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Jesus was echoing this Psalm when He said we are to seek first His kingdom and everything else will be added unto us. I have found this wonderful promise to be true as I have tested it in my life. The part I felt the Lord highlighting, was verse 3: “Trust in the Lord and do good; Dwell in the land and feed on His faithfulness.”

Is it OK to confess

Click here to read more of the Graham Family Newsletter in (PDF) format

“I will lead the blind by ways they have not known, along unfamiliar paths I will guide them; I will turn the darkness into light before them and make the rough places smooth. These are the things I will do; I will not forsake them.” ~Isaiah 42:16

It’s officially holiday time now here. The schools have finished for the year. The shop owners are starting to close down and run off into the farmlands or to the coastline. The travelers are flooding through the town of Otjiwarongo like a flash flood of human faces, on their way to somewhere else. Some are tourists from foreign lands such as Germany, the UK, and of course our own homeland – with cameras ready to capture the images of beauty in Etosha. Others are the masses of people returning to their family homesteads, leaving their workplace in the city behind.

Click here to read more of the Graham Family Newsletter in (PDF) format

“Then Jesus said to his disciples, „If anyone wants to become my follower, he must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.‟” ~Matthew 16:24 -25

You know, lately I’ve been tempted by the enemy. Not towards some sinister sin that would get me kicked out of the church. No, to a certain kind of sin that would make me welcome in almost every church out there today. I’m tempted to be ordinary. I’m tempted to rest up and be more concerned about illnesses, financial troubles, getting our medical bills paid on time, fixing that lemon of a car, and setting the alarm to the correct time for tomorrow so I can start again…

I often find that God will inspire me to teach on topics that force me to examine myself [I hate it when I am able to use myself as the “bad example” in a message!] Well, I am going to stick my neck out again and share a quick excerpt from a recent message, where I advocated throwing away worldly caution and engaging in a revived “Teenage” kind of faith:

Click here to read more of the Graham Family Newsletter in (PDF) format

Instructions on How to Give

“The LORD your God is with you, he is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you, He will quiet you with His love, He will rejoice over you with singing! ~ Zephaniah 3: 17

I just finished reading this passage sent to us in an email from a loved one this morning. The timing of it is no accident. The sender knows well that our family has been experiencing some real trials on this side of the ocean. In the past (almost) year since we returned to Na-mibia after our home assignment we have undergone several major life transi-tions – such as moving to a new town and taking in an additional foster child. We have also taken on greater responsi-bilities in Christian ministry here since moving to Otjiwarongo.

The Lord has been using this period of time in the last 2 months to highlight some areas of our lives that needed at-tention. One area of great prominence has been with our kids.

Click here to read more in the Graham’s March & April Newsletter (PDF format).

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the LORD. ~Isaiah 55:8

I almost couldn’t hold in my laughter.

It was last week on Thursday when I sat in Mcshall’s classroom with several other parents who came to meet the teacher and see what our children have been doing so far in school. We squeezed about 30 parents into the small room and we all sat down in the little chairs meant for children. So many parents, from different tribes and tongues gathered closely together.

And then there was me. The token Caucasian-American in the room. Sitting next to me was a middle-aged Damara woman— someone from the same tribe as Mcshall. Her head looked like it was on a swivel. She kept looking back and forth between the school papers with Mcshall’s last name (which is definitely a Damara name) and my face. This went on for about 10 minutes (no exaggeration), and it be-came more obvious as time went on. She looked shocked and confused. I bit my tongue to keep myself from laugh-ing. I am sure she was thinking, “How did this happen?!?!?”

Click here to read more in the Graham’s February Newsletter (PDF format).

What comfort we can have in that, loved ones! If we are in Christ His word says that NOTHING can separate us from His love! One thing I can always say at the end of each year is God saw us through and the one thing I always know for certain about the future of the new year is that God will see us through. Praise be to our omnipotent, forever loving, compassionate Father!

It has been a year of learning and growing. We have been learning to live together and love each other as our family expands.

Click here to read more in the Graham’s January Newsletter (PDF format).

We’ve attached the latest update in PDF format. Please let us know if you have trouble opening it!

Oh, and we spent HOURS trying to make it beautiful, because you all deserve the best – so, we hope you enjoy!

Love and blessings,

Steve & Karrie

Click here to read more in the Graham’s November Newsletter (PDF format).

Because of the many photos (and formatting issues that go with that) I am sending out this newsletter update as an attached PDF file and not just as an email. Please let me know if you have any problems with it, and I can resend as an email – but then you can’t blame me for the squirrelly way things will appear. J

In this update you’ll find stuff about:

• Intro – He makes ALL things New!
• McDonald (Mcshall’s brother)
• School Updates
• The Latest on all of our Kiddoes
• & the Financial Update
• + Lots of photos

 Stay in touch. We miss you all dearly.

 Love and blessings, Steve

Click here to read more in the Graham’s October Newsletter  (PDF format).

“Are you a thankful observer of the countless indications of His provision, His presence, and His grace? An ungrateful person is a proud person. If I’m ungrateful, I’m arrogant. And if I’m arrogant, I need to remember God doesn’t sympathize with me in that arrogance. He is opposed to the proud.”
- from “Humility – True Greatness”, by C.J. Mahaney

We Have a House – With GRASS in the yard!!!

We have had some small and exciting victories in our move to Otjiwarongo. Though it hasn’t been totally easy, we can tell that the Lord has His hand in this move. Every trip we have made there recently has produced fruit beyond what I’ve become accustomed to.

On a day where I was giving a tour of the town to the Country Director (Rob) and Southern Region Director (Dudley, who oversees all of our activities in Namibia, Lesotho, Madagascar, Mozambique, Angola, South Africa) for Africa Inland Mission we took the opportunity to see a house that was available for rent. I had received a phone call saying that the people who intended to rent this house had backed out at the last minute.

The owners told me their asking price for rent, which was significantly above the maximum amount that AIM would usually approve. Still, we decided to look at the house just so the Rob & Dudley could get a feel for what was out there.

We explained to the owner that the price was too high for us. As missionaries we totally expect to live in rather humble dwellings anyhow. The written housing policy for the Southern Region of AIM would allow us to live in a dung hut, so long as it had plumbing!! So, I saw this as an exercise in “tourism” more than a genuine house search.

When the homeowner heard that we work with orphans and vulnerable children here he commented, “Well, it’s for a good cause” – and just like that he agreed to a rental price with Dudley that was doable. Shortly thereafter we signed the lease agreement for the house, and we now have the keys! Our move date is scheduled for this Saturday, 25 Sept.

We found out through the owner’s brother and sister-in-law that the homeowner just became a Christian in February. The owner said that he felt that it was the will of the Lord that we get that house. The Lord has provided much more than we could ever ask or think. Thank you all for praying for us… it’s obvious to me that this was His provision.

School Situation in Otjiwarongo

One area of the ministry’s expansion into Otjiwarongo that has presented some challenges is getting all of the children into school there. The schools are in-demand because of their higher quality, and so space is limited. We recently turned in applications for 17 children in to 3 different schools. We have three more children who we need to apply for – but they are on waiting lists at two schools (schools sometimes won’t give out applications if they do not have room). We have appealed to the Regional Ministry of Education for help for getting those 3 children into school. Two of those three are Irene and Mcshall.

For the remainder of this school year Irene and Mcshall will be attending school through a distance program agreement with our school in Arandis. We have to drive them back periodically to take their tests/exams. The school year will end at the end of November.

Please pray for:

• Openings in school for Irene and Mcshall.
• The rest of all of the children to get good school placement.

Praises:

We received word that Otjiwarongo Secondary School intends to allow us to enrol at least 6 of our children there. By many accounts, it is the best government school in the country!

Chriselda

Just a couple weeks ago we had a foster mom who has been struggling with serious health issues back away from parenting so she could get the medical attention that she really needs. That left five children suddenly without a parent (currently we have a temporary caretaker looking after them). I was walking the youngest – 10 year old Chriselda- home from school one day recently, and I took the opportunity to ask her how she was doing. Her first answer was, “ok”, but I knew this was just her way of putting on a strong face.

Eventually she admitted that she was confused. She looked up at me with the most pitiful look and asked me “why did mommy have to go? She didn’t seem that sick to me.” This was the only mom she has had since she was old enough to remember. No explanation of health issues was going to satisfy her sweet heart. She is a soft spoken girl who has the most innocent laugh. That day, she wasn’t laughing. Our conversation ended in a tearful embrace. A couple days later, she sat with me and cried in my arms again. I am grateful for the opportunity to love this young girl. I am hopeful for a turnaround soon.

Please pray for:

• The children in the care of our ministry who need loving parents to look after them in a family setting.
• The continued need for sponsorships of children. There are still several children without sponsors.

Irene and her German Godparents

Irene had a special visit this last week from one set of her ‘Godparents’ (sponsors). Simone and Dominick, a young couple from Germany, were touring Namibia and came to meet and spend time with Irene. Their sponsorship support provides in part for the costs of Irene’s schooling here in Arandis. They also brought along a few gifts for Irene, including the teddy bear she is holding in this picture.

Thank you to Simone and Dominick for caring so much for Irene!

Financial Update

Thank you all for your faithful giving. We were under this month on our personal giving by $620, but because the Lord supplied earlier in the year we are still in the positive for the year.

As far as the funds for child sponsorships, we still struggle to get the money that is needed. There were a couple large donations from last month that helped keep us afloat, and so we are grateful for that. Still, we seek local and international support that is sustainable.

In order to support us directly,

(1) please send donations through Africa Inland Mission to missionary account number 031680001 online at https://www.aimint.org/usa/online_giving.html

(2) by phone at 1-800-254-0010

(3) through Electronic Fund Transfer (EFT)  (automatic monthly contributions can be set up)

(4) or by mail. Africa Inland Mission Int. P.O. Box 178 Pearl River, NY 10965.

To individually sponsor a child, please send your donation payable to:

His Promise Ministries, Inc
1106 Old Mill Run
DeLand, FL 32720
online at http://www.hispromiseministries.org/

I hope you have been enjoying your “hot” summer! J We feel sorry for you, we really do! At least we don’t get the humidity here. We had some real intense heat ourselves, but have enjoyed cool temperatures of around 70 degrees here with overcast skies for the past couple of days. Sadly, after anxiously anticipating the arrival of winter (June-September) each year now only to be disappointed when the season comes and goes with not much cold, we have finally come to grips with the fact that winter here bears no resemblance whatsoever to winter as we have known it! (kinda like the waterless “rivers”). In Arandis “winter” means only that the nights are bearable and we can have the hope of a cool day or two once every two weeks or so. Still, we take what we can get and boy do we cherish those cool days!

The end of August here in Namibia marks the end of the third term for the school children who go on holiday (school break) beginning this Monday and lasting until the second week of September. Talitha Kumi celebrated the end of the term by having a “Fun Day” this past Friday. Adults and children alike participated in relays and other fun games. Next week a few of our short term volunteers from Germany will be hosting many activities for the children in our ministry including much loved trips to the beach.

This Thursday our family will head off Grootfontein – a town 5 -6 hours northeast of Arandis – for our annual AIM conference which will be from August 26 through August 29. We look forward to a much needed time of refreshment and renewal with our fellow AIMers.

This past month has been quite a mix of difficulties and blessings for the ministry and in our family. We have been blessed with wonderful volunteers who have come to serve from the UK, Germany and America. Claire (shown in the photo) is a young lady from England who has been here since last October teaching third grade. She has been blessed with a class of nine lively girls (one being Irene) and has done a beautiful job of loving each one of them. She has also become a personal friend of our family and we will be sad to see her go after her time is up in the beginning of December! Sandy is another teacher who specializes in math and has been here a few times before so many of the children are getting to know her and look forward to her coming. She has been with us since nearly the beginning of the year and has just left. She did a lot of tutoring in addition to teaching a class. She also helped Kailey with her algebra! Currently we also have three young German volunteers who are helping in the school and in the homes of some of our families. They have been a huge blessing in both places. It is wonderful for us to have people come and stay for awhile with the families, to just be there helping and interacting in their home environments.

Steve has continued to make trips up to Otjiwarongo to scout out the land, speak with officials involved in admitting children into the schools, and to look for housing. He has had many doors open wide which has been very encouraging. We feel as if God is continuing to affirm our decision to make this move. One of the hurdles we had to get past was school registration for not only the high school students but also for our two Namibian girls as well as the primary school aged children of one of the families who will also be going. Even though all children are required by law to attend school here, the reality is, registration is limited. They only take so many children and with Otjiwarongo having such good schools, the spaces fill quickly. We pray that God will make provide the needed spaces for all of the children in school. The other hurdle we still face is finding housing for our family and the other family who will be coming with us.

We continue to go forward in the process of trying to get our girls officially placed with us. We just received Irene’s birth certificate which had to be made new since she didn’t previously have one. That will at least allow us to proceed with paperwork, etc. We received it much sooner than we had anticipated.

We were blessed in April to have a Namibian woman step up to temporarily take in seven of our children who had been abandoned earlier in the year by their foster mother. Her time here is coming quickly to an end though and we still are not sure who will parent these children who have already been traumatized several times by disrupted placements. Likewise we will be losing another mom due to health problems at the end of this month, leaving five children behind. We are still trying to prayerfully determine who will parent these five as well. These children desperately need people to step up and take them in and love them unconditionally and permanently. It is difficult navigating these situations. It is not easy telling children that once again the person they have known as “mommy” is leaving. They always ask deep, relevant questions – and we don’t always have perfect answers. We can tell them about Jesus’ love for them all we want but when all they’ve ever known is abandonment, God’s love is difficult to grasp. It is good that we serve a God who is bigger than our pain and human inadequacies, a God who can make it rain in the deserts of human hearts.

Steve has been really praying for God to provide more opportunities to evangelize and lead people into a relationship with Christ. This past month a lady (Candice) he had been witnessing to on a regular basis since we returned from the U.S. rededicated her life to Jesus. Also, when in Otjiwarongo he met a secretary at a school who obviously has deep-seated racist views. After being at the school twice and speaking with her both times about Christ’s love, Steve is seeing her open up and be receptive to the gospel message!

//Praises//

• Lots of great volunteers
• Irene’s Birth Certificate
• Smooth school registration in Otjiwarongo
• God’s financial provision for His Promise
• Candice’s decision to rededicate her life to Jesus

//Prayer Requests//

• Offical Foster placement of Irene and McShall
• Provision for 12 children who will need new foster parents in September
• God’s blessing, wisdom and practical help especially in finding housing for ourselves and another foster family in Otjiwarongo
• Continued prayer for our family as we go through the process of integrating Irene and McShall
• The school secretary in Otjiwarongo – that she would be reborn in Christ

Love you guys!
Karrie (& Steve)

P.S. Steve attached a new information packet about the orphan ministry here that he created for the U.S. Don’t get confused by the name – we are officially called Children of Promise Ministries here in Namibia, a partner ministry of His Promise Ministries, Inc. in the U.S.A.

In order to support us directly,

(1) please send donations through Africa Inland Mission to missionary account number 031680001 online at https://www.aimint.org/usa/online_giving.html

(2) by phone at 1-800-254-0010

(3) through Electronic Fund Transfer (EFT)  (automatic monthly contributions can be set up)

(4) or by mail. Africa Inland Mission Int. P.O. Box 178 Pearl River, NY 10965.

To individually sponsor a child, please send your donation payable to:

His Promise Ministries, Inc
1106 Old Mill Run
DeLand, FL 32720
online at http://www.hispromiseministries.org/