Hearing God, Hating Sin: Adult Mission Story for August 16, 2025

By Andrew McChesney

Deep in the desert of Namibia live a people who live like they have lived for hundreds of years. The Himba people are semi-nomadic, traveling with herds of cattle and goats from borehole to borehole to make sure that they have sufficient water during the long, hot months of the dry season. During the short rainy season, families return to their settlements of three or four huts, called homesteads, to grow maize to sustain them for the rest of the year.

Uapahurua is among the few Himba people who have been baptized and joined the Seventh-day Adventist Church. He first heard about God through an outreach program initiated by a 1993 Thirteenth Sabbath Offering. This is his story.

Uapahurua was a typical Himba teen. He stole, he fought, and he drank. The three activities often were intertwined.

In raising goats, cattle, and maize, the Himba people are self-sustaining and rarely need money for anything. But an influx of money enters the Himba community once a month when elderly people receive pension payments from the Namibian government. When the money arrives, teens go to their grandparents to beg for money for alcohol. Small-time entrepreneurs know that the pension money has arrived, and they gather near Himba homesteads to sell alcohol.

As people start to drink, fights inevitably break out. Uapahurua once saw a drunken teen push another and snarl, “Get out of the way. I want to pass you.” The teen who was pushed fought back. Other teens joined in, and a knife fight erupted.

When pension money isn’t available, some teens resort to stealing.

Uapahurua remembers stumbling across several young men skinning a cow in the bush. He asked them, “Whose cow is this?”

“It is ours,” replied one young man.

“The cow died on its own,” added another.

Uapahurua took a closer look at the cow. Himba families identify their cows by special knife marks on the ears. The dead cow had freshly made knife marks on its ears.

A trial conducted by Himba leaders found that the young men had stolen the cow and planned to sell its meat to buy alcohol. The young men were ordered to reimburse the owner of the cow.

Stealing, fighting, and drinking was a familiar way of life for Uapahurua when a Seventh-day Adventist pastor showed up at his hut. The pastor was reaching out to Himba people under an initiative partially funded by a 1993 Thirteenth Sabbath Offering.

The pastor spoke about God. Uapahurua had never heard about God and was curious to know more.

That Sabbath, he went to a worship service that the pastor held under a nearby tree. Like many Himba people, he had never gone to school, and he couldn’t read the Bible for himself. So, he listened as the pastor read from the Bible. He heard for the first time about the God who had created world and everything in it, including maize, goats, cows, and the Himba people.

As weeks passed, a conviction came over him that he was not living correctly.

The pastor couldn’t meet under the tree every Sabbath, so Uapahurua began going to the Adventist church in the nearest town on those Sabbaths. He arose early Sabbath morning for the seven-hour walk to town.

As he listened to the Bible, he started to hate stealing. He started to hate fighting. He started to hate drinking. He couldn’t understand what was happening. He couldn’t point to a specific Bible passage that touched his heart. He just knew that as he listened to the Word of God, he started to hate sinful things. He repented of his sins and was baptized.

He was 23 years old when he gave his heart to God. Today, he is 46.

It hasn’t been an easy path. Temptations to return to his old life are plentiful.

“It’s difficult to be a Christian,” he said. “It’s hard not to steal, fight, and drink. That is part of our daily life here.”

A 1993 Thirteenth Sabbath Offering helped fund an outreach program for the Himba people that resulted in the pastor visiting Uapahurua’s home. Just as the blessing of that offering is still being felt in Uapahurua’s family and community, your contribution to this quarter’s Thirteenth Sabbath projects can also, with God’s blessing, have a long-lasting impact on Namibia and beyond. Thank you for your offering on September 27.