Sunday in Windhoek: Quaker meeting and walking the dogs
Sunday 12 May 2013 – Thomas Sunday
At 6:30 we went for a walk round the Avis Dam with Enid and Justin Ellis; they take their dogs for a walk there every Sunday morning with their friend Helen Vale, a retired English lecturer from the University of Namibia.
Walking the dogs at the Avis Dam, Windhoek: Justin Ellis, Val Hayes, Enid Ellis, Helen Vale
After breeakfast we went to Helen’s house with Enid and Justin for their Quaker meeting. Enid had thought there was an Orthodox Church in Windhoek, but it turned out that it was a Coptic one, so we went with them to their Quaker meeting instead.
Coptic Church in Windhoek
I was reminded of something Fr Alexander Schmemann once wrote, about attending Western Ecumenical meetings, and the organisers regarded the Orthodox Church as belonging in the “liturgical” category of their categorisation of “liturgical” and “non-liturgical” denominations. But Fr Alexander felt uncomfortable with the categorisation, and said that he would have been more at home among the Quakers. The Orthodox tradition of hesychasm has a lot of similarity to the Quaker understanding of worship, and so we sat for an hour in silence, and I silently recited the Jesus Prayer: Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the living God, have mercy on me a sinner.
Helen Vale – the Quaker meeting was held at her house
Later Enid took us on a drive around Windhoek, to see how the town had grown, and how things had changed. There were new suburbs, new industrial areas, and many new buildings.
The Christus Kirche in central Windhoe used to stand alone at the top of a hill overlooking central Windhoke. Now it is surrounded by taller buildings
In the late afternoon we went to see my old friend Hiskia Uanivi, whom I had known forty years ago as a seminary student at the Paulinum in Otjimbingue. Now both he and the Paulinum are in Windhoek, and he is leader of a church called the Archbishopric of the Divine Word. When he registered it with the government they told him that the name should not look anything like that of the Assemblies of God, and it sohuld not have God in the title, so as a result he became a kind of archbishop by default. He told us something of his life since I had last seen him, and also some of his early life, and it was really good to see him again.
Steve Hayes and Hiskia Uanivi
After completing his course at seminary Hiskia went on a communication course in Kenya, and then acted as a liaison between those engaged in the liberation struggle both inside and outside Namibia. He later moved to Angola, and there was a confused period when Swapo was looked upon with suspicion by the MPLA government in Angola, because they had fought alongside Unita gainst colonialism, and suddenly Swapo fighters against South African rule in Namibia found themselves allies of a sort with the South African government, which supported Unita. Eventually Hiskia thought he was in danger from different factions in Swapo, and sought and obtained political asylum from the Angolan government.
