Wanting to Know God : Adult Mission Story for August 23, 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.
Kazuvakua is a 24-year-old Himba mother of three small children. She is learning about God through an evangelistic initiative that stretches back to a Thirteenth Sabbath Offering in 1993. This is her story.
Kazuvakua was intrigued when a stranger showed up at her home deep in the desert of Namibia. She had never seen him before, and he invited her to go to a place where she had never gone before. He invited her to church.
Kazuvakua was happy to receive the invitation.
On Sabbath, she went to the worship service under a tree located about 15 minutes by foot from her homestead.
Women and children from other homesteads also came to the tree. About 15 homesteads were clustered about an equal distance from the tree.
The church experience was unusual for Kazuvakua. The pastor taught songs, and he preached. The songs were new and difficult for Kazuvakua to learn. She had never heard about the God whom they were singing about. But she liked the songs. She liked the message of the songs. The songs spoke about a God who provided for all of people’s needs.
The sermon was about repentance. When the pastor finished, Kazuvakua understood that she needed to repent to be saved by God.
She returned to the tree every Sabbath that the pastor came. Then the pastor was transferred to another part of Namibia, and a Bible worker began coming twice a month to speak under the tree. Kazuvakua went every time he spoke. When the Bible worker led a week of spiritual emphasis, she went to the tree every day to listen. She also went every evening when he led two weeks of evangelistic meetings. The Bible worker brought a projector and a generator and set them up in a tent just a short distance from the tree. As he spoke about living with God for eternity, Kazuvakua enjoyed seeing colorful images on the screen.
But Kazuvakua missed the baptism of three people gave their hearts to God at the end of the meetings. The Bible worker arranged for a pick-up truck to take the three baptismal candidates and their friends to the nearest town with an Adventist church building. Without the pick-up truck, it would have been a seven-hour walk one way. But Kazuvakua didn’t go because she had to care for her family’s cows in a field. It was her duty. If she had left the cows, she would have disgraced her family.
But Kazuvakua wants to be baptized one day. She feels like she is ready. She loves God with all her heart.
“I love God as a Savior and Provider,” she said. “He can provide everything that I ask for.”
She prays when she goes to sleep. She prays when she wakes up. Her prayers are short. She says simply, “God, help me.”
More than anything, she wants to know God better. Unlike many Himba people, she has learned to read. However, she does not have a Bible. There is a major shortage of Bibles in her language.
“I want a Bible,” she said. “I want to know God better.”
Pray for the church’s work with the Himba people in Namibia. Part of a 1993 Thirteenth Sabbath Offering kick-started an outreach program for the Himba people that led to Sabbath worship services being held near Kazuvakua’s homestead. Thank you for planning a generous offering on September 27 for Thirteenth Sabbath projects that will help spread the gospel further in Namibia and other countries in the Southern Africa-Indian Ocean Division.
