After we had been in Namibia for a few months, we made a short trip to the North to investigate where the various peoples lived, what it was like there, how large the villages were, and more importantly if there were already churches working in those villages. The turning around point had to be the Etosha Pan Game Park. There was only one road going farther north and it crossed the border into Angola and was not open to travel without special permits and vehicles.
I recall only two towns north, and one of those was a mining town and little more. The other was dominated by the Rhenish Mission Church. In South Africa the church would have beent a Dutch Reformed Church built literally on an island in the middle of the main street but Namibia was primarily German and not Dutch. The countryside as very barren, very rocky, and almost desert in nature.
The apex of the trip was the game park, but interesting to us was the fact that we saw the only pair of Cheetah, dozing under a thorn tree still well outside the park. We made a stop at the old German Fort that marks the park entrance. It was once manned by the military who patrolled riding camels, however that time was far past. There was a natural pool there and that is where we had our lunch beside it before crossing the park to the west on the only road. I understand that the tourist industry has since made that fort into a campground for tourists. That particular park was not fenced at that time. It is composed largely of a great pan which fills with water during the rainy season. At the time we were there it was covered with grass and being grazed by many buck, impala, and other grass eating animals. There are also elephants and since there are the bock and antelope, there are also lions. We once foolishly made a brief pause under a cluster of thorn trees that crowned a "koppie" near the road. We now know that lions usually spend their day sleeping at just such places. At night, they hunt.
Miles further down the road, we had a flat tire and had to change it surrounded by three foot high grass. We thought we had left the park by that time, but apparently had not as a truck load of African workers became very agitated when they passed by. Almost immediately after we started again we passed a large sign, telling is to beware of the elephants, and of course the lions. God looks after the foolish people of this earth!
As darkness began to come and we had yet to see anywhere to buy petrol we parked beside the road at the entrance of a farm that displayed a sign that they had petrol to sell. We could see a light in the distance, but it was a long dirt road and we were all exhausted, so we made camp there. It would not have been necessary as it turned out that there was a country hotel with petrol available only a short distance further down the road.
We returned to Windhoek knowing that we were already living in the very best place that there was to start a new work. God had been leading us to it from the beginning.
A few months later, we made another much shorter trip travelling east that time to the only town in that direction. It was at the border between Namibia and Botswana. We camped just off the main road on a trail that probably led to a farmer's home a mile or so away. The next morning, we turned back at the little border town without even really stopping and headed back to our home in Windhoek. The road had deteriorated to a sandy trail, that at times became either very corrugated or very soft sand. Over the border in Botswana it would have deteriorated to be like driving in a sandbox. Francistown was hundreds of miles farther on the other side of the country. After that, we stayed in Windhoek and never ventured more than a few miles out of town in any direction.
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