Ahhh, Fanta

So I've been back in the States for two weeks now. I've had plenty of time to readjust, and although the time home has flown by, I've had some time to recap as well.

This Sunday, Pastor Larry asked me to share for 10 or 15 minutes in Church. Writing a bit should help me figure out what I want to say.

Right now, sitting next to me is a piece of life in Africa, a two liter of Fanta. Unfortunately the grocery store didn't have my favorite flavor, Pineapple, but Orange is good for now.

(He writes for an hour or so, before realizing that the blog post is too long and he'd rather wait to post it until after this Sunday)

Okay well, instead of doing a major recap right now, I'll share some things from Namibia.

Months and months ago, I thought doing design work in Africa would be a big part of the trip. As we got closer, the scale got smaller and smaller until I didn't know if there would be any designing at all on the trip. Well, it turned out there was. The last few weeks in Namibia, Dan and I used our free time to design and build a website for our friend Martha's upcoming real estate business, Imani Properties.

While in Windhoek, Martha shared with me the vision she recieved for Imani, and her mission to serve the youth of the country and to show Jesus to them through her business ventures. She's been very smart about her business plans, waiting until God shows her when its the right time to take certain steps. Our hope is that the real estate business is something that can start bringing in some serious income which will then be applied to the other parts of Imani, an eventual Coffee Shop, Bookstore, and Radio Station.

Anyway, I did the design, and Dan absolutely rocked all the back-end coding, database stuff. He did an awesome job and we gave Martha a site where all she has to do is type in the info and upload the pictures and she's ready to go. Neither of us could've really made the site without the other person, so it was awesome that we were able to work together to make it happen.

What we made is far from perfect, but it is actually very nice and looks good. Here's a screenshot from the homepage.


If you follow this link you can take a look at the basic html version of the site. This is the work I did without all of the back end coding Dan put into building the site, so the page links will work, but the searches aren't active and the sparse properties included are not real. If Internet Explorer is unfortunately the browser you use, then not everything will look exactly right since IE is stupid, but you'll get the idea.

Martha was the best client of all time. She absolutely loved our work and said she couldn't thank us enough. It was very cool to help a cause we believed in with some of our know-how. We're hoping it will be live and completely working in two or three months.

Okay, that's enough for today. I think I have a debriefing form to fill out for Navs Headquarters. I'm feeling a little overwhelmed by the task of recapping my experience at the moment.

Many have watched this video already, but I'll post it here, too. This is the recap video I made of my team's time in Namibia. I think it turned out pretty well. We're hoping to show it in church on Sunday. Hopefully it works out.

Here's the link to the video on youtube.

Enjoy!

Down the Home Stretch

Sorry it's been so long since my last post! Unfortunately I don't have a lot of internet to work with so this will probably be a short post, too.

On Tuesday I'll be flying back to the States. In the last few weeks we've had encouraging time at poly and UNam, done some manual labor, had a decent turnout at the first ever Namibia Navigators conference, and plenty some tearful goodbyes when half the team went home last Tuesday.

Dan and I have been tearing it up building the Imani website for Martha, and while there was a time in the last few months when I didn't think there would be any design work involved in this trip, it's been awesome to see that Dan and my skills are being put to use after all. Martha is thrilled with the results (which is amazing compared to the occasional difficult clients I'm dealt with on co-ops!) and it's actually been a lot of fun and will end up being a cool portfolio piece, too.

The last three days those of us that are left in town went out to Swakopmund on the coast. It's a very cool old German town that is now probably Namibia's most popular tourist destination. Right next to Swakop is the Namib Desert, which is a not-messing-around-hardcore desert. It's huge dunes of sand as far as you can see, just like in the movies. And the desert reaches right into the ocean. Amazing.

Friday morning, after getting recomendations from another American, we went on a quad tour through the desert. On my personal list of the most amazing things I've ever done, the quad ride is a contender for the top spot. It's the kind of thing that I know when I tell my brother about it and show him pictures he'll say, "Wow man! That's sweet!" We were tearing through the desert riding over and up and down huge dunes with nothing but sand as far as you can see. It was ridiculous. I'll have some pictures to show later.

Right now, Dan and I are finishing up website work and we're hanging out with some people and saying our goodbyes.

I'm really excited to come home. I could've stayed longer, but the fact that I know I'm leaving soon, I really looking forward to it.

This has been an amazing adventure, and I know Namibia has been forever tatooed on my heart. Who knows what plans God has for me and for this country, but I know that we'll be connected forever. I've learned so much in the last six weeks, and I know I'll be learning more in the coming months.

It's such a blessing that I've had this experience right before my senior year when I'll have some seriously huge decisions to be making. I'm really thankful for this time of serving and growing and I'm stoked to see what God has in store!

Right now, I can't wait to come home and see you, my family and friends, and share some of my experiences with you!

Much love. See you soon!