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For ten years he was Deputy Speaker of the National Assembly. He was a well known figure in public life and on the television screen. But in the year 2000 he suddenly disappeared from view. Only those who were close to him knew where Dr. Zephania Kameeta could be found: he was working in the south of Namibia in the small, impoverished town of Maltahöhe as a volunteer pastor.
After ten years at the top level of government he had felt compelled to return to the grassroots people. Pre-pared to work without a salary, he chose one of the poorest congregations in his country. Day by day he visited families without income, sick people and orphans in their huts and on the streets, lending a compassionate ear to their tales of sufferings, of pain and illness, of poverty and hunger.
Two years later, on 20(th) January 2002, this same man was consecrated as the Bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of the Republic of Namibia. Since August 2000 he has also been moderator of the world-wide United Evangelical Mission. "I am at top level again," Kameeta sighs, making his promotions sound like a punishment rather than a reward. "But I would love to stay in touch with the people - now more than ever before. A leader who loses contact to the grassroots is doomed to fail."
Finding Bishop Kameeta in his office in the middle of Windhoek is easy. The doors of the ELCRN administration block are standing open, the door of the Bishop's office is wide open too. And the Bishop himself - tall, slender and inconspicuously dressed in a plain suit and a silver cross around his neck - welcomes us with an open smile: "How are you?" is his first sentence as we start the interview.
Bishop Zephania Kameeta was born in Otjimbingwe in 1945, the last year of the Second World War. It was, however, another war that has distinctively shaped his life: the Namibian war of liberation. It started while Kameeta was completing his theological education...