On Sunday during my rural homestay, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Namibia (ELCIN), one of the two largest Lutheran churches in Namibia, was consecrating two new bishops in Ongwediva, a short drive away from Oniipa. Will’s host father is a pastor in the ELCIN, which is how I originally found out about the service. Claire’s host father is the General Secretary of the ELCIN, so a small group of us ended up going to the service with Claire.
I was told to meet everyone at 6:45 at the guesthouse where our group met every morning. However, my host dad was working at the hospital that night, so I needed to walk to the guesthouse. This didn’t bother me, but it meant I had to get up at 6 because it was a 30 minute walk. I discovered that the sun doesn’t actually come up until 6:45 or so, which meant most of my walk was pretty dark. When I was walking along the train tracks my host dad drove by, having gotten off work early. He was a little confused as to why I was walking by myself in the dark, but ended up giving me a ride, which was really nice. As you can see, sunrise was beautiful that morning. The sky started getting pinker and pinker over the church as I was waiting for everyone else to arrive.
We arrived in Ongwediva and found seats together. Because we were in the fancy cars with all the bishops, we didn’t have to go through the security measures that other people did. We also ran into a few other girls from CGE, who were at the service with their host families. The tent holding the service was so big, and it maybe held half the people who were attending. We were in one of the first rows outside the tent, and hoped that meant we would stay in the shade for the whole service. Boy were we wrong! But more on that later. The service started almost two hours late, typical African time. We sat there, and had fun watching all the pastors and bishops arrive and line up. There were probably at least 100 pastors and bishops. We recognized our religion professor from CGE and another pastor we knew from Windhoek, and we marveled at all the Finnish and German pastors and bishops who were there representing their churches in Europe. 
The service finally started with all the pastors processing into the tent, with the bishops at the end. However, they were all in their seats and we were still waiting for President Pohamba to arrive, because the service couldn’t start without him. Pohamba finally arrived with all his security guards, and the service finally started! It was hard to follow a lot of the service, because it was in so many different languages. There was one point where different bishops read passages from the bible. They always stated which passage they were going to read in English, and I raced to find the passage so I could follow along. This was a necessity, because passages were read in English, Oshiwambo, Finnish, German, Slovak, and other languages I can’t remember. The rest of the service was in a mixture of English and Oshiwambo. I followed along when I could, and watched as much of the service as I could on the TVs they had in the tent, but it was still difficult to know what was going on. We also kept thinking it had to be almost over. That was a mistake. It kept getting hotter as the sun was rising, and by about noon we were out of the shade. Claire’s host dad had told her that the service would probably be from about 8 to 2. We figured that was long, but totally doable. Well, the service didn’t start until almost 10, so by 2 it was nowhere near being over. None of us were really prepared for that long of a service. Claire shared one of her apples from her purse, which was a lifesaver. I ate a small breakfast at 6, then half an apple at around 1, and then didn’t eat another meal until almost 5. I was hungry, and a lot of you know that I can get cranky or grumpy if I don’t eat enough. Plus, it was hot, so we were a little miserable for a while there.
The service itself finally “ended” around 2:30, but there were still speeches from different pastors and church representatives. Representatives from Lutheran churches in Finland and Germany spoke a lot (the Finnish bishop was heavily involved in the service, because of the Finnish ties to the ELCIN). I was excited when the representative from the ELCA spoke. I was glad that someone was there to represent the ELCA, and I was excited that he was there representing me. The service finally came to an end when President Pohamba gave a speech, thankfully in English. However, he spoke for almost 45 minutes! We were not happy, because we didn’t want to sit anymore and wanted something to eat and drink. But, by that time the tree above our seats was able to give us shade again! We literally sat there and watched the sun travel across the sky.
Meeting President Pohamba!
After the service actually ended at around 4:30, they made an announcement about food and drinks. We excitedly got into line, before Hasser waved us over and told us to go find Claire’s host dad. We were a little upset about not being able to get food, until Claire’s dad told us to get in a different line for food. We ended up getting to go to the private reception for all the pastors, bishops, and President Pohamba! The food was delicious, and there were as many cold drinks as we wanted. We kept getting mistaken for Germans or Finns, because most of the whites there were from either Germany or Finland. After a while, we finally figured out where President Pohamba was, and we finally got up the courage to go and introduce ourselves. We ended up getting to chat with the president of Namibia for about 10 minutes! His security guards kept trying to push us away, but he just kept talking to us. We wanted to take a picture with him, but his security guards pushed us away. However, when we started to leave Pohamba got up to take a picture with us! It didn’t turn out very well because we were confused by his security and they wouldn’t let us take more than one picture, but there’s proof that we met him! That made the day more worth it.
Joel and I with Bishop Kameeta
I was also really excited about getting to meet Zephania Kameeta, bishop of the ELCRN (Evangelical Lutheran Church in the Republic of Namibia, the other main Lutheran church here). I used some of his writing in my history paper last fall, and have read a lot about his involvement in Namibia’s liberation struggle. He helped draft the 1971 Open Letter, and is a major supporter of the Basic Income Grant. He was really nice, and Joel and I got to talk to him for a little while. Also, he gave me his cell phone number so I can contact him in Windhoek to hopefully interview him later! So, it ended up being a pretty successful day. 
We finally headed back to Oniipa around 5:30 or 6. Claire, Joel, Will and I rode with Hasser and the bishop’s clothes in the back of the truck again. We were all kind of giddy with excitement because of getting to go to the VIP reception and meeting lots of cool people. It was a long day, but the final reception made it totally worth it.
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