the beginning. Shortly after I got here last year I started working with Choose to Wait. When I started i met a woman named Julia. She was helping out as a leader in the Choose to wait club that I had just joined. We began to talk and to start building our friendship almost immediatly. It was such a great time. As we got to know one another we found that we really wanted to get to know each other more than just friends. It's sort of hard to pin point exactly when we started quarting, but to the best of our memory we think it was around April. Since April it has been a great time of just getting to know each other and seeing if we want to commit the rest of our lives to each other. It was a great quartship. We would see each other at choose to wait club and at times take walks in 5 dollar with someone sort of fallowing us closely behind. I cherish those memories! So with about nine months of getting to know her let me tell you a little about the woman I have come to love. Julia Mwahi is from the Owambo tribe here in Namibia. Her and her family live in a location here called 5 dollar. She has two brothers and two sisters that live there in 5 dollar with her parents and her. Now all the little details done here is how I feel about her and what I have learned by spending time with her. First and formost she loves the Lord and is growing in the Lord daily. I have seen how she has such a gift of teaching. Some of my great joys have been seeing how she has taught some of the students and how they seem to all look up to her for advice and help. I love her very much. She has a great sense of humor, and also knows when to be serious. She likes to camp and outdoors stuff, but also she is very feminine. there is not another woman like her. I don't know the exact date when I knew that she was the one I was going to marry, but I know it was a while ago. After listening to a lot of council we really felt that instead of just jumping into everything we should take some of the advice and give things some time. I can say that it was good advice. During that time we found ourselves getting even closer than before and really confirming that we wanted to be together for the rest of our lives. So I started to look for a ring. I can tell you it was a bit weird the first time I walked into a jewelry shop to look at rings...maybe some of you can relate. After that it was time to find out what kind of traditions I was going to have to fallow. I learned a lot. I found that I had to first go with someone who was older and already married to ask permission from her father to marry her. I had to take someone because the tradition says that that person who I bring is in a sense vouching for me. He is saying by coming that I am a trustworthy man that will do what I say and take care of there daughter. So I did that. I had a man come with me that Todd and myself have been talking to and sharing the gospel with during last year. His name is Henry. He is also owambo which really helped. After that her parents said that they had no problem with us, but they wanted to check with the elders of there family(Julia's grandmother) first before we would be officially engaged. So then I went up North to her families village for about two weeks. When I was up there I learned so much. I learned about there culture and about her family. I really have come to love her family very much, and they have come to concider me as part of there family already. Well her dad talked with her grandmother and I got the OK. That was great to hear. Then I was told about a tradition here in Namibia that I was not prepared for. In Namibia no matter what tribe you are from you are expected to upon the engagement give the girl not only a ring but also a watch, necklace, and earrings. So the day before everything I was scrambling around trying to find somewhere up north that had all the rest of the those items. I did end up finding them and then the next day was going to be the engagement. I didn't know what the engagement all included. To be honest it was like a wedding service. There was someone who officiated things and Julia and myself sat infront of everyone there. We sang songs prayed and they explained the significance of the ring. Like I said it was just like a wedding service. Then Temus(the man officiating) turns to me and asks what token or object have I brought to show my commitment to Julia. So then I got out the ring put it on her hand, then the watch, then the necklace, and lastly I put on the earrings. The earrings were a little scary, but the rest were fine. So.....on the 3rd of January Julia and I became officially engaged!!!!! We are just planing things out as far as the wedding goes. It is the complete opposite here from there. It is the responsibility of the groom to pay for the wedding not the brides family. So I have a lot of things to get ready for. I am sure the first question is when would the wedding be? We have decided on May 5th as the date of our wedding. So there is a lot to do , but not much time. I would love to hear from any of you about this. I am very much looking forward to starting my family this year. And then hopefully soon giving all of you a chance to meet my wife.


Serving Christ,

Buddy and Julia

One week...

Well...one week until I go and visit the states. I already will see how I will miss the people here. I love them so much. I am so thankful that God has called me here. We met for church this morning at my house. We have been going through the book of James and were finishing up chapter two this week. It was very good. Professing faith with out the outward evidence of it is dead faith. We talked about how when we are born again we desire to please God and that is a way that the people around us will see a difference in us. Reana, my next dorr neighbor that comes explained how when Josh Bromer was stil here she could see Christ through him, and how then she knew we were true christians. It was such a good time of fellowship and worship. We have seven regular namibians attending church at my house. God has already begun to bless us. I also just had an amazing night with my family from the wood carvers bible study. We have been studying almost all year the book of Matthew and have come to the end. So to end out the book and our study really of Jesus We met together on thursday night. We got together and read John 13 and then went in and washed each others feet which was the first time for many of them to have done. We then sat down took communion and then ate a meal together. After that we watched the passion of the Christ movie. It was such a special night. i know it impacted them greatly. I explained that the whole purpose of the night was to simply remeber Jesus. It is all about Him! I will not forget that night,and I don't think they will either.

here it is....

 

The Hairy Hairdresser!

There is a spider here that we have been calling a hairy hairdresser. This is all my fears of spiders wrapped up into one spider. It is fast, it can grow to massive sizes, it jumps, and it tares it's prey apart with a set of massive jaws. In short...I don't sleep much!!!! Ha ha ha....These things are so scary. I have included a picture of it here....enjoy!

ME!!!!

 

THE FIRST POST!!!!!

So this is my first blog post!!!......dun dun dun. I wish I had some really amazing thing to write...but I don't right now. Fortunatly tomorrow is a new day and there just may be something to write about. Well I hope your experiance on my first post has been an enjoyable one and hope to see you tune again soon....ha ha ha...I am a bit of a dork.....