Happily Ever After

by Jenn Faulk

~Cammie~

  What a day.

  What an amazing first day.

  Every other assignment and place Camille had gone to had been a long adjustment. Training alongside a new team, reorienting herself to a new location, and beginning a new chapter, easing herself into it slowly.

  Not here, though. On her first full day in Namibia, she found herself surrounded by teenage girls, all of them with questions for her, eager to share their hearts with her, so ready to jump into friendships with her.

  No wonder, she had thought, watching as the boys were once again very into their game as David rejoined them. Absolutely none of the girls had an interest in that. Likely never had either.

  “Is that what it’s always like?” she asked Laina, even as the girl painted her toes for her.

  “Is what like that, Camille?”

  “That,” she said, pointing over to where David’s team was contesting a goal as the other team of boys was cheering their lead.

  “Not always,” Katrina spoke up. “Most of the time, yes. But back in Swakop, we do other things as well. There’s Bible study. Worship. And the church.”

  Camille smiled at her. “All done with Brother David?”

  “Yes,” Elizabeth nodded. “It’s been that way for three years now. We’ve all been there.”

  “How did you find out about it all?” Camille asked.

  “Parties,” Katrina said, grinning. “When we were grade seven students and came to Swakop at the beginning of the term, we heard about the parties David and his friends were throwing. Down on the beach.”

  “Longer than David has been here,” Elizabeth spoke up. “My sister told me about Willem and Sophie, Daniel and Sara. That they would be on the beach at the beginning of each term. Do you know them, Camille?”

  She didn’t, of course. But she could imagine their connection to the board.

  “No, I don’t,” she said. “But they had parties?”

  “Not just parties,” Katrina added. “That was part of it. And David has done the same. That’s where I met him. He had packages ready for all of us, things to help us get through the school year. School supplies, you know. And then, he played some music for us.”

  “He has a lovely voice,” Elizabeth smiled. “And the guitar! He plays so well. But you must know that already, Camille.”

  Camille thought about David sitting in the youth room, plucking out chords on a guitar, grinning like he’d done something spectacular. He’d eventually joined the youth praise band like he said he would, but she couldn’t remember even hearing him as he did backup.

  “Yes,” she affirmed absently.

  “And then, he spoke about Jesus,” Laina said. “Very simply. Just told us about the Bible. Gave us Bibles. We’d heard it before, of course. But we’d not heard about Jesus like this, like David talked about Him, like He was a friend. David told us he’d be in Swakopmund for a good long while and that every week he’d have Bible studies, worship, and church.”

  Camille nodded, thinking about the schedule David had shared with her earlier. Days set aside for visiting the schools, teaching Life Skills classes, guitar lessons given some evenings, a discipleship group halfway through the week, mornings spent visiting hostels and eating with students, Friday night Bible study and game night, and Sunday morning services at an old warehouse he and Piet had gutted and converted to a makeshift sanctuary.

  All of David’s life was tailored around reaching and teaching these students about the Word of God.

  “And you’re believers now?” Camille asked. “I mean, you knew before, but –”

  “Now, we are born again,” Katrina answered, smiling. “Jesus is someone I know now, like a friend. Not just someone I can read about.”

  “We can talk to Him,” Elizabeth said. “Can trust Him with our problems. Can know that He understands.”

  “And we can live for Him,” Laina added, finishing up Camille’s toes. “That’s always what we can do, no matter where we go.”

  Camille watched the three girls for a long moment and looked out at the other girls gathered there, all of them passing around bottles of nail polish, laughing and talking amongst themselves.

  “And it’s happened for others as well?” she asked.

  “Yes,” Katrina said. “God is really moving in Swakopmund.”

  And Camille took a readying breath, so eager to be a part of what He was already clearly doing... and so awed that she would be a part of it alongside such an amazing man like David.