VBS in Rwanda

Final Days in Africa

The dramas that the children on the farm have been working on are finally ready to present. I brought three dramas so that more kids could have larger parts. So I took the longer drama on Ulysses, and two other adults directed the two other shorter skits. To help the kids focus, I told them that after the three groups presented, the other adults who attend will vote on which group acted the best, and the winning group will each receive a coke. Everyone is tense and waiting with great anticipation for the competition.

The time is drawing near my departure date: August 28th. I'll be preaching at the Cathedral in Kisumu tomorrow, spending the afternoon in the city, getting on the night train to Nairobi, checking into a hotel in Nairobi on Monday, going to airport and picking up my lost bag that Virgin Airlines said finally arrived, spending the night, and then leaving at 8am to begin the 26 hours of flying and waiting in airports it will take to get back to Philly.

As I reflect on the past two months, I am struck first at the faithfulness of God. I have been relatively very healthy through the whole trip. And other than the lost camera and lost luggage (the lost bag was reported to be found and waiting for me in Nairobi), I have not experienced any disaster. I have crossed 10 international borders, ridden 61 hours on busses, spent the night in 14 different beds, and ate at dozens of houses or restaurants. All that to say there has been many opportunities for things to go wrong. But God has been so good to me throughout it all. It has been so rich…I’ve met so many people, had so many good conversations, enjoyed so many new experiences, been challenged in so many ways, and learned so many things about life.

However, I am ready to return back to the States. It is tiring to live as a foreigner, and I look forward to return back to a routine of working with kids and tutoring. I look forward to begin studying Hebrew and theology. I look forward to be able to call friends and family on the phone and visit friends in person. I look forward to returning to work more with the Anglican Church in America, specifically the Anglican Mission in America who has given me a scholarship for this coming year (the Anglican Mission press release is here: http://64.46.109.102/newsitem/104 ), and more specifically with my church in Philadelphia, St. John the Evangelist Anglican Church.

I am so thankful for your prayers, for your emails of encouragement, and for those who financially supported me. Blessings.

My past week in Kisumu

I came primarily to see the kids here, and that’s primarily what I’ve been doing. They are smarter, larger, with longer legs and stronger arms. I've been working with some doing math and reading in the mornings, and then working with them with the drama in the afternoon.

It’s a wonderful moment when, as the director, you announce who gets what part each person is going to play. “You Stephen, you are the king Ulysses who comes back to avenge his family!” Their faces change from being just simple bare footed boys in dirty shirts, to being kings and warriors. “You Mustafa, you are the cow.” The giggles and laughter ripple through the room as they look at Mustafa who has his “cow face” on. Drama has always captured the imaginations of people. It’s a special kind of magic that transforms the mundane into the fantastic and extraordinary. The kids love being a part of that. Most of them have memorized all their lines already after only two days of practicing.

Being back on the farm has been good, but it feels quite different. Frankly, there’s not much for me to do here other than the dramas in the afternoons, helping a bit with the morning school, and maybe showing a movie in the evenings. The memories I had from last year of the long afternoons that never seemed to end, all the extra hours to find something to do… are replaying themselves in reality. I keep telling myself that I should think of this time as a kind of vacation to just rest…that I’ll be busy out of my mind for the whole month of September…but its hard when you are the only one on vacation in the middle of a working farm…everyone busy digging in their gardens, driving tractors around, and plowing. I sometimes try to get outside and play soccer or help with the work, but I end up busting up my toes or getting sunburned in the scorching sun. I remember last year I used to sit for hours on end reading tedious articles about Anglicanism, or researching obscure bits of church history on the internet to keep myself from going crazy…I found myself doing it again this morning!

I have been “making the dinner circuit” of all the houses on the farm. It’s a nice way to get caught up with people and see the families in their environment.

I went to my old church, St. Stephen’s Cathedral, on Sunday. It was really a wonderful experience going back. They haven’t changed at all in 14 months. They still start exactly on time, the same people work there, the choir still sings beautiful old British hymns and local choruses, they still use the same liturgy. It really did feel like my home church. The provost (the pastor who is in charge of a cathedral) is a good friend of mine and we had a great reunion. He invited me to give a short greeting to the congregation from my church back in Philadelphia, and to give an update of where I’ve been. I look forward to the opportunity to preach there next Sunday, before taking the train down to Nairobi Sunday night.

Last night I was invited over to my Indian friend’s house for dinner and a visit. Jasmit was born in Kenya into a family who were sugar cane farmers. The family, with a cut throat business philosophy, became rich off of growing and transporting sugar cane to factories. They own dozens of tractors and hundreds of acres of land. They are like a modified version of plantation owners from the Antebellum South, except they are quick to point out that they pay their employees!

We had a nice long chat about how things were going for him. I could tell that he was somewhat lonely out there on his farm. He had gone to college in California, and is very familiar with American culture and a high standard of living, yet is content with his quite and slow life in rural Africa. He is 27, married with a one year old son, and lives with his mother and aunt and uncle. He has a very sharp mind and no one to spar with, so he was eager to challenge and debate an American. We talked about Sikhism (his whole family are Sikhs), Christianity, the church, epistemology, universalism, relativism, the soul, money, morality, Indian culture, and African development. I always enjoy talking with him because of his honest and straightforward approach, and his willingness to jump into talking about difficult issues. He has very strong opinions about most things and has no one to talk to that will temper or refine them. So he will bluntly say things like, “It will take Kenya 100 years to develop to the place that India is at today”, or “No matter how much to teach Africans, all they really want is money. They have no respect, and they are all thieves. Sure the first year is fine, but then as soon as you begin to trust them they begin steeling. ALL my employees are thieves. No exceptions.”

He is a fascinating person and we began to talk about whether there was such a thing as a soul, and how to choose beliefs. He told me, “I don’t know if there are souls or reincarnation or God. But I’m sure that evolution is wrong. All this (the earth) couldn’t have just happened by accident. There has to be some sort of supernatural power behind it. But I don’t think anyone will be able to really know for sure what supernatural power is behind it all until we die.”

He’s a philosophical man who lives in a small mansion, complete with servants, where he trusts no one…not his family, not his employees, not even his Indian friends. He is sitting on close to a half a million dollars, with nothing to do with his life except make more money with the money he has. He is a fascinating person. Yet, I sense that deep down that he wants to trust. He wants to believe in something. But he doesn’t know what and he has no community to talk to about it.

As I drove away from his house at 11pm, he said through the window of my car, “Well are you free tomorrow? How about the day after? We should go down to the lake and have a beer and talk about ‘belief’. It will be another three years, until you come back, that I can talk to someone about ‘belief’.” I tell he was being genuine and that he really did want to talk more. I feel it is a fine line to be friends with the wrong people who will pull you down, and being friends for the sake of being a good influence in a person’s life. I hope, by God’s grace, that I can maintain the latter.

Some reflections

I thought this afternoon I should use this time to also reflect on the many rich experiences I’ve had over the past several weeks. Here’s a few of my thoughts. Most of you, I anticipate, will probably find these thoughts irrelevant and uninteresting. But like I said, I have plenty of time on my hands these days to muse and wax, so you won’t hurt my feelings for skipping this part of my blog!
Note: When I speak of “Africa” or the “African church” I mean “East Africa”. Africa proper is a huge continent where you can find just about anything, and where generalities will have dozens of exceptions. I am only familiar with what I have seen here East Africa. I don’t want my Nigerian friends from West Africa to call me a liar.

Money…that was one thing that continued to surface, again and again, as the “main problem” in the church here. And of course because of my role as an “ambassador” I was the one they told all their problems to: “We need a new church building with a tin roof”, “We need a new pastor’s house”, “We would like to buy land for this church”, “We are building a new school and we need funds”. The diocese in Tanzania I was visiting had a man on the payroll whose title was, “Development Project Manger”. He had a huge chart hanging on the wall of about a dozen projects outlined in red. The diocese has yet to implement one of them…why? Funds. Funds. Funds. Yes, the African church is doing so much more with what they have than the American church, but in other ways it seems to me that they narrow what they think is possible to programs that can raise money. Money is such a huge issue here, that it sometimes seems like they throw up their hands and say, “Well, we can’t do anything until we have money…so we’re just going to sit here and do nothing until some Western organization donates money so we can begin.” There were a few people that did have that attitude, and that colored the way I saw others, even though I tried to recognize my bias. It was also difficult to have the role as the penniless student exposed to so much need and not feeling like there was anything I could do about it. The helplessness and powerlessness that I felt after dozens of people earnestly asking for hundreds of dollars began to wear on me. “I’ll report what you’ve told me,” I repeated over and over to the hopeful eyes of congregations. The experience makes you either break down in helpless confused compassion, or become indifferent and cold to what you see. I tried my best to keep a balance, but probably erred toward the latter.

Africa being the ‘bastion of orthodox Anglicanism”…Africa is NOT the “bastion of orthodox Anglicanism” (as some have put it), but I believe Africa is the “bastion of evangelical Anglicanism”. The discussion surrounding the difference of these terms is tedious, so I’ll be brief: Evangelical Anglicans should be differentiated from orthodox Anglicans, in that Evangelical Anglicans root their ecclesiastical identity in a broadly non-denominational background with some Anglican distinctives added on top, and orthodox Anglicans root their ecclesiastical identity in a more specifically British and intentionally Anglican heritage. I have found little in the way of orthodox Anglicanism in Africa (with a few exceptions), while I have found quite vibrant and enthusiastic evangelical Anglicanism here. There are close to 40 million Anglicans in Africa (out of 77 million Anglicans worldwide) and given Africa’s history with evangelical missionaries and missions here, African Anglicans are strongly evangelical. However, the Anglican church here is only 150 years old at most here, with a small fraction of the budget that Western church has enjoyed for centuries, a culture that is trying to come out of the ‘bush’ and enter the modern global world, and with a fraction of the education level as that of their Western counterparts. The situation and environment that East Africa finds itself has a profound influence upon the kind of Christianity that comes from here.

“What the American church can learn from the African church”… this notion has been plaguing me since I got here. Many people in the American Anglican church believe that Africa will save the American church from the Episcopal Church. This may be true ecclesiastically; however after being here for some time, I don’t believe we should look to the African church to be our “parents in the faith”. I am thankful and have tremendous respect for the Archbishops of Africa, and I believe that this small group of men will make profound decisions about the future of global Anglicanism. However the African church as a whole is still quite new to the faith. Many Christians here are first generation Christians…their grandparents still walk around the village barefoot, and practice ancestor worship. Though the African Anglican church is bold and strong in the faith, like teenager, they still have much to learn about the modern world which they are entering into. They know little about the West’s Enlightenment past and our value of propositional truth over relationships. I believe the African Anglican Church can give American Evangelical Anglicans an ecclesiastical shelter for the time being. The Archbishops of African provinces are all educated in the West and have much better grasp of the situation facing the Anglican Communion, but for most lay people they are just trying to eek out a meager living wage. I think it’s harder for each of the churches to learn from each other because of the difference in values that each church holds. You may remember the anecdote I wrote about, when I preached in Bukoba, and I felt like I was just rambling through the whole sermon…and they loved it. Drama, power, zeal, emotion…these are highly valued in the East African church. That’s a major reason of why the Pentecostal church and a host of other charismatic churches are thriving in this context. Compare this to the values of the West: thoughtfulness, clarity, acuteness, succinctness, working systematically through a myriad of abstract concepts that a congregation is familiar with. They are two different worlds. A sermon that exemplifies these values makes an African congregation fall asleep. Whereas a dramatic, powerful, emotional sermon in the States is usually considered low brow, manipulative, and fake. All this to say, it’s more complicated than just saying: “The American church has so much to learn from the African church”. During my final days in Tanzania I was shocked to learn that one parish who claimed 1000 church members, had only 25 who met for midweek fellowship, prayer, or Bible study. It was then that I sympathized with the saying, “The African church is a mile wide and an inch deep”.

African dependency…I continue to ask myself the question, “If all Western money and sponsorship were to be cut from Africa, what would happen?” I know some people who have endorsed this idea as the only way for Africa to ‘grow up’; otherwise Africa will act like an unemployed teenager always looking for handouts from mom and dad. I personally don’t think this is the solution, but I believe we need to work through these problems with our African brothers in a honest and direct way. We need to be seriously asking, “What are you doing to be sustainable in the future? Is Western money the ONLY way for the African church to develop? How can the church in Africa contribute to building a culture that is going to be financially self-sufficient? What kind of training do you need?” But the West must stop being the big sugar daddy that throws money at ever ugly situation, and thinks that problems in Africa are merely about “funds”. We need to partner and build relationships and teach about stewardship. We have to break the mold and expectation that the Western world is the solution to their problems.

Back in Kisumu

Well, I have some good news and some bad news.
The good news is that I've made it to Kisumu, Kenya and I'm all in one piece and healthy as a horse.

The bad news is that my camera was left on the bus from Kampala. I was taking pictures with it of the road and scenery and I would then shove it back into my backpack that was in between my knees. The road was terribly bumpy and the camera bag must have slowly fallen out under my seat. I didn't realize it until last night when I went looking for it. The shock was quite a blow. Three things ran through my head:

First, I was angry at myself for having been so careless and not having checked under the seat before I left the bus.
Second, disappointment that I will not be able to give a slide show to my church and have pictures to show of all the places I went. They say a picture is worth a thousand words, so I guess I'll just have to talk more in my presentation. But also my pride began to sneak in, and complain that it wouldn't get attention..."They won't get to see all the places and things you were doing! You won't get as much praise!" I tried to tell it to shut up.
Third, I was challenged by my sermon I gave last Sunday. It was about possessions. I preached that God gives and he takes away. Our job is to be faithful to him, no matter what we have. And I preached on stewardship...that what we have don't really belong to us, but has been given to us to use for His service. I guess it's time to practice what I preach!

There is a very small possibility that whoever finds it will be honest and have the bus company to hold the camera until I can claim it in Nairobi. (The bus I was on, continued to Nairobi). So if you think of it, pray that I get it back.

So my time in Kampala was short and tiring. After traveling 7 hours from Bukoba, TZ, Kelly and I arrived in Kampala only to shop and be in the city for another 8 hours, before going to Kelly's friend's house where I took a shower and promptly went to bed. I boarded the "luxury bus" at 7am and was served two greasy samosas and some other strange meat-fried breakfast item. Somewhat gross...but kept me from being hungry. Then I lost my camera... And arrived in Kisumu at around 1pm. I lived in Kisumu for 9 months last year, so coming back is like coming home. I know where all the speed bumps are in the city, where the people sell books on the street, where the buses leave from, when there will be delays, etc. I got some Kenyan money out of the bank and boarded a small mini-bus that took me 3/4 of the way to Nehemiah International. (NI is where I lived last year). And then Nickolas, the driver, came to pick me up at a roadside gas station.

NI is a big farm/compound/dairy/orphanage, with 60 people that live there, a fully functioning dairy that sells milk in between it and Kisumu, about a 40 minute drive away, and is supporting and sponsoring about 25 children. I lived on the farm for 9 months and did some teaching and about 100 other things while I was here. Among them, was directing 3 dramas. I was requested that when I come back, I direct another drama. So I've come prepared with a script from the Iliad...Odysseus' homecoming to kill off Penelope's suitors.

It was wonderful to see all the kids yesterday. When I arrived, they were in the church building listening to George, one of the farm "fathers" who take care of 4 of the boys, talk about Character, and I walked in the door and all the children's mouths dropped. They didn't know what to say. So I went around the group and shook all their hands and greeted them. I remembered most of their names and embarrassingly forgot a couple. I sat in on the rest of the class, but I think I was an unavoidable distraction from their lesson. They kept looking at me with shy smiles.

It is strangely surreal being back on the farm. Everything is pretty much the same. Most of the same people, the same buildings. The same pace of life. But a big difference is that the missionary family that lived here is now gone. They were a wonderful, energetic, lively family that was always a joy to be around. They are now back in Seattle, but I'm staying in their house now by myself. It's a bit strange having them gone. I have felt that there are echos through the house, but no one's there. Jeff should be in the kitchen making espresso, and Lexi should charge into the living room with some new exciting piece of news to share with me. It's like living with ghosts that only exist in my memory.

I must go now to spend time with the kids. They don't have regular school these next couple weeks, so I'll spend a lot of time with them. They have two hours of classes here on the compound, which I'll help out with, a break for lunch, and then I'll do the drama with them in the afternoon for an hour and a half. I'm looking forward to it!

Last week in Tanzania

Sorry, about having all of this underlined...the computer here is making it impossible to fix. TIA...This Is Africa. Since returning from Rwanda, we've had a very busy schedule...primarily church visitations. The routine: get up at 6am, do sermon preparation, having breakfast with the bishop, jump in the Land Rover and drive out to a church, have a service, preach, sometimes there's a confirmation, have lunch prepared by women in the church, drink lots of coke, listen to the pastors and church leaders give a presentation on what the church is doing and it's needs, drive back home in the late afternoon, take a nap, go for a walk, shower, watch Al Jazera and the Catholic satellite stations, having dinner at 9pm, and go to bed shortly there after. Get up and do the same thing again the next day. It's somewhat exhausting, but very rich and very interesting to meet so many people and have so many experiences.

I was invited to teach at the Bible School at the diocese and give a two part lecture on Church history. I loved it and enjoyed the questions that came out as a result, 'Where was the Anglican church during the Roman Empire?', 'Why did the Western church, help the Eastern church in the crusades when they just divided 30 years before?'. I really enjoyed working with these very eager students. It was their very first exposure to church history and they were fascinated.


On Saturday we had a long day of visiting 4 churches. The first three churches, were alongside the main road and the bishop had be drive us. That was fun to be driving again in Africa (british style). Then the last church the bishop had never been too and didn't know quite where it was. 'It is a walk from here. Kind of over by that tree that you can barely see...' So we started hiking away.

The small dirt path led us through jungle terrain where we had to jump a stream where locals were washing clothes, then out through beautiful rolling hills with tall grass. We were high on a bluff overlooking the indigo lake. We walked and walked and finally someone said, 'down there, at that village'. Far down below us we could make out a small village nestled up against the steep hillsides in a little cove. We tromped down the steep slope and as we approached the village we began to hear singing and a small procession, that looked like ants, began to crawl up the hill toward us. The bishop was doing a confirmation there, and the whole village was in an uproar. It was the biggest thing happening that month. We entered the village like conquering heroes and proceeded into a little shack on the beach made of drift wood and tarps. The bishop changed into his vestments and we processesed into a makeshift church constructed with sheets, and sticks. It was like a fort that children would construct. The bishop conducted the confirmation, 36 children in all, and then I preached. Pretty much everyone in the village was there: the Roman Catholics, a few Muslims, the Lutherans, and a few curious onlookers.

After the long long service, we had lunch and I asked if someone would take Kelly and I out on a boat in the Lake. Someone agreed and before we knew it we were precariously pushing off in a dug out canoe with a couple of locals somewhat amused at our delight.

We arrived in Bukoba that night, and I preached at the largest church in the diocese the next day. They had the best looking church, nice colored windows, concrete floor, a very loud sound system, two energetic choirs that took turns singing and dancing in matching outfits. The pastor told me the congregation wanted me to preach for 45 minutes. I didn't know how I'd do it. So far I've been averaging about 25 minutes...with a translator. So got up and felt like I was rambling for 45 minutes...the congregation seemed to love it. The pastor and bishop were so pleased they announced in front of the church that I was invited to be ordained in their diocese when I was finished with school. This was a complement, but also disappointing...I felt they cared more about long winded stories and a dramatic presentation, then a well thought out and carefully delivered sermon. There's seems to be a bit of a disparities of values. Oh, well...that's Africa.

We're resting today and leaving for Kampala tomorrow. We're all (the bishop, his wife, his son, Kelly, and I) staying in a nice hotel with a great view of the lake...sitting high on a hill above Bukoba. It has a nice swimming pool and satellite TV, and a nice selection of Indian food on the menu. Kelly and I have been really enjoying Fadihili, the bishop's son who has been translating for me wherever we go, and we decided to sponsor him to come with us to Kampala for a night. Then I will travel on by bus to Kisumu, Kenya...Kelly returns to the States...and Fadihili will return to Bukoba.

I greatly look forward returning to Kenya for the last leg of my trip and seeing all my kids, the orphans I worked with last year, and seeing my old church where I became an Anglican. I'll write again from Kenya.

A few pictures

The internet here is quite sporatic. It took 1 hour to load these pictures! I'll add more later.






Setting the Cornerstone at Biilabo Parish, Tanzania

Pastor Sana and his family The Cornerstone at Biirabo The Archbishop of Rwanda

at Kabeza Parish, Rwanda and myself

Revival Meeting: Gahini, Rwanda

We woke at 4:30am and climbed wearily into the Land Rover and jiggle down the terribly bumpy road towards Rwanda in the dark. The bishop sat like a statue the front, next to the focused driver, and Kelly slouched on her backpack next to me feeling sick as a dog. The headlights danced over the potholes and valleys in the dark red dirt, and the silhouettes of trees and bush swept by in front of the massive dark blackish blue sky.

After 4 hours of driving, we arrived at the Tanzania/ Rwandan border...not more than a couple of small offices divided by a giant brown waterfall. We walked across the bridge through no man’s land and then booked ourselves onto a small bus to take us into Rwanda. We were heading to back to Gahini Diocese in Northwest Rwanda for a conference/ revival meeting for the 10th anniversary of the diocese. I was somewhat weary of the “revival meeting” due to their reputation of being unnecessarily emotional and featuring manipulative preachers, but I was curious nevertheless. The primary reason I was excited about going was to meet up with friends in a mission team from Washington DC from the Church of the Resurrection that I knew before hand. We arrived in Gahini after 10 hours of on the road. My stone washed shorts were a dirty red from all the dust, and I was quite fatigued. But after a shower and a short nap I was back to 100%.

Kelly and I were escorted to the conference’s preliminary formalities. They had built a huge covered stage since I had been there a month before, complete with a sound system and lights. Rows of white plastic chairs faced the hillside where hundreds of people sat and watched the proceedings. The introductions of all the foreign visitors took close to an hour: bishops from around Rwanda, Uganda, Tanzania (Bp. Jackton), a team from Melbourne Australia, the team from Washington DC, a couple from England, and Kelly and I representing St. John’s from Philadelphia. I gave my greetings from St. John’s to around 1000 people and we all sat down in our plastic chairs.

Over the next two days, there were ongoing events taking place on the main stage, and various other events occurring at 3 other locations. Though it was an Anglican event, they had invited several non-denominational charismatic preachers to spice it up a bit and to lead the altar calls that seemed to happen every few hours. Some of the preachers seemed a bit hokey, and fake in their enthusiasm for a “revival”. But by and large most of the speakers were good.

Kelly and I were mixed into the Vacation Bible School teams from the other Western mission teams, and were sent out every morning to work with the kids in various locations. It was great singing songs, doing dramas, playing games, and telling stories. Then we would all meet back up for lunch and listen to more speakers through the afternoon and evening. Bp. Jackton did a seminar on marriage and Mark Booker (the pastor from DC) did an evangelistic message on living water. At one of the locations, there was a band that was playing and a choir from Tanzania was singing choruses. Almost like flash lightening, the whole field was spontaneously dancing...white kids and old African men with canes...choir members in flamboyant costumes dancing uninhibitedly with children...girls having dance offs...jumping up and down yelling “Hallelujah”. It was pure joy that bridged all cultural barriers, and for 20 minutes we were all united through the rhythm and the music and all dancing our hearts out like it was going out of style. It was what every dance party endeavors to be. It reminded me of the wild “Gypsy Parties” that I used to have with friends in college. It was definitely a highlight.

Then in the evenings a bus all the foreign guests pilled into two buses that drove us 20 minutes down the road to a local hotel where we all stayed the night. The DC group would have fellowship meetings, while I took a hot shower and went to bed early.

We left early Saturday morning, sad to be leaving the conference not yet finished and said goodbye to all our friends we had met. The 10 hour journey back wasn’t nearly as painful as the journey there, and we had plenty of time to reflect the wonderful few days we had in Gahini. I felt so refreshed after spending a few days with the DC group, and having many wonderful conversations with various individuals in the group (Greg, Mark, Lucy, Elyse, and John in particular). It was so encouraging to share, and I was very blessed by their joyful and uplifting group dynamic. It seems like every time I spend any amount of time with this group (in DC or in Africa) I walk away amazed at how blessed I’ve been and how easy it is to enjoy one another. They have an excitement about life, a sparkle in their eye and many easy laughs.

I preached this morning in a church that I learned was struggling with conflict and bitterness between themselves. I preached on the Prodigal Son and talked about how his journey is one that we also walk, and how the liturgy of Holy Communion is beautiful picture of homecoming to our Father and participating in a beautiful feast together celebrating the Father’s love for his children. I said some things that were somewhat challenging, but the only feedback was that the people liked what I said.

I will be continuing to visit parishes and preach at churches throughout this week. Please pray that I would have a heart to listen and to serve, and for continued strength grasp the opportunities the Lord has given me to do here.

Quick Trip up to Kampala

I took a 3 day “hiatus” to return to Kampala to meet up with Kelly Christian. (Kelly grew up at my Church, St. John’s, and wanted to visit Tanzania, so we arranged that I would “collect” her in Kampala and deliver her at the Bishop’s house). She had been working with Solar Light for Africa, a Christian NGO that installed solar panels in remote villages, for the last 2 weeks. It was somewhat amusing to join the small world of these 23 students and spend 24 hours with the group. Most of the students had just graduated from high school or had just begun college. They had had a very comfortable, regulated trip with security guards, stayed in nice hotels the whole time, and ate only safe American food. Curfews at 10pm...They couldn’t even cross the street unsupervised. Everything was regulated and planned out for them. When I told them about what I had been doing over the last month, I think they were a bit surprised at the disparity between our experiences: almost dying on a motorcycle, crossing borders every week, traveling alone, sleeping and eating out in the bush without electricity, losing all my luggage, having to make all decisions regarding money, etc. They were great kids and they were having a ball the whole trip...jokes, fun and games. It was good to be around people that were enjoying themselves so much and took Africa with such lightness and optimism. I think I was getting a bit grounded down...assuming the worst in situations, yet stoic about everything. These kids made me see that I might be taking myself a bit too seriously and I should lighten up a bit.

Kelly’s team left the Entebbe airport (where the Last King of Scotland hostage crisis happened) on Friday evening, and Kelly and I got a free ride back up to Kampala. We were advised by the NGO to go to a new hotel in the posh hotel district. Kelly insisted on paying for everything while we were in Kampala since I was taking time to come out to bring her back to Tanzania, so it was nice not have to worry about money for a few days. The hotel was run by a bunch of Indian guys that were somewhat annoying and pushy. The room was very overpriced and small, but since we were tired as dogs and didn’t want to spend the time and money hiring another taxi and find another hotel we settled for this place.

We took motorcycles 5 minutes into the city. It was Kelly’s first moto ride, and I instructed the two motorcycle drivers to “go very slow...polay polay”!!! (slow in Swahili) They did and we inched along through the insane Kampala traffic. We got money out at the Bank and went to my favorite Indian restaurant again (the one I took Canon John and his family a couple weeks previous) and enjoyed a delicious dinner of Chicken masala, curry, nan, and a single beautiful beer. I hadn’t had any alcohol for a month, because the church here is vigorously against it and see it as sinful as theft. So I abstain for the sake of my brothers here, but when the opportunity comes up, I enjoy the fruit of the land.

After a somewhat stressful and frustrating morning with Indian hotel manager who treated us like children, but was completely incompetent with what he was doing, we boarded the bus to Bukoba Tanzania, and 2 cliff bars, 100 pages in my new novel King Solomon’s Mines, a rain storm, and 6 hours of rumbling noise we arrived into the arms of the Bishop and his family.

To make things comfortable and easier for Kelly’s transition out of posh life with her NGO, I have moved out of the guestroom to let her have own space. There is another little concrete house behind the main house where Fadihili stays, and Mama Josephine fixed me up a nice bed next to Fadihili’s bed. There’s a little bathroom, only accessible from the outside, next to my room that I now use...an old rusty bicycle folded in half is crumpled in the corner and other junk sits on one side of the room, while a pipe in the ground serves a general drain for showers and washing on the other side. I kind of like using it and enjoy the rustic feeling of it.

This morning we set off in the church mini van to go visit a church an hour away out in the bush. However 3 miles later, some dudes along side of the dusty dirt road shouted at us and pointed at the back tire...flat and hissing away. We got out, had some of the locals help the driver fix the tire, and then waited for the driver to drive back and switch cars. He pulled up to our little stranded group in a cloud of dust, revving the engine of the ancient Land Rover. We hulled down the dirt road...now late to church. Of course the church would not start until we had arrived, but of course we had to go through the formality of having breakfast at the pastor’s house before going to the church. The pastor was a jolly, roly-poly, pastor with two lazy eyes, and ran out to meet us in a big black robe with a white rope tied around his thick waist.

We arrived in glen and I spied a beautiful stone church with a bell tower overlooking a gentle slopping valley. “Is that the church?” I asked with some excitement. “No, that’s the Lutheran church.” It seems like all the nice churches around here are Lutheran. (Tanzania used to be a German colony). We pulled up to little makeshift tent with a cross made of sticks on it. It had no proper walls, just cloth and sticks and reeds to keep out the rain and wind, and soft grass on the dirt floor. We walked to the vestry, which we crammed with half a dozen clergy with their bags of robes and everyone, including the bishop, struggled into their vestments in the cramped little room, and then processed in to an exuberant congregation. They didn’t have much of church building, but boy they had the Spirit moving there! They began the service with a confirmation of a dozen children and received two women who had been Catholics, then after a few songs by the choir, I got up to preach on Matthew 7 and talked about spiritual fruit and how we can be fruitful Christians. They were a wonderfully responsive congregation and shouted “Amen” every now and then. It was very fun. Then we followed the Holy Communion service in the Tanzania prayer book (which is a direct translation of the 1662 Book of Common Prayer in Swahili...for those who care). Kelly and I got up and were presented with gifts from the church and the Mothers Union (a purple mat, a woven little bag full of peanuts that hung around our necks, and a cow hide with our names engraved on it). We gave some speeches and then went outside and with great pomp and ceremony laid the cornerstone of the stone church building they intend to build this coming year. They had made a plaque with the following painted on it: “The corner stone of this buildings is put by Mr. Benjamen Moore and Kelly Christian. On behalf of the fellow christens of St. John the Evangelist Anglican Church Philadelphia U.S.A. on 29th July 2007.” It was a great honor to participate in the ceremony.

We look forward to another busy week this coming week: visiting four churches tomorrow, preaching another sermon at one, then another confirmation service on Tuesday where I’ll preach again, and then heading out to Rwanda for a conference/revival meeting on Wednesday. I’ll be getting a new battery charger this weekend in Rwanda from my friends who are coming from Washington DC to the conference, so next week I’ll begin uploading pictures and hopefully videos.

Traveling with the bishop: Muleba, Tanzania

The bus ride down from Kampala Uganda to Bukoba Tanzania, seemed short and painless. Most of the time I was immersed in Kidnapped, which found in Kampala. I walked off the bus, and like whipped cream Bishop Jackton Lugamira stepped out of the crowd a few meters away with his purple shirt and his big smile. He had brought the whole family to the bus station to meet me: Josephine his wife, Fathili his son, and his daughter whose name I never quite memorized. He then headed out of the Bukoba heading south through the banana and green tea fields, catching up...them asking about friends in Philadelphia and I telling them about my adventures thus far.

We drooped down off the tarmac road after about 45 minutes on to a rough dirt road where they were still constructing the road. Then half and hour later we jolted into Muleba...the small town were the bishop lives and where the diocesan offices are. The bishop's house had a modest wall around and a gate which the driver jumped out and opened to let the mini van into. Bp. Jackton is currently renting his house as he makes plans to build a permanent one. The house has a nice living room with several couches and a TV in the corner...two exposed light bulbs hang from the ceiling are the room's light. A small hallway leads to the guestroom adjacent to small bathroom which is adjacent to the kitchen. I am currently staying in the guestroom which as electricity, a double bed, and mosquito net. I take bathes out of a red plastic basin filled with warm water carefully placed on top of the toilet and use a large measuring cup to rinse.

I have got a little routine going on, now that I've been here almost a week. Wake with sunrise, brush teeth from a water bottle, prayers, a breakfast (toast, instant coffee, papaya, porridge, and a hard boiled egg) then be whisked off to some meeting, church, or other visitation for the morning, have lunch out at where ever I am, sit through various meetings that inevitably are in Swahili (which I usually just have to sit through and daydream about whatever comes to mind), then I'm usually exhausted, come back home for an afternoon nap, take a walk around the neighborhood, take a bath, have a late dinner around 9pm, and chat with the family for a while and turn in to bed around 10. There it is.

I've really been enjoying my evening walks through acres of banana fields, then out along dirt roads, along the ridge of vast savanna plains, past mud thatched huts, and moving aside for the ringing of the bells of bicyclists on their way home from work. The sunset is beautiful and colors everything in a hue of gold and bronze, the blue sky fading from white to indigo blue, the crescent moon already high in the sky. I usually go with the bishop or his son Fathili, and we talk and muse about all sorts of things. Fathili, though he's 23, seems to be more like 19. He hasn't lived at home for more than a month since he was 13, so he barely knows his own family, and they treat him like a teenager. But I rarely meet someone so full of questions. We've talked for hours about witchcraft, virtual reality, US foreign policy, liberal theology, the Enlightenment, marriage, cultural identity, etc. He is very soft spoken and I often have to ask him to repeat what he's saying...he's very humble like his father, and he laughs a lot like his mother. It's quite relaxing to pass the gentle evenings outside and slowly watch the red dust stain my feet and sandals as we move along. There's no rush in Africa and extra time is one thing everyone has plenty of.

Last Friday I was asked to go with the bishop to a confirmation service in a parish and preach. That was quite fun. Fathili translated for me. The church floor was made of soft hay, which everyone just nestled down into when the sermon began. Then on Sunday I preached at the main church in Muleba near the diocesan offices. I was at first a bit disturbed at how unresponsive everyone seemed. I would try to make a joke and no one would move. At the end of the service they had all of these donations given by the congregation: pineapples, papaya, a thick stock of sugar cane...which were then auctioned off right there in the sanctuary. I was a bit surprised at this raw capitalism (the church wanted to have cash instead of a bunch of fruit). But I was shocked when someone in the congregation bought be three small eggs. They brought the plastic bag up to where I was sitting. I was surprised and amused. Then someone bought me three papayas, now I was quite impressed. Then someone bought me a pineapple. I was honored. I thanked the congregation, since I couldn't tell you in particular had purchased the fruit for me.

This morning I accompanied the bishop to a meeting of Christian teachers where the bishop gave a lecture on Christian education and the need to be committed to the gospel even when it costs you something. I kind of spaced out most of the time since the bishop was speaking in Swahili and my translator would only mention what he was saying every 5 minutes or so.

I'm in Bukoba now, and don't expect to be back near an Internet location in the next few days. Signing off.

Last Day in Kampala, Uganda

This morning I spoke at the chapel at Uganda Christian University. The chapel itself was a charming room with gothic windows of red brick…a remnant of old British Theological Seminary that was built here in 1922. Maybe 150 students and professors showed up for the 7:30 a.m. meeting. I gave a brief 25 minute presentation on the relationship that liberalism will have with Uganda for the next generation. I hope that my word communicated adequately the great gravity of the situation I believe that East Africa is facing. After chapel, I had several young pastors, students, and professors come and ask for a transcript of the presentation and said it was thought provoking. I can at least be thankful for that.

Tomorrow I will be back on the bus heading south along Lake Victoria into Tanzania. I will be working with a newly consecrated bishop named Jackton Lugamira and his wife Josephine. I met them last February when they were visiting Philadelphia for one month, and traveled with them to Boston for a weekend. They are truly wonderful people and like parents to me. I don’t really know exactly what Bp. Jackton will be requesting me to do, but I am up for anything he throws at me.

I’ll write again from Bukoba.

Kampala, Uganda

Friday July 13 I took a trip out to the site of where 42 royal servants were tortured and burned alive, wrapped up in reeds. The first missionaries to Uganda strategically targeted the servants of the royal family to make in roads into the Buganda Kingdom. However, the old benevolent king who was sympathetic to Christianity died, and his son took power and killed off the monotheists: Protestants, Catholics, and a few Muslims. The site was pretty interesting and had a bunch of clay figures to try to "reenact" the scene. The tree where they were tortured has huge gashes where pilgrims to the shrine teared the bark away to keep as relics of the saints. Pope John Paul made a visit to the site, and it remains an important Catholic site of martyrdom. Beside the site sits a small struggling Anglican seminary. 70 students, 5 full time faculty work diligently in the woods there to further education and develop the future church leaders of Uganda. Going back later that afternoon to Uganda Christian University was like going from grey to a burst of color and life. The University is only 15 years old, but is bursting at the seems and is already the 2nd largest University in Uganda. The atmosphere around the campus is one of progress, hope, and excitement for the future. The students are stylish and attempt to be cosmopolitan in their own way. They speak in English in their conversations rather than their local dialects. They hope to be the movers and shakers of the next generation to move Uganda into a brighter future. It is encouraging to be here in such a place of great hope and potential. But I see also so much innocence here too. Their grasp of Western culture is still quite idealistic and naive. Though most hold to strong evangelical Christian beliefs they are inadequately prepared to face the onslaught of liberal ideology and postmodern deconstructionism. If given time, it would butcher them. I expressed my concern to Canon John who agreed with me, and suggested that I give a talk open to the student body on the subject. I quickly agreed. I'm scheduled to address the student body on Tuesday morning. Saturday July 14 Canon John is an exceptionally loving and devout man. He went to seminary back when Amin was president and suffered persecution in the 1970s. Most of his classmates that he had in seminary are now bishops or vicars of large parishes. And though he is a canon (someone whose job it is to guard the church against unsound doctrine), he doesn't have the social status that many of his colleagues have. But he continues to life a life committed to the Church and to Christ. Canon John has a habit of taking orphaned boys and tucking them up under his wing and helping them get off the ground. According to tribal tradition, if a man wants to marry a woman, he goes to the woman's home before the tribal elders to ask if he can marry her. If permitted, a huge party ensues and the couple is considered lawfully married. Now for modern Ugandan Christians they continue to follow this tradition, but more with the function of being a formal engagement. On Saturday we drove 4 hours on terrible roads out to Eastern Uganda to a small town called Mbale. One of Canon John's orphan boys was getting married and had to go to his fiance's town to go through the ritual before the elders. Somehow I got roped into being an honored guest and part of the groom's entourage. The men all wore these long robes with blazers over the top, and the women wore clothing resembling saris. We processed in to the meeting and sat in plastic chairs under a weathered canopy. There was a masters of ceremony with a cordless microphone who paced back and forth making jokes and trying to get a reluctant crowd to clap. After a series of rituals of having different sets of women come out of the house and finding the bride, then the women finding the groom among the guests, another long set of long speeches were made with introductions were made of all the VIP guests who were present: 5 clergymen, 1 doctor and his wife, aunts and uncles, grandparents, ect. ect. I was beginning to fade when they finally announced dinner. The VIP guests all went inside the house to have dinner, while the rest of the 200 people ate outside. We left surprisingly quickly (it is my observation that Africans are especially good at greetings and introductions, but quite negligent and poor at farewells. You could sit down for a whole afternoon with someone, and then just get up and leave without saying goodbye, and nobody thinks twice). We then drove the 4 hours back to Kampala. Sunday July 15 Canon John sent me with his driver in the University Land Cruiser to church. I arrived at Namirembe Cathedral as the choir was singing and asking for money to go to Nairobi to compete in a choir competition. The service was good, however I somehow completely spaced out for the entire monotone sermon an old Chaplin gave on Abraham's faith. I met the curate of the cathedral who invited me to his home for a short visit. He used to be an instructor working for Uganda Airlines, and then got a call one day from the Archbishop of Uganda enlisting him into the ranks of the clergy. He followed orders and is now posted at the cathedral.I then made the 10 minute jaunt across town to All Saints Cathedral and met the vicar. I was a bit surprised to find that the vicar was a woman. Very sharp, very composed, with a gentle seriousness about here. She was wearing a white alb (a robe) with a hood draping down her back, and modest high heels. She was articulate and careful. She had worked in South Africa for 13 years in an all white parish. She told me some stories of how she and her husband, a fellow priest, had tried to bridge the gap left after the apartheid. Though I said nothing, the question of what I should do about a devout Anglican woman vicar pounded my head. I don't believe that women are called into the priesthood, and I believe that it is cultural pressures, not Scriptural pressures that brought women into the priesthood. But like it or not, here they are. They are sincere. They are competent. They are loving. They are usually quite effective and efficient. And they are parts of Anglican provinces that I am in communion. For goodness sake, the Archbishop of Rwanda approves of women in the priesthood. I suppose it is a question to wrestle with more in the coming years. When I went up for communion during the service that followed our conversation, I intentionally received the elements from the male provost...just to be on the safe side. After the service at All Saints I spent some time int he provost's office chatting and exchanging our stories of how we got be both sitting there together. I headed back to Canon John's house for the afternoon to take a much needed nap and rest up. I offered to take Canon John, his wife Joy, and his daughter Hannah out for dinner at an delicious Indian restaurant. Canon John made satisfied humming noises, and polite comments about how good it tasted. Hannah put on her 19 year old self-conscious air of indifference on, and periodically texted messages to her friends. Joy had never had Indian food before, and her eyes kept darting suspiciously between the curries and the nan wondering what to make of it all. When she took the last bit, she finally said, "I think I have just gotten used to the spices! I like it. I think I will come back to this place. Soon!" I couldn't really tell if she meant it, or if she was trying to make me feel better about taking her to a strange restaurant, but we left with full stomachs and smiles.

The Motorcycle from Hell: Kampala, Uganda

NOTE: Since I don't have a battery charger for my camera at present (it was in my baggage that was lost) I will not be posting any pictures on the blog since it takes juice to upload. I would rather save the juice to take more pictures and then post them later.

The bus ride from Kigali to Kampala seemed to roll on and on. Just when I was quite sure that we were nearing Kampala and that the hillsides were being more populated...the bus would plunge into another valley of vegetation and "bush". The bus left from Kigali at 9am and didn't arrive in Kampala until 6pm. I staggered off the bus in the evening light and looked for Canon John who I had emailed to meet me at the bus stop.

He was no where to be found. So I called his cell phone from a payphone.

"Canon John, how are you?"
"Fine...where are you?"
"I'm at the bus station in Kampala."
"Now?"
"Yes...I've just arrived."
"I thought you said you would come tomorrow in your email!"
"Oh, sorry...no. I came today. What should I do?"
"Well you should take a taxi to Uganda Christian University."
"Okay, how long should it take to get there?"
"Maybe 30 minutes because of the jam."
"Okay, see you soon!"
"Bye."

I considered to take a private taxi, but thought that it would charge too much for a 30 minute trip, and thought, "I've been sitting in a bus for 9 hours...maybe I should take one of these motorcycle taxis. It would be fun and cheap and faster than a taxi because of the jam."

Unfortunately, all my intuitions were wrong on this one.

I found a motorcycle driver who said he knew where Uganda Christian University was and would take me there for $1. I jumped on the back and we went zipping through the golden orange light through Kampala.

He slowed down at a sign that said, "Uganda University".
"No," I said, "It's Uganda Christian University." He asked someone on the street where it was and they said, "Oh, yes that is far. You should take a taxi."
My driver said that he would take me there for 40,000 shillings (around $25). I knew that was a lot, but I was impatient and wanted to get there soon.
"How much is a taxi?" I asked.
"It will take you a long time. A long time. I will take you." If he had answered my question I would have found out that it was only 2,000 shillings.

We headed down into the city center to an ATM and get some cash and then off out of the city. I was pretty tired at this point, and hadn't had lunch or dinner. It was dark by now and I was dehydrated.

My driver was quite a crazy one..."like the devil was chasing him" I thought. He would pass on the left and then on the right, and pass into incoming traffic. He would fly by pedestrians walking by...one time he hit one of them with his mirror, and another time full on hit one in the city. This didn't build much trust in the man or his driving. In addition...we can no helmets.

We went speeding out of town in the direction of the university and it didn't take long of him screeching on his breaks, nearly hitting bicycles and other motorcycles, and being hit by cars and I began to feel a bit nervous. We flew down a hill where there had been some water flowing across and felt the motorcycle weave, like we were on ice. The billowing clouds of unfiltered exhaust poured over the road from huge diesel trucks and soon I began to feel a bit light headed. It was pitch dark now and the incessant oncoming lights, the potholes, the insanity of it all...well I was scared. I don't usually get scared very easy...but I think this was enough. I felt completely vulnerable. I was completely lost. Didn't know if this driver knew where he was going. Worried I was paying him too much. Thought there was a good chance I would die out on this dusty, dirty road being hit by some huge dump truck. What could I do?

I didn't have any choice but to put my head down and wait. I began to pray. And pray I did. I prayed the Kyrie Elison over and over and over...probably a thousand times "Lord have mercy, Christ have mercy, Lord have mercy." I was terrified, but I knew I had to be brave and hold out.

We went on and on and all I wanted in the whole world was to get there, and number two was to get off that death trap of a bike. We finally slowed and stopped. I felt like a rag doll who had just been pummelled a dozen times by an angry girl. I hardly realized we had stopped. My driver began to talk to a man on another motorcycle in some language. The other man kept looking me up and down with these sly eyes of his...very amused that this foolish white kid had tried to take motorcycle to Uganda Christian University.

"What does he say?" I asked my driver.
With snake like movements he told my driver that he would show us there it was if we gave him 1,000 shillings.
"What are you saying...that we are lost and you don't' know how to get there?" I shouted over the din of passing trucks and cars. My driver pretended not to hear.
"I am not paying more money!" I said.
"Okay, I will pay," said my driver.
"This is not good. I feel sick!" I said. I thought about just getting off the bike and going and laying down in some ditch in the fetal position.
"You want to stop?
"No, no," that wouldn't help the situation in the least. I had to press on. "Let's go."

We turned around and headed back towards Kampala. I began to feel hints of panic rising in me...what if this snaky man was up to no good...what if I'll never get there...what if I die and no one will find me... But as these thoughts and emotions screamed to be released, I fought them all down. I had to think clearly and keep my wits about me.

Finally I saw a sign for Uganda Christian University. It was as if I was in a dream and didn't believe it was really there. I slowly got off the bike. It had been over an hour riding on that thing. My legs were stiff and my body ached. I gave the driver 30,000 shillings. "I didn't like that trip...you didn't know where you were going and it took too long!" The driver wouldn't accept the money.
"We agreed on 40,000. That was what we negotiated." He was right. I had agreed to the outrageous price and there wasn't anything I could do about it. I handed him the 40,000 shillings and walked off rudely without saying thank you.

I stumbled into the library at the University and said I was there to meet Canon John. The librarian was a kind man. He called Canon John and arranged for me to stay that the guesthouse on campus. We walked to the guesthouse and I fell in a heap on the couch. My head was spinning and I was dizzy. I kept thanking the Lord that I was alive. It was like a near death experience. I had some water, and Canon John came with some food for me.

I went to bed that night exhausted, but so happy to be alive and so happy to be in a safe place again.

The next day, I spent the day touring around the campus with Canon John, who is a professor there, meeting faculty and students, and getting the campus tour. We went to the chapel and Canon John introduced me to the student body.

He then took me back into Kampala for the afternoon. He had a meeting at the Nambarimbee Cathedral and we had lunch on the veranda of the cathedral guesthouse overlooking Kampala.

We went into town to look for a battery charger for my camera, but found that it would cost 150,000 shillings, over $100. I thought I'd pass.

Canon John gave me an extra phone he had for me to use while I am in Africa, so that miscommunication (like what led to my motorcycle fiasco) wouldn't happen again.

I moved from the guesthouse into Canon John's comfortable, but modest, house for the duration of my stay in Uganda.

Hotel on the Lake: Gahini Diocese, Rwanda

The 2 hour ride up to Gahini Dioese from Kigali was beautiful. The banana trees, the terraced farms, the mud huts, the green hills...all just beautiful. I sat next to a Rwandan woman who was a judge near Gahini and who was returning from business in Kigali. We got to talking and she kept asking me things like, "So do you pray for other people?" and "So why are you an Anglican". She was quite sharp and seemed curious about Christianity.

The Diocese of Gahani stretches several hundred square kilometers, and includes dozens of small villages and markets. It's a very rural area, and few people even have money to travel to Kigali. The diocesan offices are in the small village of Gahini on a stretch of property that lumbers up the hill out of a large lake. The cathedral, the hospital, several schools and a rehabilitation center, and the diocesan office are all set on top of the hill, while the hotel "The Seeds of Peace Guesthouse" is located right on the shore of the lake with a beautiful view. The bishop there, Bp. Alexis, is a well traveled, smart, talkative, visionary type of man. He escorted me into his modest office for a brief visit when I arrived and set out my itenerary for the next several days: staying with a group of Australians in a newly built house right on the lake, spending time around Gahini, and taking a trip out to Kabaza on Sunday.

The 9 Aussies were mostly older folk in there late fifties and quite a delightful bunch. They came from a small Anglican parish near Melbourne, and were quite happy to answer my questions about Australian history. They were always making little jokes and were very committed to working in the hospital and around the diocese. Most of my time in Gahini was spent with this group.

Saturday I spent the entire day resting. After a wild week of traveling and trying to get back on my feet after loosing my luggage, I desperately needed a rest. I read, chatted with the Aussies, took a nap, and went for a swim in the lake. The food at the guesthouse is fantastic and we had sit down toilets and hot showers. Very comfortable accommodations. The bishop was of the opinion that all white people must staying in Western standard accommodations in Africa.

Then on Sunday I met up with Pastor Sanah and took the bus out to Kabaza parish. Pastor Sanah is a delightful man with an easy laugh, a decent grasp of English, and a warm disposition. We got off the bus and two bicycles were waiting for us. We hopped on and a few minutes later entered a plateau where a good sized mud building with a white cross stood. We went to the back of the building in a roofless mud room where Pastor Sanah changed into his vestments, and then we processed, with the two other catechists, into the church. The church was going bonkers. There were probably around 300 people packed in, all singing and clapping and dancing...and staring at me. I was the first white person to enter their church...ever. And probably the first white person in their village for several years. We sat in the front and listened to a few choirs sing (the churches have multiple choirs here instead of one...politics perhaps...I don't know exactly). I stood and gave a short greeting, which was then followed by more singing. There wasn't anything in the way of liturgy in the church, probably due to illiteracy and lack of resources for prayer books. I then gave a sermon on Romans 6, on the Christian life in Christ: unity, submission, and in grace, which was translated by Pastor Sanah.

We had a nice lunch in Pastor Sanah's house of rice, beef, and soup. I took a short rest, and then we spent the rest of the evening wandering around the village stopping into people's houses to chat. Before leaving every place we went to Pastor Sanah asked me to pray for the family. That was quite a blessing and an honor. We visited the foreman (who was constructing Pastor Sanah's new house), a family who lived in a small mud hut surrounded by banana trees, a group of young people, an old woman who had stomach ulcers, a gentleman who had had his leg cut off in the genocide, and the headmaster of the primary school. Many people wanted to know about what Americans ate and how things were different. I tried to tell them that they were blessed in many ways that American aren't. I told them that even though Americans are rich, we are very lonely and isolated from one another. Our community isn't half of what they have.

I decided to stay the night at Pastor Sanah's house and had a nice little bed (sticks for springs) in the storeroom of his mud brick house. I stared up at the ceiling at the tin roof with all its holes that looked like stars. Funny that the Medievals thought that the stars were pin pricks in the roof of heaven.

I returned back to Gahini Monday morning and spent the afternoon interviewing the bishop and visiting the hospital. After a nice dinner of meatballs, I said goodbye to my Australian friends and went to bed. I got a ride back to Kigali with the bishop, who had to come down for a meeting of the house of bishops, bought some shampoo and my bus ticket to Kampala and then went to an internet cafe.

I'll spend the night at the cathedral tonight and leave for Kampala tomorrow.

Angilcan Cathedral: Kigali, Rwanda

The flight to Kigali Rwanda was quite uneventful. After landing, going through customs, and getting some money exchanged, I meandered from the parking lot to the road and hailed a motorcycle. I jumped on, put on the green helmet and sped off. That's the nice thing about not having a lot of luggage...you can ride motorcycles around instead of taxis and save yourself a load of money.

I arrived at the Anglican Cathedral and was in the process of booking a room when I saw the Archbishop of Rwanda slowly driving his car away down the drive way. I waved to him and went out to greet him.

"Hello, from America", I said overjoyed at seeing my first familiar face.

"Hello," he said hesitantly not remembering me and not really knowing what to do with me, but knowing he had to do something. I quickly told him of why I was here and what I was doing in Rwanda. He went back to the reception desk and talked for a while to the receptionist and had me booked in a nicer room. He then invited me to get into his car. He started the engine, drove about twenty feet, and slowly stopped the engine. He walked me up to the "Faith House" and into a nice living room where two white girls were sitting at the table eating lunch. I immediately recognized them as two girls I had met in Washington DC a few months prior and I knew they had been planing on traveling during the same approximate time. Archbishop was glad to see that I knew them.

"Have you eaten, Archbishop?" the girls asked. Archbishop was apparently Archbishop Kolini's nickname around the cathedral.

Archbishop slowly sat. "I have been eating for 60 years." He smiled at his joke and the girls giggled. He looked much the same since I last saw him a year ago. He didn't have his bishop's ring on, and was waring a leafy Hawaiian shirt. His nicely trimmed mustache perhaps had a few more speckles of white. We all sat and talked for a while and I told them about how I had lost my luggage. "I'll give you a driver tomorrow to take you to the market to get new clothes", Archbishop told me.

The girls, Brittany and Laura, were from the Church of the Resurrection (an Anglican church in DC), and were there visiting their sister church. We went to dinner that night at "The New Cactus", a nice restaurant on the top of a hill over looking part of the city. It was nice to spend some time with some acquaintances and relax after a somewhat stressful day.

That night I slept like a babe, and woke the next morning to go shopping for clothing I would need. I had breakfast with another Anglican group from Virginia who were there to visit their sister church. They were a bit older than me...all four were married but traveling without their spouses. They tired me out a bit.

I was given a "driver", whom I never really learned his name, who drove me off in one of the church trucks. He only spoke French, Swahili, and Kinyarwanda, so we never had more than a few words spoken back and forth. But he got me around the whole city...money at the bank, ducking through the maze of stall through crowds of hawkers, and got me even found me an electrical outlet adapter. I got back to the hotel, washed my clothes in the bathroom sink, and lay down for a bit.

Britney and Laura invited me again to go out to dinner at a nice Indian restaurant. We met up with a couple of American girls who were teachers at an International School in Kigali. The four girls talked up a storm. I barely got three sentences in the whole two hours we were there. But it was good food and all the waiters were dressed in exotic Indian costumes. Quite amusing.

I was coming down with a cold that night, and though I had packed plenty of vitamins and aspirin, they were in my bag. So I suffered through a restless night. I was feeling anxious that I would get sick out in the bush with no medicine and no one to help me. I didn't feel very excited about being here with no bag. It has made things harder and less comfortable. I have to wear new clothes, don't have my battery charger for my camera (I'm hoping I'll find another one in Kampala), and it's kind of thrown my balance off. So it's made me more reliant upon God and has taught me not to trust in my own strength. I kept praying, "When I am weak, you are strong", but it didn't sound too attractive.

This morning I spent sometime hanging out with kids at the daycare at the Cathedral, packed my things, and was ready to pay my bill when the receptionist told me that Archbishop wanted to pay for me. I went up to his office and thanked him and told him I'd be back sometime next week for a short time. I threw all my stuff into a big plastic bag, threw it over my shoulder, hailed a motorcycle and got a ride into town where I'm typing this to you.

In a few minutes I'll be leaving this internet cafe to go find a bus that will take me north up to Gahini Diocese where I will be meeting with Bishop Alexis and perhaps tomorrow meet some of the people at our new sister church. Then I'll be back in Kigali on Tuesday or Wednesday, when I'll write you next.

Let me back up a bit and let you about my day in London. I was able to meet up (providentially) with the Krueger family who had a layover the same day I did in London. They were the family that I spent with when I lived in Kenya last year. It was SO good to see them excited about returning to America and have them tell me the news of what has happened in the past year on the farm.

We parted ways, and I had the afternoon to spend hanging out in the London airport. I glimpsed a "Multi-faith prayer room" and my curiosity got the best of me. I took a peak and found a white washed room with some Muslims on prayer rugs and others sleeping on the benches. I was needing some quite time myself, so I ventured into the room. A bit uncomfortable at first, at least it was a nice place of peace and quite after a frantic day in the city and airport. I was right in the middle of translating some of Acts of out of my Greek New Testament, when one of the Muslims said, "Ah...it's our time for prayer..." I gave him a blank look. I knew what was going on in his head. Here I was a Christian and him a Muslim and we were both non-universalistic, but were both thrown into a relativistic "multi-faith room" which is somewhat absurd, and we both saw the irony. I wasn't in a mosic (spell check didn't help me here) and therefore he couldn't throw me out. I just said, "I'll stay here", and pointed to my book. So I continued to read my Greek while they were humming their "Allah Ak-bar"... It was a bit of cultural experience.

So as I said in the previous post, my bags didn't get sent from London. Somewhere between Terminal 3 and Terminal 4 in the labyrinth of London Heathrow sits my little blue bag with the purple ribbon. The guy at the Nairobi airport said that there was a 90% chance that my bags would come the following morning. So I changed my flight to Rwanda (for no extra cost) and planned to spend the night in Nairobi, collect my bag and fly to Rwanda.

The two ways to get into the city are either taxi ($15) or bus (80 cents). Since I wasn't in a rush I decided to try the bus. After about an hour of stop and go traffic with honking, smog, smushed up against anther dude, I was reconsidering my decision. Finally I got dropped off downtown Nairobi. I know the city enough to find the hotel I stayed in a year ago, and book myself a room for the night.

I was exhausted so I decided to take a shower, but soon found that the cold water wasn't working. So I tried to take a shower with boiling hot water. That will probably never happen to me again in Africa. Usually its always ice cold showers.

I fell into bed and was out for 4 hours. Woke, walked across the street to buy some muffins for dinner and then went back to the room, watched some CNN and then fell asleep at 9. Three hours later I was awake again and couldn't sleep the rest of the night. So I spent 6 hours laying in bed resting, reading, thinking, and processing.

After morning prayers I packed up my small backpack with all my worldly possessions and went to have breakfast downstairs. Eggs, juice, coffee, toast, and a weird looking sausage later I was out the door into the chaos of the morning commute. I took the bus again in the morning, but the traffic was smooth as silk and got there in half the time as before.

I walked into the baggage claim area quite anxious and taut with anticipation. "Good morning, I'm back again" I told the clerk behind the desk. "I've come to see if my bag came on this mornings flight." He took my luggage stub and punched in a few things on his computer. "No, we don't have it in our system. You could look around the terminal to see if you can find it." I methodically walked through the terminal, hoping, wishing, praying that I would find my precious bag of clothes. But nothing. A few times I thought I saw it but it wasn't it.

I finally gave up hope and came to write you this...

So now I'm in Africa for 2 months with only a small backpack of things. I still don't really want to believe it, but I've got to get it into my head that I'm not going to get it back until I return to Nairobi at the end of August. There wasn't anything in my bag that I can't live without, but it will require a few trips to the store to buy some clothes, shampoo, sun block, etc. They said that if/when my bag arrives in Nairobi, they will lock it up and I can collect it when I return in August to take it back with me to America.

Who knows why this would happen to me. It's not much help speculating. But I am reminded of how much I find security in things, and how much I depend on things. We should all realize how blessed we are with the things that we have. I certainly am thankful for my little bag of my camera, shirt, socks, books, and credit card!

Next stop: Kigali, Rwanda!

Touchdown: Nairobi

After a red eye flight, a day spent wandering around London, and another red eye flight I've arrived in Nairobi. The familiar scent, the Kenyan accents, the cool cloudy weather was a pleasant blessing.

I waited for my bag until they didn't have any more bags left to unload and they notified me that my bag wasn't put on the plane in London. So I prepared to leave my bag and hit the road with just my carry on backpack. Just for kicks I looked into when they thought it would arrive and how much it would be to change my ticket to Rwanda. To make a tedious story short...I'll be staying the night in Nairobi tonight, hopefully getting my bag tomorrow and in Rwanda my tomorrow afternoon. I figure the wait is worth having my stuff. It would be more money to have to buy all new clothes out here.

Otherwise things are good and pleasant. I'm excited about this trip but it isn't a very emotional excitement. It's more like a peace and joy to be doing the things you love to do and be in the places where you love to be.

2005 Africa Trip

 CHAPTER 1

For the last month life has been a funnel and I have been a marble.

In a normal routine our lives (hopefully) spin like a marble in large graceful circles. But when we plan for a life-changing event like our wedding, a due date for our child, or a move across the other side of the world, that pleasantly large and comfortable circle of life begins to constrict towards the impending hole. We must say goodbye to our old way of doing things, the death of a season of our lives. We “tie up loose ends”, have our last day at work or school, and say goodbye to our friends and family.</p>
<p>My world shrunk smaller and smaller as I spun faster and faster as gravity pulled me toward that black hole. And before I knew it there I sat on the tarmac in SeaTac and in the hole, a little light headed but peaceful. All the contexts, relationships, certainties, and routines were all gone, dead. From that point on there were new contexts to be formed, new relationship to be developed, new certainties to be trusted in, and the beginning of new routines to spin graceful circles.

Anna Schuler, my travel companion, and I arrived in Heathrow in the early morning mist and in the haze of a sleeping pill hangover shuffled through customs. Even now I still can’t recall when and where we picked up our bags and got on a train into London. But we were feeling adventurous despite being disoriented, and decided to take a walk through London before going to L’Abri. We climbed up the stairs out of the dank Tube, and met a sunny London morning. As I walked along the busy streets with my backpack, wheeled suitcase, and a guitar in toe, I looked over at Anna who looked like Alice in a Wonderland with her eyes in complete awe of the world around her.  After strolling through Piccadilly Circus, Trafalgar Square, the National Gallery, past Big Ben, and over the Themes we got on a southbound train in Waterloo.

The train ride through the English countryside is an experience I doubt I will never grow tired of. Green rolling pastures with pockets of sheep or horses, an occasional man with a hoe tilling his vegetable garden, and the village parishes with their gray ancient steeples.  When we arrived in the little town of Liss, which is the stop for L’Abri, we decided to take the walk to L’Abri rather than take a taxi. So there I was lugging my wheeled suitcase through the grass alongside the busy road, and carrying my guitar over my shoulder.  Adrenaline was clearly the prime motivator. We arrived in time for a lunch discussion on the question of “What is joy?”, and I tried as best I could to stay up the rest of the day despite the heavy eyelids, and the floating feeling due to over-stimulation. After the first two days we decided that we would cancel our trip to Scotland and let L’Abri soak into our bones, instead of taking the two grueling overnight bus rides.

Life at L’Abri is delightfully rhythmic, following the wisdom of monasteries in the patterns created throughout the day: a liturgical approach to everyday life, cultivating stability and growth. Wake, prayer, study, tea, more study, lunch discussion, work, tea, work, and supper. Each day the same cycle occurs, and at the same time the larger weekly cycle is guiding each evening in a series of lectures, movies, free time or a pint at the pub. It gives a solidarity of the community, a common rhythm that we all participate in, like playing music together where each person is playing their part: melody, harmony, bass, percussion. Our families, our communities, and L’Abri are full of broken people, but when there is a external pattern the song goes on regardless of mistakes made by some of us. We hold each other up and carry on through until the end, together.

On Thursdays is the day off for L’Abri students where there is time and space given for exploration outside or reflection inside. We took a trip with a small thin young cheerful Canadian named Dave to the neighboring town of Petersfield. He had a bushy tuff of loose curls, and his eyes would squint so much when he smiled you couldn’t tell if his eyes were closed. We walked into the village chapel at the edge of the Village Square where there is for some unknown reason a huge stature of William the third. The ancient 15^th century church had been recently restored and along with the detailed stained glass and plaques of the dearly beloved who had long been buried in the cemetery behind the church, was a huge organ that took up the whole left side of the building.

A man in a smart dark navy blue suit walked stiffly up to the organ and sat down and plunked a few keys. I walked over to him. “Do you play?” I asked, standing behind him. He was typing something into his cell phone and glanced over his shoulder. He muttered something to the affect of “yes”, but was clearly more focused on his text message than the American visitor. I sat down and watched him. He had a mustache and a great flow of hair that fell to the side of his face. He began playing an old Elgar piece swaying a little. His eyebrows directed the music: up, down, a minor note, a high harmony.  When he got to the bottom of the sheet music he whipped the page over like he was flogging his wild organ horse and on he road like a strange cowboy. A wrong note would emerge in the constellation of sounds, and in a fury he would stop and mutter some curses that echoed in the empty room and grabbing his pencil scribbled on the sheet like he was disciplining a naughty schoolboy. Then plunk plunk, tweeter tweeter, the wild cowboy was riding through his magical sky of music through the stained glass and ancient church arches. The night before I left L’Abri, I tossed and turned in my upper bunk hoping for some relief from the worries and anxious thoughts tumbling through my head. This was the flip side of being in “the hole”.  There was such freedom, anything was possible, everything was still to be determined, and nothing certain.

We said goodbye to the friends we had made at L’Abri, and took the train back up through the English countryside to London. An old friend from Bainbridge Roise Ludow met us at the Waterloo station and we took the Tube to her apartment in the north end of the city. She lives in a small flat in the cozy neighborhood of Crouch End. If hobbits had to live in London they would probably live in Crouch End and feel quite at home.

We spent the next day walking around the city and ended up in a church on the eastside that evening. It was a newly planted Anglican Church started to reach out to the artistic community of east London. It met in a gorgeous old cathedral with a painted blue ceiling towering far above the wooden pews and the construction in progress being done on the floors. The music was a combination of new songs and old hymns that I had never heard before. A big piano sat to one side and a drummer and bassist played behind. Two young women sang. One played a violin and the other a cello. The music was somehow mixed perfectly to create a sound so light and graceful but at the same time powerful and substantial. And when I closed my eyes the sounds and harmonies somehow gave me hope in the glory of what is to come. It was a glimpse. Then I opened my eyes and the mystical feeling left and I was just standing with a bunch of ordinary people singing a song.

The next day we said goodbye to Roise and headed to the airport. I was surprised to find that the plane to Nairobi was 95% white. I had underestimated the poverty that the whole country is in. Travel, much less on an airplane, is a pipe dream for most people here. The eight-hour flight to Nairobi passed fast enough, and there I was landing in Kenya. As we walked through the airport, we passed a white washed room to one side and looking in we saw a bunch of men lounging about in strange turbans, dark beards, and loose white shirts. I couldn’t figure out what they were doing there just laying around. We purchased our visas and made our way through the old hallways to the luggage claim. After picking up our bags we passed through the sliding doors out of “Airport Land” into the enveloping Kenyan night.

We were met by a chubby African man who limply shook our hands and avoided direct eye contact. He led us out to his rental car. He popped the trunk and I was about to hoist my suitcase into the back when a boy emerged out of the darkness and grabbed my bag. I thought he was a thief trying to take off with my bag, and I pulled it towards me. He then pushed the bag into the trunk, and I realized he was a guy trying to make a few shillings helping Westerners with their luggage. Our chubby chauffeur waved him off and we sped away. We were taken to the African Inland Mission to spend the night at their hotel for missionaries. We were tired and it didn’t take long for us to fall asleep.

We woke at 5am and I watched my first African sunrise. (I’ll tell you a secret: it was a lot like sunrises anywhere else in the world.) I had breakfast with an older couple from Illinois whose three sons worked as missionaries in Tanzania. The husband was apparently very excited about going to the dentist that morning. “We can get crowns here for $55, whereas in Illinois we have to pay $1,400. He’s a dentist for missionaries.” He said, as he chewed a piece of toast.  It was like he was part of an elitist club. But then again, maybe he was. “Come darling, we better go brush our teeth.” He got up and led his submissive and quite wife out the door.

Our African driver drove us into the city to drop us off at the bus station. We needed to get some Kenyan currency, so he stopped at a casino on the way to the bus depot. It seemed like it was just above board, and could drop fairly easily after midnight. We changed some US money into Kenyan shillings, probably at a horrific exchange rate, and jumped back into the car. Some song about Jesus was playing on the top-forty radio station, and we drove through the bustling streets literally weaving between bikes and pedestrians in suits.

Easy Coach is the top-notch bus line in Kenya. We boarded the bus at about 9am after limply shaking the hand of our chubby driver. We had seats at the very front kitty corner from the driver in front of the door. Our fellow passengers were mostly rich businessmen or wealthy Africans. It seemed like they put us in the best seats because we were white. But I couldn’t tell if they did it because they wanted us to have a comfortable ride, or because we were some sort of advertisement for everyone we passed “Hey we are so good, the Musungu (the Swahili name for “gringo”) even ride with us!”.

It took us about fifteen minutes to get out of the station. A young man with a NYC hat on our bus suddenly remembered he had forgotten to switch cell phone batteries with his mother. He rushed off the bus as the bus backed up, and frantically dialed a number into his cell phone while he desperately looked around for his mom. Somehow he found her and they stood next to the bus as the bus began to pull away from the station trying to pull the batteries out of their phones. His father, who was also on the bus, then came up and shouted at his son. “What are you doing? Get on the bus!” The young man finally jumped on.  Then as the bus was just about to pull into the busy traffic, there was some more yelling and an old “mama” climbed aboard followed by her luggage. Then some more yelling and the door opening and closing and two more people rushed on. Then as the driver pulled out into the street, a man banged on the door, more yelling, but the driver had had enough and pulled away.

It was a seven-hour bus ride from Nairobi to Kisumu, and I’ve never in all my life been on a bus ride like it. The road itself is an experience in and of itself. Just imagine a concrete jigsaw puzzle with a few pieces missing. Then have it go through a 10 magnitude earthquake to give it a few ripples and there you have the great transcontinental highway. It is one of the only road that leads into the interior of Africa from Kenya. So all semi-trucks, which account for all the industrial transportation in the country because air is too expensive and rail is too unreliable, are slowly rumbling along at 10 mph on the one lane highway. Then add a panicked attitude to every driver to race every other driver on the road. So every car is swerving into the other lane hoping they’ll be able to pass. Then add livestock alongside the road: countless herds of sheep, goats, and cows, chickens, dogs and donkeys. We almost hit just about every kind of animal at least once. Then add some wild animals like a herd of zebra hanging out along the road and a troop of baboons, rolling tea green tea fields as far as the eye can see, a rainstorm, 8,000 ft. mountain views of the Rift Valley, and men on bicycles with their wives sitting behind them, and you get an idea of what it was like.

The extreme poverty in Africa is breath taking. Driving past slums or just any normal village, seeing the handicap and the children barely clothed begging for money, smelling the reeking smoldering fires along the road and the awful pungent smell of every town from the human waste...how is one to respond? I found myself feeling a combination of callousness and disgust. How could I take in the pain around me for what it really is, without being crushed by it? It is truly terrible.  Wouldn’t I just fall apart? I remember that when I was a young boy, I was terrified of nursing homes. They were awful places where old people suffer and die. When my mom and I would drive by one, I would look the other way and pretend it wasn’t there. Being exposed to these scenes was a similar experience, but I couldn’t turn my head. I felt disgust for how dirty and smelly these people were. But remembered something from the Brothers Karamazov where Alyosha feels guilty for his other brothers, like it was him that had committed their sins. I then realized, “If were to live in this place, I would create just as much ugliness and waste as these people. I am really not that different from them. What I am seeing is a reflection of my own potential.” I am still in the process of understanding what this means.

Being in Africa is like seeing life through a magnifying glass: the misery and beauty are both magnified beyond what they normally are in Seattle. As I described above, the human suffering here is staggering, but the beauty here is also astonishing. Yesterday Anna and I stood in the lawn and listened to the continuously rumbling, boiling, rolling thunder and watched a huge rain cloud barrel down the valley. I recalled the Psalms that describes the earth “groaning” in anticipation for redemption. It was like the sky was seeing the pain down here on earth and cried out on our behalf.

CHAPTER 2

I walked into the well house for the first time the day after I arrived. The large red metal door opened up into a small concrete room with a high 15ft ceiling. Bed sheets hung loosely over the windows, a small ragged calendar hung from a hook above the window, a couch faced two reclining chairs under the window in between a coffee table, and a refrigerator and a makeshift kitchen counter sat against the opposite wall. “I’ve got to get a picture on these walls”, I immediately though. The blank pale walls stared back at me. “We’ve never had anything on us,” they solemnly replied.

I walked into the adjacent room where I would be sleeping. A bunk bed on the right, a large open space to the left, shelves on the wall, and then I turned around and looked above the door. 9 feet up was a tiny bunk that looked like it would fit a child. My mouth dropped open. “What! I’ve got to sleep in there! It looks like a coffin!” I climbed the little ladder attached to the wall up to the “nest” and looked in. A few mosquitoes came out of the dirty green mosquito net to greet me, and the grimy bed sheets lay lazily on the foam mattress. The walls around the bed were a dirty gray that once was a brilliant white.

I peeked my head into the bathroom and found a small sink, a shower, and a toilet crammed into a 5X5-ft. concrete closet. The shower curtain hung from pieces of used twine, and shirts and underwear were draped over the showerhead to keep the water from spraying too much. The floor was a dark gray stained permanently, I imagined, with dirt.

I walked out of the well house a bit concerned. I began to recite in my head my rights as an American: the right to comfort, the right to luxury, the right to cleanliness, the right to a beautiful bedroom, and the right to individual space. “Am I really expected to live in such conditions?”, I unhappily asked myself. “This is outrageous! Maybe I can move to a different location where I will have more space and be more comfortable.” I discussed my concern with Jeff that evening about the small size of the bunk. He said, “Well, just go over there a lot this week and spend some time there. And don’t worry we can fix something up for you. There is lots of space here.”

I walked the compound after my tour of the well house. Small neat houses with red trim and blue tin roofs were placed intermittently around the two hubs of the farm: the dairy and the workshop. Walking into the workshop I met a man named Peter…Peter the carpenter. He had a scraggily mustache and an obvious overbite that you could see when he smiled, which was almost constantly. “Hey man!”, he would say laughing, doing a little dance. Later that night when I was at the well house he came in. After a short chat he said, “My friend, can you do a favor for me?” “What is it?”, I asked. “Could you bring your gee tar over so that I could play?” “You know how to play?”, I asked in mild surprise. He scrunched up in face and squirmed, “Ah, you know man. Yes, of course!” I brought my guitar over and handed it over to him. “Oh yea, man. This is nice!” He started a play. The strings buzzed and the chords all sounded out of tune. Then he started to sing, “Omiah lemieh samile.” His voice was even worse then his guitar playing. I had to bite my tongue to keep from laughing. He was dead serious, “Eh voo salamah nee.”

A few days later I went into Kisumu and went shopping for some provisions. Paint, malaria prevention medicine, a new mattress, a fan and some chocolate. I painted two bands of blue on the high ceiling in the well house in both the living room and in the bedroom. I went on and painted the bathroom walls and ceiling the same blue, and then took a sander to the dirty grout on the shower walls. I took out the old mattress in the “nest”, and cleaned with bleach the whole area, installed a wall fan and a new blue mosquito net, shoved the new mattress up and there it was. And though my first night in the nest was a bit uncomfortable and sleepless, the following night I was out like baby.

Humans are the most adaptable creatures on the planet, able to thrive in more environments and climates then any other. After the first few days, I felt my body quickly adjusting to the heat, the smells, tastes and slower rhythm of African life. I realized after being in some homes around in the community that my nest is a palace compared to the average bed in Kenya. And as I found that the more I spent time in the well house, and invested my time and energy into it, my “rights” became trivial and unimportant. But at the same time, I wasn’t completely ready to adopt the Kenyan aesthetic standard as my own. The Kenyan mindset is primarily concerned with survival, and is does not have time, resources, and moreover money, to be preoccupied with making their lives full of beautiful things. If I can leave this place a little more pleasant and beautiful, then everyone will be better off than before. Thus, I felt that by starting my work here with creating a more beautiful home, I would be enhancing the spiritual and mental health of those that live and visit that place. 

“Would it be possible,” I asked Dismyss the dairy manager, “to milk a cow this evening?” Dismyss’ eyebrows were constantly furrowed, and he spoke quickly with articulate and clear words. “Hmm. Well, what I will have you do is milk the goats first. And after you have graduated from the goats, I will let you milk a cow.” Milking a goat was a very natural experience. As I crouched next to the goat with an udder in my hand, squeezing from top to bottom, the sound of the squirts ringing in the aluminum milk pale, the smell of goat hair in my mouth and nose, I thought, “This feels as normal to me as eating macaroni and cheese, or building a fire in the fireplace.” “Okay, how about you begin on Jeanne.” Dismyss said waving me over to a big old brown and white cow. “I will have someone start her, and then you can finish.” They tied the back legs to the stall, and wiping some greasy goo on the udders, started pulling the milk out down into the buckets. I squatted next to the cow and watched for a few minutes. Then, I was waved towards the cow. I got down next to it, and started pulling on the udders. Jeanne was the oldest cow they had, and the udders were covered with bumps that felt like warts. It seemed like the cows was just about dry and nothing much was coming out, but on I went alternating between the four tits. On the other side of the cows enclosure, a cow started pooping that splattered on the concrete floor onto my back and my legs. “Benjamin, you get an A for effort, but a D for performance”, Dismyss said with a smile. “Ah, thanks”, I said but feeling like I had played a rigged poker game. “You should go back to the goats, and get better at them before you milk another cow.”

My "Nest" looking up from the floor

Though on the one hand I’m being challenged and my comfort zone pushed, I still lead a relatively comfortable life. By Kenyan standards I am very wealthy and can afford the best the economy has to offer. The best store in Kisumu is called “Nakumat”, which only the rich and muzungus (whites) go to. But by American standards, it is like shopping at WalMart. And though driving in a car is a standard we all take for granted in the States, it is a big deal to drive a car in Kenya. I would guess that only about 5-10% of the population drive. So it is very strange to be treated so differently than in America. I feel the stares of jealousy driving through me, the resent poisoning their eyes, envy and mistrust guarding themselves.

We (the Krugars, Heidi and Wolfgang, Anna, and I), went to a wonderful little restaurant in Kisumu called “Kay’s” for dinner the other night. For $13, we had drinks, appetizers, a delicious entrée, and desert. Lexi and I joked the whole night together, and I didn’t laugh so much in weeks. On our way home, Katta and Lexi said, “Ben, you’ve gotta play this game with us. What you do is hold on to this metal bar and when I say ‘READY HUP!’ you gotta start jumping up and down in your seat.” Jeff would drive the van a little faster than normal and he would aim at the potholes at a terrific speed. “READY HUP!”, Lexi would yell and then Whimm Bang Bong and we were flying up and down screaming and laughing holding on for dear life. We slowed down as we approached a group of people on the side of the road. There was probably about thirty of them, all dressed in white robes and hats. Some of them were holding candles. They looked like strange ghosts out there walking around in the sugar cane fields. “What are those people doing?”, I asked. “They’re probably that cult that lives in the hills. They think that their Messiah will appear in these hills.” Africa is a place of such dramatic contradictions.

CHAPTER 3

George, one of the fathers on the farm, knocked on our door. He’s a big man with a big silent smile and dark quiet eyes. He came in and sat down in the chair next to me. “So I trying to find someone to give a talk at the boys high school next to us. They have a Christian Union meeting on Saturday nights, and then a mandatory chapel meeting Sunday mornings. Do you want to do it?” My head spun and I searched the ceiling for an answer. “I can try.” I said with not much conviction. “There are about 400 students, and on Saturday nights they have the night off. About 50 boys choose to go to the Christian meeting, and the rest have a disco. It is like spiritual warfare.” When I heard this, I realized that there was a complex subculture going on there that I would need to become familiar with before I jumped into the frying pan. “George, I don’t think I will talk this week, but I would like to go with you to see what it’s like.”

We walked out of the compound gate, being let out by one of the security guards dressed in combat boots and a dark green uniform. We walked for some time along the road to the adjacent lot to our farm. We entered through a small door and was greeted by a group of guards. We met the headmaster and he led us through the school campus. We approached a large cluster of buildings. Off to the left there was a music blaring from inside the cafeteria. Clusters of boys hung around outside socializing.

We moved toward the right and into a classroom. I walked into the room and the group was in the middle of a spirited song. Everyone was singing and swinging back and forth with squeezed eyes, some with arms raised. We sat down in the front. They finished their song and then took turns sharing Scripture and encouraging each other. As they spoke, Bob Marley sang about one love in the distance. “We must stay strong. Some of us used to go to the disco to listen to secular music and dance, but now we all know that we should gather together to offer our praises to our God.” 

The headmaster stood up, “It is so encouraging to see so many of you tonight. This coming week is finals week for many of you, and remember that if you don’t have time to pray it means that your commitment to God will be compromised.”

After the meeting, we walked back to the gate and I strained to look into the cafeteria to see what great evil could possibly exist there. I was drawn to the music and to see what a disco at an all boys school in the middle of Africa looked like. But I sensed the moral determination of George and the headmaster from their deliberate strides away from the dance, and thought it best not to challenge them…yet anyway.

The headmaster guided us out to the field to let us go a quicker way back. He stopped in the middle of the field and started to look around and whistling. This continued for sometime, and then a figure emerged from the woodpile 20 meters away. The man wore a camouflaged poncho and looked half-asleep. He shook our hands and escorted us through the field to the fence. We were then greeted by one of our security guards who carried a home-made bow, and razor hunting arrows. “Why are there so many security guards around here?” I asked George. “A few years ago, a group of Nandi men came down here at night. They were trying to steel cattle from the boys school. There was just one guard watching the cows. They cornered him and knifed him across the neck and he died. So now we have more security around our cows, and the boys school got rid of their cows.”

“How was your time?” Washington, my roommate, asked looking up from a table full of papers. Washington is twenty six, sleeps on the bottom bunk, is silent and pleasant, has a warm smile and a bright laugh, and works late and gets up early. He gets up at 5:30am, turns up the radio, takes a shower and finishes up his lesson plan. I usually put in my earplugs at about this point and sleep in until 6:40, where I’ll have just enough time to see him off for the day. He works at a private Christian primary school called “Disciples Of Mercy” (or DOM) down the street.

“It was okay.” I answered him. “They had a tight sense of community there and I was impressed that so many people were willing to share. But I really didn’t like how they created a dilemma between Christian fellowship and going to the disco. Both are so good, and to say that you have to choose between one or the other, I think is wrong. There is nothing bad about listening to good “secular” music and dancing. I’d like to go back and talk to them.”

“How possible would it be to make yogurt and sell it around here?” I asked Dismas as we sat in my house. His eyes brightened, “Very possible! Very possible! We have the milk already, and it would just be a matter of going through the process. We have all the equipment already and there is even a refrigerator in the farm store.” “Well, lets do it!” I said. “We can double the value of the milk if we sell it as yogurt!” The next day we went to visit a guy in Kisumu named Charles who has a thriving business selling home-made yogurt in the slum. I took a few notes as to what I would need to buy to get things off the ground, and we bought some start up supplies.

The first trial run was a bit messy. We were trying to boil the raw milk on our stove in the evening, but the power was out and we couldn’t see what we were doing. The milk kept boiling over as we shouted and sponged in the dark. The first batch didn’t work because it was too cold for the bacteria to grow properly, so the next day we let it sit in the hot equatorial sun for three hours and presto, we had our first yogurt. We added black current flavoring, some purple food coloring, and sugar, and packaged it up in clear plastic bags and began selling it at 5 shillings a bag (about 7 cents) – we sold out in a matter of hours.

Dismas’ wife’s name is Nafula. She is in charge of all the paperwork and secretarial work in the office. We needed a permit to buy molasses for our cows, but the district commissioner insisted that he would need to see a note from the Chief of the area saying that he knew us and that we were trustworthy recipients of the permit and we wouldn’t use the molasses to make liquor. “Can you drive me to the Chief’s office today”, Nafula asked me.

I had practiced driving a bit the day before with Marit who explained the ins and outs of the three cars on the compound. “Sure”. We jumped in the Pajero, Toyota’s version of a Land Rover, and off we drove down the bumpy road through the sugar cane fields. We didn’t get very far before we passed a car and Nafula said, “Oh that’s the Chief. He must have got tired of waiting for us and is coming to find us.” We pulled over, as did the Chief and his bodyguards. The Chief awkwardly got out of his dark blue Datsun hatchback. He was a big man with a double chin towering well over 6ft. I half expected him to be wearing a big headdress and skirt, but he was wearing khakis and a blue short sleeved collared shirt.

“Hello”, he said strutting up to me and shaking my hand, “you are new here.” His cell phone rang and he started talking on it, but continued to hold my hand. I stood there on the side of the road holding the chief’s hand through his whole conversation.
“How long have you been in this country?”
“I got here about two weeks ago.”
“Good. Good.” He liked to stand a constant six inches away from me, almost holding me. “I am the governor of this area.” He waved his hand around him. His cronies paced the road. He let go of my hand.
“How long have you been the chief here?”
“10 years.”
“How old are you now?”
“37”
“And how many people are under your jurisdiction?”
“Oh about 25,000 people, plus the animals and the natural resources.” He took his cell phone out of his breast pocket and began text messaging someone.
Nafula described our situation to him.
“I will take your document and take it to the District Commissioner myself. It is too much trouble going back to my office and then you have to get the note. No, I will just take it to them myself. I will be the letter.” He started laughing and his huge frame jiggled.
Nafula was hesitant about giving up her precious permit, but what can you do when you are doing business with the chief?
“Tell Jeff that when I bring by the paper, he should give me some money for petrol.” It then all became clear as to why he was so willing to go out of his way to do us a “favor”.
Now that the business seemed settled he looked me up and down.
“You look nice,” he said.
“Thanks.”
“I’d like to talk to you about doing an exchange program with you. We will send our kids to America and your kids can come here to Africa for a week.” I kicked the dirt, and thought to myself, “Does he know how much money that would be?”
“Okay, don’t worry about the document. I’ll take care of it and drop it by your place this afternoon.”
We waved as we drove off, but he was busy on his cell phone and didn’t see us.

CHAPTER 4

Before I continue with my story of the events of my time here in Africa, I must pause to tell you of my relationship with Anglicanism. For it will influence my actions and interests in the coming months.

Last summer while reading Tomas Merton's autobiography Seventh Story Mountain, I was fascinated by the influence that the catholic prayer book played in his conversion to Christianity. Given my background, I hadn't given prayer books much thought, but this peaked my curiosity. Knowing that my doctrinal position prevented me from following a catholic path, I rode my bike to the Episcopal Bookstore in Seattle and bought the common book of prayer.

This was the beginning of my love affair with Anglicanism. I began using the prayer book as a guide for my morning devotional. It was so ordered and structured, written with such eloquently poetic words, and combined order and beauty in such a remarkable way. It gave my spiritual life the same order, routine, and emphasis on beauty.

So based off of my newfound interest in the prayer book, I set off to find a church that was in line with this approach. As many of you know, the "Episcopal" church is the American branch of the Anglican communion, but has strayed quite far from their original biblical roots. But through a series of providential run-ins with Anglicans in England and Philadelphia, I have connected with a community of people who see the convergence of Anglican liturgical tradition and the authority of the Holy Scriptures as important to their spirituality. And it is within this community that I hope in the near future to follow a vocation in the ministry.

East Africa has a reputation of being a stronghold of conservative Anglicanism. Kenya, in particular, being a British colony and being heavily influenced by the Anglican Church, has a thriving Anglican community. The A.C.K. (Anglican Church of Kenya) has churches in virtually every major town in Kenya. As my time to leave for Africa approached, I became extremely excited about the prospect of attending some of these world-renowned churches.

I told Dismas of my interest in visiting an Anglican Church and he said. "Oh, yes. Before I came here to work at Nehemiah, I went to an Anglican Church in Kisumu. We can go there. I can introduce you to the provost." The provost was another name for the head honcho at the church. So one bright Sunday morning, I drove Dismas and Nafula out to St. Stephen's Anglican Cathedral. It was a large building, and was well attended by maybe 300 people. I was the only white person among them.

The music was a mix of traditional English hymns sung along to an old pipe organ with everyone singing as loud and hard as they could, and traditional African choruses thumping along with vigor and conviction. "We'd like to have our visitor from America come and greet us." I walked up to the front a little uncertain of what I would say to this instant audience of hundreds. "Jambo. I give you greetings from America. I have been waiting to come to visit you here for many months and I'm so happy to be here." At this point, I couldn't really think of anything else to say. "Thank you for being so welcoming." And I sat down to the sound of the church clapping.

The provost wore a big white robe and preached about going through fiery trials, just like Shadrack, Meshack, and Abendigo of old. I arranged with Dismas before I left to have lunch with the Provost. We went out to the fancy restaurant near Nakumat, and chewed fried chicken and sipped coke as the provost urged me to go through the confirmation process to officially become part of the Anglican church. "Okay," I told him, "I'll come back and proceed with the process next month."

My dear roommate Kennedy is from the Nandi Hills. He came to Nehemiah to work as the compound's social worker, a kind of mediator between the families of the orphans and the orphans themselves. He is a very quiet young man always ready to listen, with an easy laugh, and thankful heart. "Is there an Anglican church up in Nandi?" I asked him when I first moved into the well house. "Yes, I think so. It is very small. The next time I go up, I'll talk to them." He went and did just that, and the church wasn't only thrilled about me coming to visit, they wanted me to come and preach! So I spent several hours writing up a sermon on: The Kingdom of God. The day finally came to go to Nandi.

Kennedy, Anthony, and I rose before daybreak and began hiking steadily up into the hills. The landscape changed from the flat hot fields of the valley where the farm is located into lush tropical forests upon gentle rolling hills. "This is just like an African Shire! Instead of hobbit holes, there are these mud huts." Anthony exclaimed. The little mud huts dotted the hillside among the small fields of tea and maize. Cows with small tinkling bells grazed lazily on the windy hills. A white person coming to the area was as rare as seeing a movie star walking down the street on Bainbridge Island. Children flocked along the roadside, men sitting on benches would stop and stare, women with heavy baskets balanced on their heads would eye us suspiciously as we passed. Youths would shout, "Chumgae!" meaning ‘how's it going?' with eager grins. We walked along the orange road, and Kennedy commented on the churches we passed. "There's a Catholic Church", he said pointing to a long rectangular mud building. "And there's the Orthodox Church." It looked strikingly similar to the Catholic building. We passed two frenzied men with clergy collars on bicycles who almost hit us as they twisted their way around the huge ridges and crevices of the road. "Those were the Orthodox priests," Kennedy said in a low voice as they whizzed by.

I arrived at the church with tired limbs, but eager to see what this exotic little Anglican church would be like. It sat perched on a hillside, directly in the middle of a cow pasture. It was just a single room made of sticks, mud, and rocks, cement wallpaper, and a tin roof.

I quickly changed from my sweaty shorts and T-shirt into some rolled up slacks and a collared shirt I had in my backpack. I whipped a tie around my neck, and I strode down through the grass to the church to the sound of the congregation singing. I was escorted to the front of the building up to one of the chairs reserved for guests of honor. I sat there facing the singing congregation inspecting my audience, as they examined me. I counted 70 black faces.

Word must have gotten out that a muzungu was preaching at the Anglican Church, because the place was packed. Children were forced out of their seats to sit on laps or on the floor as more people slipped in late to get a glimpse of the visitors. Several songs were sung along to a tambourine, and the liturgy was said in the Nandi language. "Now for our main speaker. He will introduce us to himself and share the word of God with us this morning." I got up, and started my first sermon. Kennedy stood next to me translating my English into Nandi, so every sentence took twice as long and it took some skill to create a flow when you had to stop after every phrase.

"Our Lord Jesus is preparing a place in Heaven for us to live with Him forever," I told them. "A place where there will be no sun because Jesus will brighten everything. It will be a place of beauty and goodness and truth and love." I looked up to see how people were reacting. Just quiet faces looking back. At least no one was dozing off. "Our Savior's kingdom is built on pillars of self-sacrifice and grace. The streets will be lined with gold, and there will no longer be tears or suffering." A man on the left side toward the back was giving me a big smile the whole time, like he knew exactly what I was talking about.

Before the service ended, they presented Anthony and I with a gift from the church: a gourd that was used to store milk in, highly decorated with paint and leather straps. Then they insisted that we stand to get our picture taken with just about every person in the church, which took a good half hour. Then we marched off to a member's house to have a church lunch that was quite pleasant.

However as we prepared to depart, they got into a big circle and a man gave a speech about how they would like us to make a contribution to their church. "We don't have any problems in our church other than money. We would like to build a larger building," he pleaded. I was put out. "Thank you for your gifts and the delicious lunch", I replied. "Though we are mazungus, we do not have the resources to help you build a larger building," I explained. "We are still students, paying school fees. We don't even have houses of our own!" I felt strange having to say this, but I felt it necessary. As far as they knew, we were rich as sultans who could just hand them a bag full of gold to build a cathedral. But I was more offended by the fact that they asked for money after welcoming us as guests. Sure, I put some money into the offering plate when it came around, but to be asked in such a public way with the whole church watching? Perhaps it was just a cultural misunderstanding.

We spent that night at Kennedy's parent's house. I was fortunate enough to have a primitive foam mattress, while Anthony slept on sticks covered with a blanket. He didn't sleep much, to say the least.

The following day we hiked for a couple hours to the famous Nandi Rock, located along the ridge overlooking the great expanse of the valley, Kisumu and Lake Victoria. If I squinted, I could make out the farm, then traced the road that I'd driven down so many times to the city, and finally to the lake. It gave me that realization that one's life is so small in the bigger scheme of the universe. That age old epiphany of "Oh, there's more to the world than the place I live in!"

CHAPTER 5

We moved off towards the gate of the compound with our backpacks lightly bouncing, our flip flops happily smacking our heels, and the new born African sun peeking over the banana trees. Anthony Harvey came out to the farm from my small hometown of Bainbridge Island a couple weeks ago. He has come to visit for a month. Being of a bold disposition and of the adventurous age of 19, we decided that we would take a trip together off to some strange corner of Africa. Kampala, Uganda sounded exotic as any, plus it was just a seven hour bus ride over the border to the capital on the northern tip of Lake Victoria.

We started out of the farm on foot, looking over our shoulders with the hope that a matatu (a minibus used for public transport) would be spotted on the horizon. An Indian man in a maroon pickup, slowed as I stretched my hand like a Nazi salute and waved my hand up and down. We jumped in.

“So where are you from?” I asked after bumping down the road for a time.

“Here.” He pointed at the ground.

“Where were your parents from?”

“They were from India. They moved to Kenya for the railroad one hundred

years ago.” His white Sheik turban bounced precariously as he swerved around a pothole.

“Oh, for the British railroad.”

“Yes.” He wasn’t the talkative type.

He let us out at the Police checkpoint where he said we could wait in the shade until a matatu came by. We chatted with the single policeman until a loaded matatu came rumbling by, already packed with at least a dozen people. We squeezed in and into to Kisumu we rode, and were dropped off at the main matatu station. Groups of boda bodas (bicycle taxis) crowded around us. “Friend! Mazungu! Where you want to go? Come. Friend!” We choose the two closest bikes. “To the Akamba station.” They’re faces were blank with incomprehension. “Akamba! Akamba! Bus…” Then the light came on. “Oh, yes. I know. Get on. Get on.” The bikes had a nice shoebox-size padded seat and two little metal spokes for one’s sandals to rest on either side of the back wheel. The boda boda man bent forward, pumping the heavy bike, then dodging between an overexcited matatu and a pothole the size of a dead dog.

We reached the station with plenty of time and spent the hours remaining wandering around the city, and lounging in cafés. The bus was an hour and a half late when it finally roared out of Kisumu—Kenya time. Equipped with two TVs, movies were cycled through the VCR much to the delight of all of us on board. First a Nigerian movie about a rich girl who falls in love with a poor man, to the horror of her family…then some Swahili comedy, not dissimilar to a Charley Chaplain slapstick routine, and finally a Hollywood version of King David.

The border between Kenya and Uganda is little more than two ill maintained fences, with most people just walking through, back and forth with seemingly no regard to the differentiation of these two sovereign nations. Standing in a long line to get a stamp in the old passport, I watched a herd of cattle being swatted through the narrow gate. “It’s not quite the same level of homeland security that we have in America,” I thought out loud. It was sometime around six when the bus pulled to the side of the road and the operator opened up the hood staring bewilderedly into the dirty engine. “The clutch fluid is out.” A skinny unshaven British man told me after eavesdropping on the driver. “They are sending the operator in a matatu to the nearest village for more clutch fluid. It should only be about twenty minutes.” I asked my fellow stranded passengers if anyone knew where the Akamba bus station was located on my “Lonely Planet” map. A Kampala native pointed it out on my map, while an Indian man looked over his shoulder. “Are you looking for a hotel tonight?” he asked. “Yea, something affordable and not to far away from the bus station,” I replied. “I’ll come with you to find a hotel,” the Indian man said. “I’m a doctor in Malawi, but I live in London with my family.” We accepted his proposal, and sat down to wait for the overdue clutch fluid. Of course the twenty minutes grew into the ripe old age of forty minutes before we finally were underway again.

Kampala glittered and shimmered in the hot evening air as we skirted through her suburbs, and pulled into the Akamba station. A crowd of loud taxi drivers with out stretched hands greeted us as we pushed and elbowed our way out of the door. Grabbing his bag from under the bus Bhubed, for that was the strange name of our strange Indian friend, indicated for us to follow. We emerged onto a back alley where we negotiated with a taxi driver who wanted too much, so we opted for boda bodas. But Kampala boda bodas are not quite the same as Kisumu boda bodas. There in Uganda they are all motorcycles with the same shoe-box size seats and holsters for one’s sandals to sit. “Go to the Standard Charter Bank. Bank!,” we cried above the din of noise and confusion. Then we were off, the three mopeds whining under the weight, the three drivers whirling their machines through the streets like whips with us hanging on for dear life.

For some unknown reason, only providence knows for sure, I was assigned to a boda boda with no gas. As we sped up a the street, the motorcycle died. “What is the matter?” I asked as I got off. “No petrol!”, my driver said. “But it’s okay.” He leaned his vehicle on its side and shook it. “Now come,” he ordered. I jumped on and off we went again. As we neared the next block the engine started sputtering again. Three scantily clad women waited on the corner for their next customer, who they thought would be me. What other mazungu has his boda boda slow and stop in front of them. “Hello there white man! You have a beautiful body! Let us keep you company tonight!” They started reaching for me. At about this point, my driver started pushing clumsily with his feet. “No thanks”, I said in a shaky voice a bit shocked at the whole affair. My poor driver couldn’t push quite fast enough and the girls kept following. By the grace of God, a small downward slope emerged from under us and we picked up speed. I stumbled off the boda boda in front of the bank, still a little shaky and pulled out Ugandan money while my driver when and got more gas. Then zip, vroom, wing, we shot down the dark street, the wind blowing my T-shirt tight against my chest, the wind filling me with excitement of this strange land on this strange adventure.

“The royal hotel is booked for tonight,” Bhubed said as we pulled up to him in front of the hotel. We negotiated with our drivers to go on to another hotel around the corner. “60,000 shillings for a night. That’s too much,” Bhubed declared. We consulted the Lonely Planet and we were back on the road—our motorcycle club of three, like three displaced storm troopers atop speeders that seemed to float in the silky darkness. We arrived at our third hotel of the night to find that it was booked up, and was led by a porter to the fourth hotel in a disreputable part of town. Anthony and I got a double room for about $12, and took cold showers by candlelight. The power was out of course.

The next day we woke early and decided to go to morning prayers at an Anglican church called All Saints Cathedral located on top of one of the seven hills that make up Kampala. The cathedral was more like large cavern, modestly decorated with simple banners: Worship, Truth, Life, and a large one in the front Jesus Cares. A few people sat with eyes closed in the corners praying out loud. After Anthony and I said our prayers the small group came up to us and introduced themselves. “You are so welcome!” they said with big smiles. “You should come to the all night prayer meeting tomorrow night. It starts at 9.” We thanked them and walked back down the hill.

We spent the rest of the day exploring the city, and walking the streets past the cripples, the amputees, the destitute, and the desperate. So many. I prayed that my callousness toward them would melt with the light of compassion, and doing so broke my heart every time I passed one. Men with no legs, deformed arms walking on the sidewalk using plastic cups to shoe their stubs.

That night we went to what the Lonely Planet called, “the best Indian restaurant in town, with perhaps the best curry in the world…no joke.” And indeed it was by far the best Indian food I’ve ever had. The atmosphere was cool and dark, with the mysterious smells of masala drifting around like mist. The busy city street bustled below us as we sat perched on the second floor of the fancy building. We splurged, leaving with stomachs aching with the delicious food and some leftovers in a box.

The next morning we went to the other Anglican cathedral sitting on another hill. Unlike All Saints, Namberimbe Cathedral was a true cathedral with a high dome, stained glass, and a huge somber bell. It is perhaps the most beautiful church I’ve ever been to. Sure the Vatican, or St. Paul’s in London are impressive, but this one had such a delightful combination of simplicity and richness to it. Each clay brick was brought up the hill by parishioners, and constructed over a period of many years. It filled the hill with life, children always playing around it, and young people practicing their band instruments at sunset overlooking the city.

“Let’s go to the overnight prayer meeting.” I told Anthony. “When’s the next time we’ll have the opportunity to stay up all night praying with Africans. If anything, it will be a unique experience.” We marched up the hill to All Saints and took our seats. In all there were about 15 people. But their approach to prayer, which was disappointing to me, was more Pentecostal than Anglican in influence. They took to a rambling, “spirit filled”, continuously repetitive, and emotional approach. After several hours of, “Eh! Yes Jesus, yes Jesus! Ohhh! Thank you Lord, thank you Lord…Oh! Mmmm…” It began to get a trifle tedious. By 2am, a drum was pounding like a galloping horse, with everyone still awake, but now pacing as they mumbled their prayers under their breath. “We cover them with the mighty blood of the Lamb!” They were protecting their families from the tribal spirits of the dead. A man in front paced back and forth with a microphone in his hand yelling to keep us all awake, “Ohh! Yes! Lord!” It strangely felt like an insane asylum. Zombies rocking, swaying, pacing, muttering, “Fire! Fire! Fire!”, sounding like wild spirits. I’m sure that they were probably very sane people, but sometimes what is actually very real, looks to be pure insanity.

We rested the next day and attended Nambarimbe Cathedral the following morning. Though the cathedral was gorgeous itself, again the Pentecostal influence penetrated even into these walls. A grotesque overhead projector, a drum set and piano, and a special guest speaker talking about how she raised her autistic son. It didn’t feel like it did the place justice. We spent the remaining day in Kampala relaxing in a fancy hotel room that Anthony offered to pay for. Looking out our third floor window we had a clear view of a slum directly beneath us. It felt so strange to be staying in such modern luxury, while just outside our window chickens ate garbage and children ran naked. Yet another instance of Africa’s inclusively contradictory nature.

 

CHAPTER 6

I often think of you all back in the country of America. Whereas—I imagine you can expect it not to get light out until 8:30 or 9 in the morning, bundle yourself up in coats and scarves and big furry hats before you drive in your automobile (or a public bus as might be the case for many of you students) to a store where you will buy some coffee, and then finish your commute to your place of work or study, and gruel away inside an office or a classroom, and periodically look out the window at the cedar trees dripping with the rain clothed in a tunic of fog—my life is quite different.

“A dead mosquito a day keeps malaria away”, that’s my mantra around the house…well—that and a weekly dose of mefloquine that will give you wild adventures every night in your dreams. And though diarrhea has an unexpected way of dropping in at the most unseemly times, waiting…can always be expected. Anytime I leave the compound I check to make sure I have the “holy trinity of Africa”: toilet paper, a book, and a water bottle. You never know where you will have to wait, but wait you must and wait you will, so be prepared! It may be in the back of a stuffed and cramped matatu stranded along the hot dusty road, or in the backyard of some stranger while your friend is talking to a distant cousin or a someone. Or it may be in a restaurant waiting for a client to come and meet you, but wherever it is you must have the remedies for the three evils of Africa: diarrhea, boredom, and dehydration.

But I don’t want to give you the impression that I’m “roughing it” too much. I have been actually quite surprised with the quality of life I am able to live here. I have electricity, and running water, and though it’s only cold water, hot water is unnecessary during the afternoon hours. I have a gas propane camping stove for cooking, a stereo (though the FM band is broken), a small refrigerator, soothing blue curtains, an office complete with a beautiful handmade desk custom fitted for my room, a computer and a printer, and a sputtering fan that provides free showers of cool air to dry the sweat of my brow while flies hop and jump around on my dirty feet. But the one luxury that I’ve become quite dependent on is high-speed wireless Internet. I was able to install the necessary software onto my old computer within the first week, and now checking my emails every morning has become a daily ritual. I copy pictures and gather information for my humanities class, keep up-to-date on US news, and download sermons all from that wonderful communicative medium. So don’t feel too sorry for me!

This week I wrote a Christmas play for the kids. Taking liberally from the Bible, and lines from Thomas Merton’s Marian poetry I knit together a drama script fit for the globe theatre. The first day of drama practice was a little dicey. “Okay, so when I call your name you come up.” My 24 soon-to-be actor children sat in front of me with jittery grins. “Shebey…you are the angel Gabriel.” A cry of exaltation rose from the crowd, and a clatter of Swahili followed.
“QUIET! Okay, Stephen Ford…you are Joseph, the father of Jesus.”
Another cry from the crowd.
“Juliet…where’s Juliet?”
“She’s bauthing.”
“She’s what?”
“Bauthing!”
“Oh, bathing! Iee yieee…Of course I forgot I’m in Kenya for a second,” I said to myself. “Okay, so who wants to be Mary for now until Juliet comes? Judy, come up and pretend to be Mary.” This probably just confused the 9 year-old Judy who was also Elizabeth. ‘So I’m pretending to be Mary, but I’m actually Elizabeth, but I’m really not either?’ The assignment of parts continued. “Elijah, Eric, Lucas, Fredrick, and Paul… you are all shepherds.” A cry of delight echoed in the room. Being a shepherd doesn’t have the foreign romanticism that it has in America where we think of a robed man with a turban and a shepherd’s crook. No—here, being a shepherd means that you’ve got to sit out in the hot sun all day and look after your family’s sheep or cows or goats and be bored. Being a shepherd is a real job description here, and not a very desirable one. The crowd of children obviously loved to see the rambunctious bunch of boys be cast as the lowly shepherds. Each of the new shepherds reluctantly got up and slowly walked towards me with lowered heads, like they had just been sentenced to hard labor in the Gulag for 2 months. I had cast everyone ahead of time, but had a few stragglers drift in later. “Dominic…where can I put you? Hummm, Dominic, your going to be a shepherd. There’s no other parts.” Dominic sat there motionless. Then he slowly shook his head. “No, you don’t want to be a shepherd?” More jeering from the merciless crowd, “Okay, so what do you want to be?” No response. “An animal, like a cow or a pig or something?” Nothing, “How about an Angel?” He looked up, “But all the singing angels are girls.” He didn’t seem to care at this point. Anything was better than being a shepherd or a cow!

I took them through the script line by line, shouting, whispering, waving my arms around, kneeling, trembling with fear at the sight of the angels… it’s what you have to do when directing children in a play…or at least that’s what seemed to work to keep their attention for the duration of the 15 minutes. “So we’re going to teach you four Christmas songs.” Anna, Anthony and I sang them Away in a Manger, Angels we have heard on high, O Come Emanuel, and my favorite O Holy Night. “Now we’re going to try to learn Away in a Manger today.” I looked at Anna, “How do you teach a song to a group of kids?” I asked her, suddenly realizing my inexperience in the field of elementary music education. “Just sing it over and over.” So into that dark sea of ignorance we sailed with that one principle as our only guiding light. “Okay, again!” “Bonefice! Stop hitting Eric! Come here.” Bonefice stood next to me loudly and defiantly mumbling along to the song, much to the delight of his friends who thought it was hilarious. I gave him a stern look, as if to say, “You keep that up, and you won’t live another day!” He quieted down. Over and over and over, my voice was on the verge of being hoarse. “Elijah…I don’t see your mouth moving!” Anthony barked. Over and over. “Okay, so now you sing it back to me. Ready…one, two, three…” “Away in a manger no yaaa laaa ooooh.” They broke away into 24 different versions of different songs. “Okay...” I said slowly and looked at Anthony. “Well, at least they have the first line!” The reality of elementary music education in a second language finally hit me. It loomed in front of me like a colossal snow peaked mountain, and we were way down in a canyon beneath the base of it!

One afternoon a while ago I was feeling quite down and discouraged. “Why am I here? Am I really making that much of a difference?” I felt more like a furniture piece than an important part of the community life. And though I walked across the compound with a determined cheerfulness, I was tired and hallow inside. A group of children ran and played along the roadside. Kefa, a four-year-old orphan boy, who took a special liking to me within the first week I was here, waved to me with his irresistible smile. I waved back at him, and had the sudden urge to go over to him. For some reason he began to cry due to some interaction with the other children. I walked straight over to him. He had his face covered with his tiny arm. He was wearing a dirty sweatshirt that read “Princesses” with pictures of the Disney goddesses Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty and Snow White on it. Without a word I picked him up and held him. “Sometimes life is hard, isn’t it?” I whispered to him, as I carried him over to the well house and sat down on the porch. As I hummed to him, he finally stopped crying and I wiped a big teardrop from under his eye. He just sat there staring off into space. I rocked him until his eyes grew heavy and it was harder and harder to keep them open each time he blinked. I gently pushed his head toward my shoulder and his breath became rhythmic and steady. “So this is why I’m here,” I thought as he dreamed away his problems. As the planets spun and snow was falling in Antarctica, the Almighty saw that I was in need of encouragement, and that Kefa needed a shoulder to dream on. So like in some huge marvelous tapestry, the Lord weaves our needed hearts together in sparkling patterns of colorful mercy.

CHAPTER 7

We finished up the school for the kids last week, after they almost got to be completely out of hand. Their attention spans shortened daily, and they were restless during every activity. We practiced the Christmas Pagaent over and over, everyday. 6 of the boys wanted to go back to their relatives for Christmas, including Joseph, the donkey, and two shepherds.

“Dominic,” (remember the boy who refused to be a shepherd),

“do you want to be Joseph?”

He nodded.

“Okay Dominic is now Joseph. Let’s start at scene one.”

It was the day before Christmas Eve and we had been working an hour everyday on the play. The troops were tired. The angel Gabriel came onto the stage, and standing on a chair announced to Mary that she would be with child and she should call the baby Jesus. Then Mary started quietly saying her lines. “How can this be since I am still a virgin?”

“Hold on...” I said, “Mary you need to say your lines louder.” She just stared at her feet. “What’s the matter?”

Elizabeth leaned over to me and whispered, “She’s sad because he doesn’t want to have Dominic be Joseph.” At hearing this I gave up all hope to go on.

“Okay, let’s take a break today. We’ve worked hard all week and you all deserve a break. Let’s meet tomorrow for the dress rehearsal in the chapel.” Anna came to rescue with a game and with that the two week school finished with a bang.

I took Washington, Kennedy, and Washington’s girlfriend (who by the way is a wonderful girl and I hope they get married soon) out to dinner and a movie on the eve of Christmas Eve. We ate delicious Indian food, and watched the new Harry Potter film. It was culture shock walking into the theatre. It really felt like it was some sort of transport machine as I pushed the swinging doors open. Cool dark air pushed back. I magically vanished from the hot, third world of Kenya and stepped into a theatre exactly like one in America. Air-conditioned to a chilly temperature of 70 degrees, fancy blue lights lined the high ceiling, the seats identical to a first class theatre in Seattle. It was very impressive just to sit in the theatre. We were early and took a few pictures to remember the occasion. And even though it was a Friday night, and the tickets were about $4, we were the only ones in the theatre. “I’ve got to come here more often”, I thought, “before the theatre runs out of money to keep this up and closes down.”

I haven’t made my intentions to become a Anglican minister a secret around the farm. “So what are you going to have made in the workshop next after your desk?” Wolfgang the German asked me, “a kneeling bench?” “Ben come and answer this Bible trivia question, you’re going to be a pastor you should know this...” Lexi said with a smile. I’ve gotten plenty of jokes about it, but I was quite taken back when on Christmas Eve I opened my present from the other missionaries to find a brand new sparkling blue Anglican-collar-shirt! It was quite impressive. I tried it on. As I pulled the white collar around my neck, and looked into the mirror, I thought, “Whoo, here we go.” I felt the weight of the moment settle. This might be the uniform that I will be wearing for years to come. And this was the first time I put it on. “Wear it tomorrow for the Christmas Day service!” They said. I had to explain to them that wouldn’t be possible. This shirt is a symbol that can only be given by the church to individuals who have made a commitment to the work of the church. To wear it, would be mockery. I’m not ordained. Goodness, I’m not even part of the Anglican Church yet!

The children performed their Christmas Nativity Play, with gusto and determination. I was so proud of them and their hard work. As I listened to their singing, I remembered how on that first day that we had play practice they didn’t know a single word to any of the songs. By the grace of God they climbed a mountain range.

I was asked to run the service on Christmas Day. I wrote out an order of service and printed out a dozen. A Durer engraving decorated the front and lyrics of the songs we were to sing covered the back. It was the first order of service that the farm church had ever been exposed to. The Anglican Church I go to every Sunday has a bulletin, and I just adapted it for use here.

I preached on the meaning of “light” and what it meant that Christ was the light of the world. Washington translated into Swahili and mimicked my gestures as I went along. “Christ came into the dark caves of our own sin and fantasies with the painful and piercing power of light and frees us to live in color, beauty, truth, and goodness.”

 

CHAPTER 8

The week following Christmas is always a bit quiet after the exhausting hustle and bustle of Christmas preparation. So it was here. Washington and Kennedy were gone for a few days last week visiting their families, so I manned the fort. But the fort was only supplied with African food, and I’m not exactly an African cook. “Bonface, what is the power stuff here?” I took one of the orphan boys inside and showed him a bag of flour. “Is this ugali flour?” He nodded. “Could you help me make ugali? I’m starving.” He was very kind to take pity on me and set to work mixing up the meal. I didn’t really know what else to eat with the ugali; I needed some sort of vegetable. Ah, moringa pods! Everyone is always talking about how good moringa is. It is a tree that grows these long bean pods about two feet long, and they grow outside my house. So I went out and harvested the pods out of the shells and brought back a bowl full of the greenish pods. “Put them in here and I’ll fry them,” Bonface told me authoritatively. He added some sekuma and salt and other seasoning, and it smelled wonderful. I wolfed down the meal like I hadn’t eaten for days.

The story continues four hours later as my stomach gurgled and twisted under the weight of those green moringa pods. I fell into a cold sweat that resulted in two hours of...well let’s just say a “toilet time”, that climaxed with vomit everywhere. A simple case of food poisoning. I was out of commission all the next day, trying to recoup from those wretched crunchy plants.

Our New Year’s celebrations were very wonderful. We had a big new years eve potluck that included a slide show, games, songs, and dancing. My mom had sent some gifts for the children, and I stood up and said, “Mama Ben, my mother, has sent you something from America!” (They refer to the mothers by the children they have). Their eyes were big with curiosity and excited for the surprise. I handed out candy canes and balloons. They were quite pleased and thankful. The festivities lasted up until midnight. We had a clock brought into the chapel (that is where we have our potlucks) so that we could count down the minutes. We got into a big circle and Mama Vero prayed for us as the minutes approached the New Year. Two minutes till, one minute till, she kept at it. Midnight, one minute after, she was still going! I looked over at Jeff and Marit who gave a mute celebratory face. “Amen”. Then the cheering and singing and hugging began. The simple fact is, is that African culture just doesn’t value precise or punctual time like western cultures. It didn’t matter to them that they celebrated the New Year a few minutes past, it would happen when it happens.

The next morning I drove Kennedy, Washington, Anna, Dismas, Nafula, and Shebby (a fourteen year old orphan who I’ve taken under my wing) into Kisumu to the Anglican Church. It was to be a big day...I was becoming part of the Anglican Church. In the preparation for confirmation I had been told that I needed a baptism card. I had never heard of a baptism card before, so I assumed that I was going to need to be baptized again. We made all the arrangements. I asked my dear friends Dismas and Nafula to become my godparents at the ceremony. They readily agreed and were very honored. However, at the 11^th hour my grandfather notified me that I did have a baptism card after all, and so the baptism was unnecessary. So though Dismas and Nafula didn’t become my official godparents, they became so in spirit.

I left my friends inside the building and went to find the other confirmation candidates. We had been instructed to all wear white shirts. I found a sea of over 50 black children in white shirts and white dresses sitting outside under a canopy. I sat in the front, standing out like a sore thumb, being the only white adult there. Confirmation booklets, nametags, Bibles, prayer books, and oratory envelopes littered our laps as we waited for the bishop to come and examine us. The assistant of the Bishop coached us how this was a very important day, that we should just relax, and should stand when the bishop comes out. Then a mother from the Mother’s Union (which is a ministry of the mothers in the Anglican church) came out to give us a gentle speech about how we should learn to speak less and listen more.

The bishop arrived and we stood at attention. It was the first time I had ever seen a bishop this close before. He paced back and forth in front of me asking the group questions. “What is the name of the archdeacon of the diocese?” He asked, I looked back over my shoulder to see that my fellow “confirmees” were as ignorant as I was with tell tale blank faces and eyes staring at their feet. “Well?” He commanded, “haven’t you been instructed in church administration?” A boy of 13 raised his hand and somehow new the name of the archdeacon, much to the relief of the rest of us. “Who is the archbishop of Kenya?” A few hands raised, and answers were mumbled. “The full title!” bellowed the bishop. More timid mumbling. “Okay, you in the back. You get one shot at giving the full title of the archbishop. If you don’t get it right then the whole group must wait until next week to be instructed more before getting confirmed.” Everyone waited in silent anticipation as the boy in the back straightened up...his pulse obviously had risen. “The Most Reverend Benjamin Nzimbi”. We looked back to the bishop to see if our representative had passed the test. He stood their, quiet, with a undecipherable smirk on his face. Having no idea the correct title of the archbishop I couldn’t tell if the grin meant defeat or victory. He didn’t say. He just mercifully launched into a lecture. “Who is a Christian?” He paced toward me staring right into my eyes, obviously intending for me to answer. “A Christian is someone who believes in Jesus as their Lord and Savior.” Apparently pleased with the answer he paced off again continuing with his speech. I breathed a sigh of relief.

I hadn’t been informed of the rehearsal that had taken place a few days before. The provost told me, “You’ll be okay, just follow the rest of them. It isn’t difficult.” We marched into the front four rows of the packed church. I tried my best to be stuck in the middle of everyone, but of course I was pushed to the front row on the very end. A boy of maybe 12 was hovering in the aisle and I gratefully invited him to sit beside me in defense of having to be the first one to go up and having no idea what to do. The service started and in a short time the bishop was sitting in a chair in the front saying “Could the confirmation candidates please come forward, and if the parent, guardian or godparent of the child is present please stand as your child is being confirmed “ into the microphone. A butterfly made a quick flight in my stomach and I stood. An assistant clergy arranged us into pairs to go forward. I was paired in the very front with my 12-year-old friend. I glanced at the nametag he had in his hand. It read “Billy” in permanent ink. The bishop furtively motioned for us to advance with his finger, and we walked up to the pillows below the bishop and knelt.

I put my nametag on my chest so the bishop could read my name. The bishop laid his hands on my head. “Strengthen, O Lord, your servant Benjamin with your Holy Spirit. Empower him for your service and sustain him all the days of his life.” He then said the same blessing for Billy, and we stood. Billy bowed, so I did the same, and then we sat down. Marit told me later that Dismas and Nafula had stood as my godparents as I was confirmed.

CHAPTER 9

I was reading through the Anglican lectionary this week, and I came across this.

Usually, I would have thought, ‘Oh, this is a nice passage about how we should be aware of social justice issues.’ But as I read it here in Africa, it changed its meaning. I look out my window to see a house where two widows live. When I walk outside, orphan boys greet me. Widows and orphans are not a removed, distant, or ethereal reality. They are my neighbors.

So what does this mean for me? How do I defend the cause of the fatherless or plead the case of the widow? What should I be defending them from? What case should I be pleading? It sounds more like work for a trial lawyer, not me.

We pulled the Pajero up alongside the dirt road and got out of the car. The smell of rot, filth, hot dirt, manure, urine, and over-ripe maze all hit me as we moved through the long grass in a long line. Marit, Lexi, and I were taking six of the boys home for their Christmas break.

The tin roofs and concrete houses of the town of Miwani were scattered helter-skelter in the grassy fields under the shadow of the Nandi Hills. This was once a prosperous and thriving community that depended on the sugar factory. The sugar factory closed a few years ago, due to governmental mismanagement and now sits in disrepair. The windows are shattered. The tall smokestacks slouch in blankets of rust and dirt. It stands like a huge statue in the middle of the community where all can not forget the good life that has long since gone. This is the icon of the community. A symbol of their collective existence, reflecting the hopelessness that everyone feels. Everyone is clamoring to get out...out of the despair, out of the ignorance, out of the unemployment, out of the hopelessness, out of the grinding poverty that dulls the soul down to basic survival.

Paul, a wiseman in the Christmas pageant, led the way to his house. It was a single room with modest furniture squeezed onto one side. His father was gone working out in the fields. His brother sat on the couch with his shirt off. His sister sat on the floor behind a bed sheet that hung from the ceiling. She had a deformed leg—a constant prisoner to the corner. Her eyes were glazed over, giving away her inept social skills as I shook her limp hand.

Mustafa, the cow that Mary and Joseph ride to the manger in Bethlehem, took us to his mother’s hut. It was half the size of Paul’s house, with dirt floors...just a stick frame with tin sheets for roof and walls. Mustafa’s mother is 25, a year older than me. Her husband died of malaria leaving her to fend for her three children. Before he came to Nehemiah, Mustafa would leave the house early in the morning and wander the streets to make mischief and fight. His mother, being desperate and with no other option, shut him up in the tin hovel all day to keep him out of trouble.

Stephen, the husband to the Mother of God, is a total orphan with both parents dead. His father had six wives. Before he came to Nehemiah, he was living with his grandmother. She is a crazy old witch, who made him hold snakes and slaughter chickens.

As I walked through this shantytown, I realized that I couldn’t even begin to imagine what other horrific atrocities that these people must endure. I can walk through it. I can see it. But I don’t understand it. I have no idea what happens when the sun’s light disappears. I remember a college professor insisting that the “third-world” should be called the “two-thirds-world” because it constitutes two thirds of the world’s population. So if this is how most of the world lives, then the world is in worse shape than I thought. The idea of human progress seems to lose its glory after seeing this.

We took the week that the children were gone to go do some fieldwork. Kennedy, Anna, and I went back out to Miwani to gather more information on the boys to add to our files. Kenya is really not a western country, but it attempts to conform to the forms of the western world anyway: birth certificates, death certificates, marriage certificates, wills, and land deeds. But when these impersonal objective matters collide with Kenya’s collectivist, relational, hierarchical society...chaos ensues.

We went to all the guardians of our boys and filled out the necessary forms for a birth certificate, so far so good. But then we had to get these forms signed by the infamous Chief of Miwani. You may have remembered him as the big man who was constantly distracted on his cell phone and liked to hold my hand. Yes, it’s the same guy.

“Where is the Chief’s office?” I yelled out the Pajero window to a man walking along the street. He came up to the window. I stretched out my hand to shake his hand. He took it. “Yes...Where...is the Chief’s...office...Chief’s office?” I kept holding his hand. The stranger looked up and down the street, as if he was just seen it but it had vanished. “Oh, up. Up.” He pointed toward a dirt road that led up to the base of the Nandi Hills. “Asante” (thanks), I said and drove off up towards the chief’s office.

Ten minutes later, we pulled up to concrete building with fresh paint on it. The Chief had a few assistant chiefs sitting around the perimeter of the office. There’s safety in numbers.

“Well, hello there Chief!” I said, shaking his hand.

“Ah, yes.” His eyes darted from his desk to me and back again.

“It’s good to see you again. How are you?”

“Fine, fine. It’s a long way up here to the office isn’t it? It is too far from the main road to have gossips up here. Serious business, serious business.”

“Yes, I’m sure. It’s too far for anyone to come unless it serious business...serious business.” I winked at him. “So we’ve got some applications for birth certificates that we need you to sign.” I handed him the applications. He shuffled through them, like a child handles a deck of cards.

“Hmmm. Yes, what we will need is the official rubber stamp. You take my assistant chief to his office and he’ll get his stamp. You just take him in your car...” He waved me out the door.

So off we went back down the bumpy road in the Pajero...just me and the assistant chief.

“So how long have you been the assistant chief?”

“Ten years.”

“Wow, that’s a long time. It must be a lot of responsibility.”

“Mmmm.”

“And this isn’t a very easy place to live in. With the sugar factory down, there is so much poverty to deal with.”

“Mmmm. Oh, that man walking towards us is the assistant chief of the western part of Miwani. We should pick him up, he is going to the Chief’s office.”

So in came another assistant chief, and bump bump, roar roar, I continued this strange Kenyan safari.

He ran in and out of his office to get his rubber stamp and we rumbled back up to the Chief’s office.

“Well,” the Chief informed me, “we just don’t know who these boys are. We know this one...Mustafa...I remember signing his father’s death certificate, but I don’t know who these other boys are. You know if you went through us to recruit these boys, this would be much easier.” Frustration knocked on my door. “What we need is a photocopy of the living parent’s ID, death certificates, and clinical cards before I sign these.”

”Yea, we just don’t know who these boys are!” an assistant chief chimed in.

“Okay, Chief, we’ll get the necessary documents. Thanks for your time.”

“Oh, yes, yes, we want to help you. We like you.”

“Mmmm.”

So maybe this is part of what it means to defend the fatherless. To struggle through the ridiculous red tape of Kenyan tribal bureaucrats for a simple thing like a birth certificate, on their behalf. To get into the good schools, get a passport or drivers license, or a decent job, these boys will need birth certificates. As of now they have no ID at all. To get these will defend the blessings that they have had coming here to Nehemiah, from the impending poverty and despair that would otherwise be their fated future.

CHAPTER 10

I visited my friend Jaz again last week.  I arrived early to be met by his dear mother Mrs. Brar.  I met Jaz’s mother-in-law who didn’t speak English, so Mrs. Brar and I chatted and drank coke, and the conversation would then often transition into Janjabi, the Indian dialect they speak. 

Eventually my curiosity brought up their religion, Sikhism, and Mrs. Brar said, “Ben, you should come to our temple sometime.”

“Yes, I would love to.  So how many times a day do you pray?”

“We pray together in the mornings up in the prayer room and then the women pray in at night.  The men don’t really pray too much.”  She gave me a big grin.

“So do you have a prayer book?

“Yes, yes.  Come I will show you.”  She led me up the granite staircase, past a spacious second story veranda, through their den with a big-screen TV, and down a long hall to their prayer room. 

“Take your shoes off here,” Mrs. Brar instructed me.  I carefully walked into the room.

Jaz’s aunt was kneeling down, draped in a silky sari, with a book in her hand.  Before her was a large alter of sorts, similar to alters erected to the Virgin Mary during the middle ages.  The room smelled like sweet exotic incense, and had soft, plush, white wall-to-wall carpet.  A fan quietly buzzed in the corner, and the steady rhythm of Janjab tabla drums and chanting pulsed in the background.  A picture of the Sikh’s beloved Golden Temple hung on the wall.

“The Golden Temple is covered with pure gold.” Jaz’s aunt told me proudly, getting up and walking over to me.

“And who are those people?” I asked pointing to another picture of a mountain temple and Hindu looking icons of old men with long white beards. 

“Those are the 8 great gurus of Sikhism.  And that is the mountain temple in Panjab where the first guru wrote our sacred books.”  Mrs. Brar led me over to a cupboard at the end of the room.

“This is our prayer book,” she said handing me a book entitled Essence of Jap Ji Sahib. “Keep it and read it.”

Jaz returned from a movie with his wife and sister-in-law in Kisumu, and we chatted, laughed, and ate.  The rest of the family quietly disappeared into their rooms, retiring early. 

“Well Jaz, I better not wear out my welcome. I should be going.”

“What’s the hurry?  Let’s take a walk.”  We walked outside.  “It’s too hot to take walks during the day, so I often take walks at night.  It’s so cool.” He breathed deeply.  “Look, there’s a fire in someone’s cane.”  He pointed off a few miles away to a large raging fire glowing a deep orange in the blackness.

“Is that your cane?” I asked.

“No, I think it Channan’s.” Channan is the “King of Sugar Cane” in all of Western Kenya and lives across the street from Jaz.

I looked over at Jaz.  His eyes were entranced by the fire.  “It’s a big one!” he said.

“Do you worry about fires a lot?” I asked.

He chuckled, “Sometimes I don’t sleep at night.  Just make a few wrong decisions and my whole business could disappear.  Ben, I want to retire early from this work…maybe at 40 I’ll retire.”  His eyes had a distant look about them. “I’ll buy a plot of land on the coast of Greece and build a big house with a swimming pool and just live off interest from my money sitting in the bank.  Ben, I make about 1,000 US dollars a day, and if I save up for the next twenty years, I can do it.” He smiled.

“Do you think you’ll be happy living out in Greece?”

“I don’t know.  But a least I’ll be comfortable.”  We both laughed.

The next morning Dismas and I woke at 4:30 am and I drove us into town.  I had been asked by the Provost to preach at the 7 am Youth Service at my church.  I was expecting a handful of tired high schoolers, but I was surprised.  By time the singing was finished and the announcements completed, the cathedral was packed.  I got up and preached to over 200 young people.

 “Thank you for having me this morning.  I was confirmed here just a few weeks ago.  I’m a new Anglican and it’s a privilege to be speaking to you this morning here in this church.”

Dismas was sitting in the front row.  The sun had just come up, and fresh breeze floated in through the windows. “Meaningless! Meaningless! Meaningless! All is meaningless!” I yelled. I was preaching on Ecclesiastes.  “Unless you realize that what you have is a gift from God, everything you do is going to be meaningless,” I said softly into the microphone.  It was refreshing not to have an interpreter. Things flow better when everything doesn’t have to be repeated into Swahili or Luo or something.

The Indian community, for whatever reason, loves to meet and talk with westerners.  Most of our customers that we deliver milk to are Indian sugar cane farmers, like Jaz, and they always want us to come and visit. “Jeff, come to tea!” they all urge every week.  “I’m sorry, I have to keep going or else my other customers will be angry with me.” Jeff has to apologize every time.  But this week he agreed, “Okay, this afternoon I’ll come to visit.” 

I had been in town that day doing some errands and taking a swim at the town pool.  I met up with Jeff at one of the farmer’s houses that afternoon, at a man named Billy’s house.

I came into the comfortable room to find Jeff already there. 

“Welcome!  Come, come in! Do you want a whiskey, beer, coke, something…” Billy asked in his Panjab accent.  I glanced down in front of Jeff to see a nice squat glass of whiskey and ice. “I’ll take a whiskey.”  I said smiling.  “Oh, I haven’t had one of these in about a half a year!”  I whispered to Jeff and we laughed.

As we sat and talked to Billy, more Indian farmers appeared as if called by a magic horn.  Jaz’s uncle and aunt showed up, Billy’s two uncles and their wives, and the Indian man that gave Anthony and me a ride in his car a couple months ago, all appeared out of nowhere within the hour.  Jeff was the hero of the day as far as I was concerned.  There he was in the middle of a bunch of rich old serious Indians with beards and big black turbans, just chatting away making suggestions about how they should all get their own hydroelectric dams, and how they should divide up the road and repair the entire thing of the awful potholes.  The men pondered what he said, and nodded. I just sat silently beside him in admiration.  “So next week, let’s have a barbecue so that we can all meet again,” Jeff suggested. “If we start meeting and communicating we can start solving many of the problems that we are facing together as a community.”

I was out picking up sugar cane tops the other day, and was in a rotten mood.  Everyone and everything seemed like they were dysfunctional and stupid, and I was wondering why I was in this hot, sweaty, poverty stricken, rough, uncivilized country.  Even the cowboys I was driving with smelled especially strong of cows urine and manure that day.  I silently prayed that the Lord would forgive me and that I wouldn’t take for granted the gift of life and the wonderful opportunity I have to be living and working here. 

As we drove out of the cane fields, one of the cowboys said, “Look, look! Punctured tire!”  

I glanced down at the flat tire.  “Let’s drive on.” I continued on the dirt road until we got to the main road.  But once I drove onto the pavement the sound of the flat rubber tire indicated that I couldn’t go on.  I stopped the car and we got out the jack.  I examined the small foot-long hydraulic jack for a few minutes and deemed it either broken or constructed without any logic.  I looked around in bewilderment what to do next.  I saw Channan’s big mansion.  “Let’s go to Channan’s place.  Maybe they have a jack there.” 

I carefully drove the pickup over to the big black gate and jumped out to talk with the security guard.  He told us to drive in.  The gate slowly swung open to reveal a large junkyard of rusty old metal machine parts.  Under a covered hanger I saw a couple Indian men sitting. I walked up to the older one thinking he might be in charge of the garage…maybe Channan’s brother or nephew or something. “I’ve got a puncture,” I explained.  “Do you have a jack I could use.”  He was acted like I didn’t seem to understand.

“Sit…sit” he commanded.  I obeyed.  He stared barking orders in Swahili to the many African mechanics that surrounded us. “Do you want a coke?”  I nodded. He obviously didn’t intend for me to do any work.

I looked over at my host.  He was wrinkled as a prune, sitting there with a dirty old turban, vintage shiny black shoes, and a cane that he kept spinning around and around.  “So what country do you come from?” he asked me in his leathery voice.

“America.”

“Which state?”

“Washington.”  He sat for a while thinking about my answer.  “Have you been to America?” I asked.  He held up three gnarled fingers.

“Three times…once to Chicago and two times to California.  One time I drove from New York to Chicago.  It took me three nights and two days. It was a very long drive!” He chuckled and motioned to his rear.

By this time my tire had been changed and I got up to leave.  I thought that it would be a good idea to ask the name of my strange new friend for future reference.  “What is your name?” I asked as I shook his hand.

“Channan Singh.” 

The name rumbled and rolled like a boulder out of his mouth.  It conjured up strange visions of Kubla Khan, Shear Khan, and Gangus Khan. Mighty exotic visions of Eastern sultans and emperors in big silk turbans drinking apple tea and smoking opium.  As all this flashed through my head, he kept shaking my hand slowly. I finally came out of my trance and thanked him again and drove out of his gate. 

CHAPTER 11

Life is never typical here.  There is no such thing as a routine.  Everything is "subject to change".  At the drop of a hat, everything could and probably will change.  It has to do with the weak infrastructure, the unreliable economy, and instable political structure. But it's also has to do with nature itself.  Agrarian societies tend to be this way because their whole livelihood is based on the fickle and unpredictable patterns of nature. You never know when the power will go out for an unknown reason, or if there will be a big political and dangerous rally, or if your vehicle will get a flat tire, or if your cows will try to get stolen in the night, or if you get caught in a torrential downpour, or if you'll see the most beautiful sunset in your life.  I make a list in the morning of the things I want to do (because if I have no direction I'll just loiter around and loaf about), but then I am lucky to finish half of the things on the list due to all the unforeseen barriers that inevitably present themselves as I proceed with my plans.

Sometimes it's as slow as a slug living out here in the boonies of rural Africa.  Everyone just sits around during the hot afternoons, doing nothing but watch the clouds blow across the sky.  Sometimes it's as wild as a hurricane.  You just never know. Planning is not something most people can do here, just live today...get enough money to make some food and be thankful that you have a tin roof over your head and that you don't have malaria!  That's how most people think about life.

I've been making an effort to work a day a week at the farm store, so that Kennedy, who usually works in the store, can be freed up to pursue his social work for the orphans (which is supposed to be in real job here...not working in the store).  It's not only a good thing for Kennedy, but is also a wonderful experience for me.  The store supplies the community (within a ten mile radius) with the needed food and supplies for basic survival: flour, salt, sugar, oil, matches, soap, etc.  The prices are astoundingly low by American standards.  For example, we sell a ½ kg of sugar for around .40 cents.  You can have a breakfast of hot steaming sweet tea and two large pieces of fried bread similar to a donut or a croissant all for about .20 cents.

I have a solar calculator I can total up all their products and a little receipt book with a carbon sheet to account for the products leaving the store.  I can read or write as I sit in the store waiting for customers.  The sun heats up the room to over 90 degrees during the afternoon, which drives me out onto the covered porch to sit with the other 'loafers' in the slight breeze to watch the clouds blow across the sky.  Many of my customers speak absolutely no English...some are deaf and mute.  I sometimes greet them in Swahili, but that often ends up with them thinking I can really speak the language, and then I have to somehow break it to them that I really don't speak it.  So usually I just speak in English right of the bat.  There is a lot of pointing, sign language, motioning, and repeating of key words, as I try to solve the puzzle of what they are wanting to purchase.  Then I figure out how much of the product they want by how much money they are holding out to me.

The drought that has hit the farm during the "winter" months of December and January, has finally given way to the "spring" rains.  Sub-Saharan Africa doesn't have seasons the way that North America does.  We have rainy seasons and dry seasons.  We didn't see rain for over a month during December. I can't describe how dry and hot it felt everyday.  But now the huge black rain clouds usually roll in from the east at around 3 or 4 in the afternoon, and then immediately after sunset at 6:30, lightning will continue illuminating the farm for another hour.

The other day, it rained close to an hour. "We had about two inches", Wolfgang said the next day.  The power went out about half way through the storm.  Luckily we have a gas stove to cook on, and can continue with our dinner with or without electricity.  As Washington was cooking up some eggs and ugali for our dinner he said, "Ben...I don't know where our salt went! Janet and Helen (the widows next door) must have borrowed it this afternoon.  I can't continue cooking until I have the salt." He looked mournfully out the window at the downpour that barred the way from our house to Janet and Helen's house some fifty feet away.  I thought about if for a moment and then said, "I'll go get it."  I pulled on my swimsuit, set my glasses aside, prepared a towel for my return, and then sprinted through the rain.  The lightning was flickering like a struggling Florissant light, and by the radiance of the lightning I made my way to the door of our neighbors.  I knocked on their bolted door, and one of the little girls opened it looking quite surprised they had a guest at a time like this.  I asked for the salt and stood in their kitchen shivering in my swimsuit as I watched them dig around in their cupboards by the radiance of a kerosene lamp.  I leapt back into the storm and soared through the rain with my arms stretched out and feeling the rain pour into my eyes.  I skidded into my house and was greeted with a laughing Washington who probably thought I was absolutely crazy, but was happy nonetheless because he had his salt.  I dried off, and changed into my warm fleece.

The rain continued with out relenting, and soon I noticed a cold back puddle creep under the door and slink toward our dining room table.  I began to frantically attempt to block the watery visitor with a broom and rags on the floor, but then realized I was fighting a loosing battle.  I gave up and plopped down in a chair as the water began to collect in a small pond at my feet.  "It's okay," Washington said stirring the pot of ugali, "I'll just use the water to mop up after dinner."  He didn't seem too concerned about the situation.  We ate by candlelight with my toes beginning to prune up from being emerged in the pool of water under the table.   We finished our dinner, and I leaned back licking my fingers.  Then I noticed Washington look at his dirty fingers and then down at the pool of rainwater under the table and he scooped up a handful of water from between his legs, and slowly washed his hands.  Unbelievable...

I have found a great joy in getting out and walking around the farm an hour or so before sunset when it is cool enough to venture outside without burning up.  All the families are outside working in their gardens or cutting their lawns with slashers.  I often will pick up an extra jembe (hoe) or slasher (machete) and join in with the work.  I kick off my shoes and help plant some beans, or dig along with the children.  It's usually not intensive labor, and we often end up standing in the golden rays of the setting sun, chatting and joking as we lean on our jembes, resting our backs and listen to the rumbling thunder in the distance.  Then as darkness engulfs the sky, I sometimes wander over to one of the cooking fires to continue my conversations with the children as they stir a pot of soup or porridge for the next day.

CHAPTER 12

One night the Kruegers, Anna and I went to one of our Indian neighbor's house for dinner.  His name was Billay.  He had just returned from the UK where had received resident status, and was quite proud of it.  He was like a nonstop chatter box jumping excitedly from one topic to the next, explaining to us about his dog Sheba, his sugar cane, and his cable TV.  Somehow he got onto the topic of Punjab wedding suits, and he disappeared into a back room and returned with a long maroon coat embroidered with sequins and golden thread.  He offered it to Jeff as a gift, saying that it wouldn't fit his rather rotund son for whom he bought the suit.  Jeff squeezed into the coat, but said that it wouldn't fit.  Billay suddenly turned to me holding the beautiful suit out to me.  I tried it on and to my delight it fitted like I had had my own tailor take my measurements.  I went home that night with a big smile and the smell of a hint of incense drifting out of a bag with my new coat.

The next morning Anna and I went along with Billay to the moderately sized, extravagantly furnished Sikh temple. Billay proudly led the way through the solid gate into the temple's courtyard. A big dome with a large Punjab symbol dominated the sky above the curved architecture.  The sound of tabla drums and a smooth melancholy harmonium floated out the large door as we slid our shoes off and solemnly walked down the rug through the center of the temple.  A huge table sat in the front of the room with flowers adorning beneath and above it.  The women sat quietly on the left side of the room and the men on the right.  We sat on the comfortable white carpet in our socks and relaxed as the priests in the front chanted the Jaap Si Sahib in Punjab.  I looked around the room and caught a glimpse of Jaz and his family.  There in the corner was Babu Singh who we deliver milk to.  Washington's father is his cook.  Sitting beside me was the Channan Singh's son. Behind the big table on which the sacred Sikh scriptures rested was old Mindry who is a kind old grandpa figure who we also deliver milk to.  Jeff calls Mindry his father.  The soft smell of incense, the hypnotic music, the familiar Indian faces gathered together created a calm, peaceful, and serene atmosphere.  My guess is that for most of the people that go to the temple it is more for relaxing, to collect their scattered thoughts before another stressful week sugar cane farming, rather than a place where they feel they commune with or worship God.

With February coming to a close, my classes that had started in January also started to wind down.  The Church History class finished with a successful bang, examining the 20th Century liberal and Evangelical movements.  Shebby, my 14 year old friend, completed the course, which I was very proud of.  Dismas attended every single class and scored high on all his quizzes.  He's dubbed himself "my catechist" as a joke.  I was talking to my friend the provost at my church St. Stephen's Cathedral the other day, and I mentioned to him that I'd like to teach the Church History class again in May at the church.  He was enthusiastic and encouraged me to go ahead and begin advertising.  I'm pumped about that!

As I neared the end of February, I was beginning to feel a bit dismal and uninspired.  It may even be described as minor depression.  I found myself watching movies in the middle of the day...a sure sign of slumping melancholy for me.  The incessant heat pounding down every day driving me into my empty house every afternoon...the monotonous schedule of going around and around in the same rut every week...the slow and quiet life in a rural third world country...the hypnotic rhythm of African life where everyday looks and feels exactly the same, from the weather to daily work.  It was getting to me. But the Lord never gives us more than we can take, and just at about that time Anna's father, Paul Schuler my pastor from Bainbridge and his daughter Heather, arrived from America for a two week visit. Paul is a great listener and as I explained my experience to him, I found myself realizing that my struggles weren't uncommon among other people working in the ministry. It was a great encouragement to talk and converse with Paul through his time here.

With my classes being finished, which freed up more time to do other things,  I took the oprotunity to do some traveling and go on some visits with Paul, Heather, and Anna. We took off for several days into the Kakamega rain forest, Kenya's only rainforest.  Staying in a remote, secluded corner of the forest, we had cozy and generously furnished comfortable reading rooms, hot showers, and electricity supplied by a generator in the evenings.  We took long walks through the trails of the tropical forest with colobus monkeys swinging through the trees above our heads and oversized butterflies fluttering along showing off their dazzling aqua-marine coats.  It was a true breath of refreshment.

That weekend I was scheduled to preach at our little community church on the compound.  I spoke on the Lenten topic of the temptation of Christ, and enjoyed being with my community after being away from the church for a couple months.

I called up Jaz during that Sunday afternoon and asked him what he was up to.  He told me to come over for a visit.  We sat outside on his paved driveway and drank a coke while we caught up on what had elapsed since last seeing each other.  We decided to drive into town for the evening.

"I've got a business deal in the works," he told me as we drove to town, "that if it goes through I'll own 10,000 acres.  And after one crop of cane in two years, I'll be able to retire to that Greek house on the Mediterranean I was telling you about."

"Build me a house in the corner of your land with a gothic cathedral and I'll be the minister for your workers." I said jokingly.

"Yea right!"

We drove out to a beautiful restaurant on the shore of the Lake complete with a swimming pool and palm trees.  "It's on me tonight," Jaz told me.  After several minutes of chatting, Jaz's cousin Petu arrived.  Petu had a heavy set frame, a few years older than me, and nervous eyes that avoided eye contact.  He pounded a couple beers and Jaz said that the appetizers in the evening's program had finished, and we raced away to the next stop: The Aga Kahn Sport Center...a Muslim community facility with an empty outdoor pool and an old smelly gymnasium, but with a cheep restaurant.  Jaz and Petu mostly spoke in Punjab, leaving me feeling like the odd man out most of the time.  But that was okay, it's not everyday you get the insiders experience of Kisumu from an Indian POV.  They ordered liver and I cautiously ate a small portion and gulped it down with the assistance of a coke.  A tropical rain storm complete with big rumbling clouds, fork lightening, and raindrops the size of marbles pelted into the thristy swimming pool as we ate.  Jaz and I went to the theatre to see what was showing and ended up watching "Fun with Dick and Jane"...a pointless and mind numbing movie.  As we drove back home Jaz was like some sort of speed demon and apparently was feeling invincible.  As we raced along the main road to Nairobi I noticed a huge yellow shape was looming in front of us, "Watch out!" I yelled grabbing onto the seat sides and bracing myself.  Jaz slammed on his breaks as we skidded to a halt in front of an over sized bus which was attempting a three-point-turn-around, which ended up in a twenty-point-turn-around.  Jaz began to honk and reeve his engine like a real jerk, and Petu, overjoyed at the excitement, leaned out the window to curse in Swahili at the poor bus driver obviously nervous.  I wasn't exactly proud of my company at that moment.  Then off we roared back on the treacherous dark road to Miwani.  As we careened around corners at over 100mph, I began to pray that my family would be comforted at the event of my death.  It was probably the most frightening driving experience of my life.  I was in a state of minor shock for all of the next day.

CHAPTER 13

Anna's time in Kenya was coming to a close and everyone on the farm had a little sadder constitution through the days leading up to her departure.  We had big party the night before she left the farm.  Anna and Heather wore their Indian clothes they bought that day, and I wore my royal wedding coat.  We danced around, sang, gave speeches, and had a jolly time.  "I'm more happy to have known all of you, than I am sad to be leaving," Anna said with tears in her eyes.

Anna, Paul, Heather, and I boarded a bus the next morning bound for Nakuru, a city 4 hours south of Kisumu, to go on a three day safari before they all jumped on an airplane for America.  We were met in Nakuru by a chubby man that wore an tan vest and had the longest craziest teeth I've ever seen.  He was a chain smoker and his gums had rotted into his skull exposing long crooked teeth.  But his smile never left his face and he whisked us off to the Nakuru National Park in his white van that had a pop top so that passengers could stand and view the wildlife from the safety of the vehicle.

We passed through the Park Ranger gate with mesh fence stretching out on either side into the underbrush.  As we drove through the small park, I felt a bit disappointed.  It was like a glorified zoo: the animals were fenced in (like in the Olympic game farm) and here we were in this white cage on wheels staring at the animals.  Nevertheless seeing a huge white rhino graze thirty feet away was exciting.  That night we stayed in a modest hotel in the park that overlooked the fields where zebra grazed in the early morning fog.

We proceeded on our way, traveling the 6 hours further south to the infamous Masai Mara.  After a long drive on the wild pothole riddled road, we pulled off the highway and onto a dirt road that ran directly into the Mara.  Masai shepherds became more frequent the further south we went, until they dominated the population, their red checkered blankets, skinny legs, and pierced ears that you could fit your hand through, meandering along with their skinny cows in search of green vegetation.  A skeleton of a dehydrated cow would often meet us with their dark eye sockets staring back at us, as we raced along.

 "This is a Masai village," our tour guide informed us pointing out the window to the rectangular mud huts.  We slowed to see children run towards us with hands outstretched, the adults looking over their shoulders with suspicious looks.  Then as we pulled away, resentment replaced the children's smiles and they made motions as if they would throw rocks at our car.  I suppose that comes from thinking yourself as the victim of modernization and that you deserve money and candy from the "rich" whites that pass through your village everyday, and then get angry when the hand that feeds you drives away leaving you nothing.  It breaks my heart that the relationship with the Masai has devolved into this distressing state.  It reminded me a bit of the similar characteristics of the Native Americans when they were first moved to reservations in the early twentieth century.

We dropped our bags off at our "camp" at the edge of the Masai reservation.  The camp was well equipped to accommodate white Westerners: two beds per tent, a kitchen, a personal cook, sit-down-toilets, hot showers, and a table in the dinning room featuring assorted Masai crafts for sale.  It followed the legacy of the safaris in the days of old when rich tourists came to the Mara to hunt game animals, where they could come back to camp after a long hot day out in the bush, sit down to a glass of port and have an elaborate dinner served with Mozart playing in the background from a record player.

The Masai Mara, despite it's trajectory toward complete commercialization at break neck speed, is still an exceptionally unique and amazing place.  No fences keep the animals in, the Masai roam the open savanna with spears to keep the lion away, and elephants still kill an occasional tourist to keep the authenticity of the place vibrant despite the tourist industry's attempts at neutering all "danger" out of the place.

Each type of animal in the Mara is so remarkably different.  It was difficult to believe that all these incredibly different animals all just lived together out here in the plains in the middle of Africa! Here's a brief sketch of some of my favorite animals we saw:

The warthog: "We call them the Kenya Express!" our driver informed us with a toothy grin.  Their curly tusks wrap around their piggish heads as they stare back at us.  Then they turn on a dime and with their dainty tails lifted in the air like a shark's fin, prance off in no particular direction.

The zebra: they are easy to spot from a distance...their black and white streaks coat apparently camouflaging them from their colorblind feline predators.  Their carcasses could be seen time and again laying next to a bush or lying quietly in the tall grass...the leftovers from a lion family's dinner.

The lion: "So if I just got out of the car they would jump on me and eat me?" I asked doubtfully as I looked at the lions, seemingly passed-out in the shade. Their shaggy manes looking like a picturesque costume.  "Yes, yes!" the driver responded quickly, trying to dissuade me from doing what many of his passengers innately feel compelled to do: get out of that cage of a car and face the beast one-on-one...my primal nature was sneaking out I suppose.

The elephant: My favorite animal...their whole bodies denying laws of comprehensible biology: their ears alone the size of a child...and what were those huge grey tubes they are pulling grass and eating with?  My first glimpse of an "elee-fant", as I began to call them, was in a cloud of dust kicked up from one of the many other white safari vans.  It was an old but massive bull with weathered tusks and chunks of his ears taken off.  We timidly inched our way forward him to get a good look when it got annoyed at the white boxes that kept pestering him and it did a little dance and shook its giant head stomping and sending fire signals out its small fierce eyes.  We shot into reverse and fled the area, before he decided to charge.  It was at that moment I felt the wild power of these animals.

The giraffe: "They look like the elves from the Lord of the Rings," I noted as we gazed at a family of giraffe slowly cruised gracefully along at sunset.  Their long necks and elegant yellow and orange coats suggested their aristocratic and regal position in the hierarchy of animals in the land.  And when they gallop they appear to be simply floating above the ground, gliding silently in slow motion.  It was a most striking and stunning sight.

As I glimpsed into this strange animal world, my anthropomorphic disposition was too much for me to resist.  If the Lion was the king, and the Giraffe the aristocratic nobility, the Zebra and the Baboon would be the peasants, the Warthog the court jester, the Elephant and the Rhino the military generals, the Hippo the washer-woman, the crocodiles the ruffian bandits, and the ostriches the fair maidens of the kingdom.

We left the Mara with all its peculiar oddities and drove the 4 hour journey into East Africa's most advanced and developed city: Nairobi...large new shiny cars, extravagant houses, modern malls, huge shopping centers, businessman in suits and ties, crowded streets, and skyscrapers.  I had to make an effort not to let my jaw drop at such opulent sights.  I realized how much of a country-bumpkin I'd become.  I felt like the country mouse on his first visit to the city.
We had our driver take us to All Saints Anglican Cathedral, the only place I really wanted to see in Nairobi.  The large and beautiful church (though not quite as impressive as the Namberimbe Cathedral in Kampala) is located in the middle of the busy metropolis. First built in the 1910s by British colonists, it now is the home to the Archbishop of Kenya, and the "capital" of the Anglican Church in Kenya.

I parted company with the Schuler clan: Paul, Anna, and Heather at the train station in Nairobi.  It was the breaking of the "fellowship" of our little band of adventurers.  They were off back to Western civilization, while I boarded the ancient overnight train to Kisumu.

I chose to ride Second Class which offered me my own bench seat to sleep on, rather than really roughing it on the Third Class coach where three people sleep sitting up per bench seat.  I found my compartment and slid the door open to find two young men already sitting.  After some quick introductions I found out that they were brothers, the older one going on to Kisumu and the younger one lived in Nairobi as a music producer.
The train lurched and we began to crawl forward out of the old train station.  After getting underway I learned that my new companion's name was Gideon.  He was a slim man of 33 years and had delicate features.  He had new shoes on and a clean looking sweater.  He was holding an expensive looking cell phone he said he had just purchased and still didn't know how to work. His speech suggested that he had been educated or else read more than the average Kenyan.

I glanced out the window and to my surprise saw an entire hillside carpeted with tin roofs.

"What is this?" I asked Gideon leaning out the window, my head in a cloud of smoke and dust.

"This is the largest slum in Nairobi.  In fact it is the largest slum in east Africa.  I was a clerk here a few years ago and the latest poll indicates that three quarters of Nairobi's population lives under $1 per day!"  I gasped at the statistic combined with the reality of what I was looking at.  "Sometimes they will throw stones or garbage," Gideon added. We chugged along on the track through the slum for close to 20 minutes, the crowded chaos of the slum pressing precariously into our sane compartment.  Now I understand why people feel the need to "compartmentalize" in the midst of disorder. We left the anarchy of Nairobi and headed west down into the Rift Valley as the sun set. The stars began to poke their sharp heads into the night and cried for their own order in the black confusion.

Gideon and I tottered our way to the dinning car to the swaying rhythm of the tracks and sat to have our supper.

The waiters wore smart looking white uniforms with brass buttons with the Kenya Railroad insignia, and polished black shoes.

"Could I wash my hands?" I asked.

"This way please." The waiter led me back into the kitchen which was in shambles, and then back into a little closet where a small sink was. The walls were covered in a greasy black from years of cooking. The dishwasher grinned at me as I walked in.  "We don't have any soap, just this laundry detergent," he said pointing to the blue powder.  I began to laugh.  I laughed at the fact that I was washing my hands with laundry detergent.  I laughed at the fact that this poor man was washing dishes in this hovel of a place on this ridiculous train.  I laughed at the fact that my waiters looked like they had just walked out of some movie from the 1940s. And I laughed because Gideon who was behind me kept shaking his head in disapproval at the train's deficiencies.

"I grew up in Kisumu," Gideon told me as the waiter ceremoniously served us chicken and ugali. "But I tell you it's a terrible thing to have your parents divorce...the counseling, the depression, the confusion.  Terrible." He paused and then continued.

"My father worked for the railway as a manager.  He was quite rich, but he had many families...one in each town...one in Mombassa, one in Nairobi, one in Kisumu.  Then my mother divorced him when I was 14." He was silent for a minute.

 "Then everything fell apart.  My father became a wreck and a drunk. I got involved with drugs and was really depressed.  But then I got saved.  It's really only through the Lord's work in my life that I made it.  I'm the only one in my family that was saved.  The rest of my family is still trying to recover.  But now I'm happy, really happy to be alive."  He looked up at me and then smiled.

"There was a 200 acre plot of land that my father had owned that no one wanted...just a place out in a rural area.  Everyone in the family wanted the big estates in the cities.  So I moved out to that 200 acre plot...no electricity...no phone...no friends or family.  And for 7 years I just worked that land with a jembe (an African hoe)...ploughing, tilling, weeding, and removing the rocks.  But I've only cultivated 10 acres during that time.  I did some reading, but mostly just thought.  It was my way of recovering from my childhood. I took in a street orphan named Ben to live with me and he helps me with the work."
"Gideon, that's quite an amazing story," I said, impressed with everything he had told me.
"Well, you are welcome to visit my place anytime.  Anytime."
"Here, let me pay for our dinner.  It's on me." I said glancing at him.  He looked a bit confused and unsure of himself.  "Is that okay?" I asked.
"Yes, yes. That would be wonderful.  It's just that no one has ever paid for my meal.  This is a miracle.  A miracle, that I'm sitting here talking with you.  It's really the will of God that brought us together on this train!"  I wasn't quite sure how to react to his enthusiasm.
We staggered back to our compartment as the train swayed from side to side.  We chatted a bit more before going to bed.  I took a sleeping pill and was soon fast asleep rocking back and forth as the train crawled along its snake like tracks.  I woke a shortly before dawn and proceeded to the dining car once more, where like the night before, a place was set for me at one of the tables.  I ate alone this time, Gideon was still sleeping but I ended up talking to a Swedish family whose daughter was working near Kisumu and whose parents had come to visit her.  I listened to their story as I cut my eggs and drank my coffee, and peeked out the window when I could without being impolite as the sun shot its golden light on the waking world.
Take the train in Kenya if you get the chance.  You'll never forget it.

CHAPTER 14

As with so many of the potential successes and adventures that present themselves to us, the element of the unknown is usually the most feared. What if I don't make into university? What if I can't find a good job? What if my marriage doesn't work out? What if my kids end up being disappointments? The fear of failure, that fear of the unknown keeps us from trying. It keeps us from risking. Fear keeps us in ruts and routines to maintain the illusion that we have control. The possibility for disaster is ever present, but when you are traveling around through third world countries, not knowing the language or customs, the odds greatly increase. What if I get sick? What if I loose my passport? What if my credit card doesn't work? What if all the hotels are booked? It can lead to a paralyzing anxiety. But it can also lead to learning to let go of control, to hold all plans loosely.

As I prepared for a solo trip to Rwanda, I knew I would be plunging into the deep unknown. Of course I did my research...how much are visas? What are the exchange rates? What languages do they speak? But all in all, there is still very little information about Rwanda on the internet and so I had to do a lot of letting go. I had some confidence in my own ability to navigate across international borders, find bus stations, and be comfortable in a developing country with all the smells and sights...but even more importantly, I was confident that I wasn't alone. I woke every morning with the solid conviction that the only way that I'd make it through the day with peace, was to first kneel before my Creator. As I moved through the familiar exercise of morning prayers, the fears of the unknown would slowly melt out of mind. The daily reminder of His love and the enveloping sense of His grace replaced apprehension with tranquility. That inner-composure in turn permitted flexibility and adaptively to strange and unexpected situations, that I would have otherwise been unable to deal with.

I left the farm on a sunny morning with a simple $2 hand bag packed with the basic essentials. I only brought things I wasn't sentimentally attached to just in case that all my belongs were stolen or lost. There is sense of freedom when you have relatively nothing to lose. I was off to a strange country, where they spoke a strange language, where they had had a genocide only 12 short years ago, where I didn't have one solid contact. Now that I look back on it, it seems a bit crazy that I even tried it.

I jumped in the back of a passing hatchback with what looked to be two government officials on their way to Kisumu. I boarded a big luxury bus that took me across the familiar Ugandan border into Kampala. I had been in Uganda four months ago with my friend Anthony for a week, so this part was a piece of cake. As the bus pulled into an inky black Kampala night, I was still a bit drained from the 7 hour bumpy ride. I jumped onto a motorcycle taxi and sped into the city. I pulled out some Ugandan cash on the main street, and proceeded to the Jaguar bus station where I purchased a bus ticket for the following morning to Kigali, Rwanda.

It was already after 9 at night...not exactly a safe time to be wandering around an African city looking lost and looking for a place to spend the night. Fortunately there was a sign which read: Classic Inn: Self-contained accommodation. I took my chances and dove down the unlit steps to the reception. The hotel "lobby" consisted of a piece of plywood for a desk and a smiling receptionist squeezed into a nook the size of a closet. An exposed light bulb dimly lit the cave-like hole.

"Good evening" I said walking into the cavern.

"Evening", the girl said standing up from her stool behind the plywood.

"Do you have any rooms available tonight?"

"We don't have any single rooms left. But we have a double room for 10,000 shillings." That sounds reasonable enough I thought that's a little less than 5 bucks.

"I'll take that please."

"You'll have to wait for another 40 minutes, before it will be available."

"That's fine. I'll get some dinner and be back."

There was a restaurant above the hotel and I ordered some rice, beef, and a beer, and relaxed a bit as I stared up at the stars. 40 minutes later I returned to the reception desk, to find that the room wasn't quite ready yet. The receptionist and I starting chatting and I told her I was going down to Rwanda and was planning to visit the Anglicans there. As we talked more somehow I ended up telling her that I was going to seminary and wanted to be a pastor. "Oh, your saved!", she said, "So am I!"

She led me through a courtyard of peeling paint and trash piled up in the corners, and down a long cement hallway to a door. She opened it to reveal room with two narrow beds. Mosquito nets hung limply above the beds. The walls had been painted a dark red, and the receptionist struggled to open the single window.

"The toilet is back down this way" She led me back into the courtyard. A tattered door on rusty hinges swung open to a small toilet that reeked of urine and filth. "Okay, this will be fine." I said and went back to my room. I returned to the courtyard brushing my teeth. "Du yu ha a shik shumware?" She pointed a little hole in the floor where the shower drained and where I deducted the toilet probably also flushed into.

At this point for some reason I was quite conscious of two things: First that these were terrible conditions, and second that it didn't bother me much. What am I coming to? Is Africa really changing me this much? I still wonder.

However, the receptionist was also conscious that these conditions weren't quite American standards. "Let me see if I can get you a better room," she said as I was spitting into the toilet hole. She led me out to another room that was much nicer with its own bathtub, sink, and clean toilet. "The men of God should have the best," she said with a smile and left me surprised at the whole situation.

I took an early bus that crawled out of Kampala and made its way south along the western shore of Lake Victoria. Green lush hills began to appear, which in time, became larger and larger. Soon the bus was a small insect weaving its way along the sides of the mountainous hills. The Ugandan/Rwandan border seemed somewhat more secure than the Kenyan/Ugandan one, but not by very much. Rwanda isn't in the "East African Partnership" and is still technically considered "Central Africa", so the border patrol are a little more keen on keeping people in order. After a 40 minute stop at the border, the bus continued south for another two hours to the capital city of Rwanda, Kigali. Kigali is approximately the same size as Kisumu, and is still the process of developing to reach the level of it's neighbors to the north. Construction work is being done virtually every few blocks.

I got off the bus and walked to the road where I began to attempt to communicate to the motorcycle taxi drivers. "Anglican Cathedral" I repeated over and over, but to no avail. They spoke French and Kinyarwanda, and only very limited English. Finally after several tries, one guy understood what I was talking about and off we zipped up the hill into the city.

We stopped under a sign that hung above agate which read, "Engles Episcopal". I figured that this was probably the right place, and walked in and saw a door open with a lady behind a computer. "I don't really know if this is the right place...I am looking for the Anglican Cathedral in the city...I just got off a bus from Kampala...I was hoping to talk to the rector of the cathedral..." I kept stammering, with the hope that maybe something would make sense. But because I wasn't even sure what I was doing or what I wanted, communication was somewhat ephemeral. I found out that there was a hotel run by the cathedral on the compound. I booked a night and collapsed onto the bed to recharge.

The next day I met the pastor of the cathedral, a young looking man named Sam. He then took me to the "diocesan general secretary" (aka the second hand man to the Archbishop in Kigali) named Nathan. He made a few phone calls and before I knew it I was being whisked off to the provincial offices on the other side of town. I met a half a dozen missionaries from the US, the UK, and the Netherlands, as well as the "provincial general secretary" (aka the second hand man to the Archbishop for all of Rwanda) named Immanuel. They offered to take me out to the new college that they are in the middle of constructing. As Immanuel showed me around the concrete structure, he kept dropping phrases like, "You know, you may someday end up being a teacher here!" or "I think this will be one of the best universities in Rwanda someday, maybe you'll end up here sometime." I just smiled.

The missionaries were wonderful people who took me as one of them and told me all about what they do. There were two older single women from the US that were very welcoming and hospitable. Paula was a from New York who knew just about everything about Anglican history. She is the dean of academics and was a professor in the States before she moved to Rwanda. Sandy was from Georgia and was helping the dioceses with HIV/AIDS awareness and prevention education. Adrian was a from the Netherlands and was an incredibly kind and loving pastor who worked with the other clergy at the cathedral. Dick and Carolyn Seed were from the UK and both worked at the college. Meeting and talking with all of these wonderful people helped me better understand the work of the Anglican church in the country and put into context my own work in Kenya after relating to the challenges and joys of mission work in Africa.

Through the conversations I had with the missionaries, the name of the archbishop would often come up. "Kolini told me...", "Kolini did...", "Kolini is a...". At first I had a hard time recalling his name until I just remembered that his name rhymes with bikini.

I walked into his office and saw a big man in a dark green shirt and a long mustache sitting behind a big desk. The room was spacious, with bookshelves filled with paperbacks, a group of leather chairs arranged in a semicircle, and a clean sweet smell that drifted through the open windows. The archbishop stood welcoming me and held out his wrist to me (a common practice among Africans when a handshake is expected but the hands are dirty). "I have a bad cold," he said smiling and sniffling. He motioned to the white leather sofa and I sat. For some reason he had a calming and soothing effect on me, and I immediately relaxed as I sank into the soft leather. I told him that I was in Rwanda to visit his diocese and get to know some of the Anglicans in Rwanda. He seemed amused that an American kid who was working in Kenya would show up by himself on his doorstep wanting to visit "the Anglicans". I told him that I was interested in working with the "Anglican Mission in America" someday in the coming years after seminary. He slowly pulled out his wallet. "Well, you know..." he browsed through the pile of business cards crammed in his wallet, "we are considered a rebellious group." he found the card he was looking for and put his wallet back into his trousers. "But Jesus was considered a rebel by the Pharisees." He pulled out a pen from his green shirt pocket and I noticed a big red Bishops ring on his right hand as he began writing on the card "We follow the word of God and love the Lord Jesus, though." He looked up with a smile, his mustache curving upward following the contours of his mouth. He handed me the card, with a telephone number crossed out and another one written in the margins. I thanked him, shook his wrist again, and said goodbye.

"I feel like Rwandans are more mistrustful than Kenyans," I told Sam as we sat in his car while we waited for his wife to come back from the market one day. He thought about what I had said for a moment and then said, "Sometimes it is more of our own mistrustfulness that is reflected in others that we sense." Suddenly I realized he was right. I had become mistrustful and self conscious of the stares due to being the only white person walking down the street. I had become more hypersensitive to the comments that I received as I walked by in languages that I couldn't understand. When I returned to Kenya I noticed that I received the same stares and comments, but it was me that was different.

There was one other guest staying in the Anglican guesthouse while I was there, a young man named John. He told me over breakfast that he was working on his masters degree at Oxford in journalism, that we was doing a short radio piece for the BBC on Rwanda, and doing research for his thesis. He was a bit shy, but very friendly and VERY smart. Through the week of meals we had together he lectured (in a good way) to me about Africa, specifically African history, social patterns, economics, politics, and religion. He invited me to come visit him in Oxford. I agreed to do so when I will be passing back through England on my way home to America in June.

All in all my time in Rwanda was very blessed: no sickness, no border problems, no money problems (that I couldn't solve), and no loneliness problems. I met a handful of wonderful people that I will remember for many years to come, and may even see again someday in the future.

CHAPTER 15

After returning from Rwanda, I spent Holy Week on the farm. I adapted an Easter play I found on the internet and organized practices throughout the week with the kids. The first practice was like conducting a three ring circus, with everyone talking at the same time, playing with soccer balls, running around with sticks, fighting, and being generally rambunctious. When I had Jesus enter being beat by the Roman soldiers, the 2nd grade soldiers took particular delight in literally beating poor Jesus. I had to jump in to break up the fight before blood was drawn. It was a somewhat exhausting exercise, but on Easter night at the performance I was delighted to see how much they remembered and how serious they took it.

The day after Easter I left the farm for another trip. This time in the opposite direction of Rwanda, to the eastern coast of Kenya. I took Kennedy along with me and paid for the majority of our combined travel costs. It was an important trip for him, a trip of firsts: the first time in a train, the first time he'd been further than Nairobi, the first time to spend the night in a hotel, the first time to see the ocean, and the first time in a boat.
Due to the high volume of travelers on Easter Monday, all the buses leaving for Nairobi were full, forcing us to take a private car. It was a 1990s Mercedes Benz with a fearless driver behind the wheel who drove twice the speed limit the whole time. How we managed to arrive unscathed was a miracle. He dropped us off at the railway station in downtown Nairobi were we bought 3rd class tickets for the train to Mombassa.
We began to walk through the massive station toward the dirty brown train when a group of men stopped us, "2nd class is that way" they said pointing in the direction we had come from. "Oh, we're not going 2nd class. We're riding 3rd class today." They looked at me suspiciously, not understanding why a muzungu (white man) would ever want to ride 3rd class. "It's for the adventure," I said. They shrugged their shoulders, "Be careful! It's dangerous. Everyone will be watching you and as soon as you close your eyes, they will snatch your bag and be gone!" I thanked them for their concern and climbed the small worn ladder into the train.
The 3rd class coaches were furnished with vinyl covered bench seats arranged back to back. Kennedy and I found empty seats next to the window and made ourselves at home. As the time of departure neared, the train began to fill up. Soon there were another 4 people all snuggled in with Kennedy and I on our two benches. The train clicked down the tracks toward the coast. In lieu of overhead lights, the conductor chained a flashlight to the ceiling for the night. Apparently the lights had been out of operation for years. The light swayed and flickered and finally went out part way through the night. During the night I got up to pee and opened the door that read "choo". Of course there was no light in the loo, and I stood there for a moment looking in to the pitch darkness. It was then I realized that it was just a hole in the floor with the railway ties flying beneath. I decided I could hold it, and went back to my seat. The night was a mix of sensing that I was on an epic adventure that I would be able to tell my grandkids about, and agony. There was a constant hum of noise on top of the clicking of the train. Babies crying, conversations in Swahili, coughing, and the hissing of the train hawkers. There was a constant stream of vendors holding flashlights in their mouths selling their wares coming down the aisle all night. One could buy school books, alphabet charts, handkerchiefs, pears, and socks. I bought hard boiled eggs, cakes, and a small bottle of juice for our dinner. Upon returning to the farm, I calculated that I had spent 32 hours jostling across rural Africa in 3rd class.
We arrived in Mombassa at 10 in the morning. The heat was stifling and the humidity crept down our shirts. I had heard from some of my Sikh friends that I may be able to find free accommodation at the Sikh temple, and since it was on the way into the town center I thought I'd give it a try. I walked through the black metal gates of the Sikh complex and informed the security guard of our intentions. He led us in a building where an old Punjab Sikh with a white turban was conducting some business with an African.
"Yes...um, I was told that I may be able to find some accommodation here. I have many Sikh friends in Kisumu that said I could come here." He was clearly very skeptical and leery of this white kid asking for a free bed.
"What are the names of your friends?" he asked squinting at me.
"Mindry, Channan, Jasmit Brar," I said hopefully, but he just shook his head.
"No, no, no. They are not Punjabi," he said definitively. "They must have the last name of Singh if they are real Punjabis."
"Oh yea, Singh is the last name of all those people I just said," I stammered forgetting the small detail, but the old man wasn't listening. He had turned and pointed to a picture on the wall.
"Do you know what the name of this temple is?" Jaz had told me about this temple which all Sikhs are extremely proud of...the entire exterior is covered with pure gold.
"Ah, somewhere in India. I've forgotten the name," I mumbled. He was shaking his head again in disgust and disapproval.
"We have no free rooms for you, but you can pay 500 shillings for a bed." He said already beginning to ignore us and going back to his paper work. I had failed the Sikh test.

We found a cheep hotel to stay the night in and walked a bit around town. Other than the dirt, heat, humidity, and noise, Mombassa wasn't a very impressive city. We left the city the following morning on a bus and headed north along the coast past the resort town of Malindi, and through terrain that looked like the scenes from Babar the Elephant. As we laced our way through palm trees, coconut trees, monkeys and baboons, I was half expecting a British explorer in a safari helmet to pop out from behind a tree with a musket.
After a five hour ride, the bus arrived at a small harbor where a couple dozen dock workers ran around loading and unloading cargo from small boats into trucks. We collected our luggage and walked toward the ocean and found a large wooden boat with a huge motor that sat in middle of the floor. We sat around the rim of boat on benches with piles of luggage surrounding the motor. I glanced at Kennedy across from me. His polo shirt was buttoned tight around his neck, his knees pressed together, and he clutched his bag to his stomach. Later he told me he was terrified, and visions of sinking and tipping had tortured him the entire ride. He can't swim.
For half an hour, the huge dhow boat pushed slowly through the placid cobalt water and pulled up to a small landing. The small town of Lamu rose slowly out of the water, minarets, hotels, a stone catholic church. We disembarked and meandered into the town to look for a hotel to stay in for the night. We walked along the ocean-side boardwalk with the gorgeous water stretching out to our right. We were greeted by dozens of "hotel guides", who offered to lead us through the maze of the town to a hotel. I finally consented to guide in sunglasses who led me to a hotel at the edge of town.
The town of Lamu on the island of Lamu, is one of the few places in the world to be named a United Nations World Heritage Site (other sites include the Machu Pichu and Timbuktu). On the whole the town had not changed much in the last 500 years. You can still lose yourself in narrow medieval-like cobblestone streets. You can still sit on the steps of the ancient Portuguese Fort and pass the time by watching the slow commerce of the town plod along. There are just a handful of motorized vehicles on the island of Lamu, and donkeys remain to be the community's primary mode of transport.
In addition to getting money to conserve traditional life from the United Nations, Saudi Arabia pumps millions of Kenyan shillings into the mosques and Islamic schools on the island. The Muslims have had a presence there for centuries. Most of the men still wear the intricately designed Kofias (a brimless hat similar to a fez). Some continue to wear a light white robe loosely fitted over their shirt and trousers. Most of the Muslim women adhere to the strict dress code of the full face veil, their burning eyes the only exposed part of their face. Exotic floral patterns cover their hands, and high heels elevate their refined figures.
The day we arrived, as we were exploring the town, a local in Oakley sunglasses came along side me and began a well rehearsed spiel about his boat. "My name is Ali," he said with an boyish smile. "I've been taking tourists out in my boat for 15 years. My father built this boat," he said pointing to the 20 foot dhow sailboat. "It's called the Asali, which means honey. We will have a great time. There are other muzungus that are going. We will go snorkeling, fishing, go see some ruins and lunch is included. I was a cook before I did this. They call me Captain Cook." I discussed it with Kennedy who politely said he'd be quite happy to explore Lamu instead of venturing out in another perilous boat. I couldn't resist though and I haggled over the price with the captain until I got the whole day for about $8.
The next day the small group of white tourists assembled along the boardwalk in front of the Asali. Three Germans, a French girl who was living on the island, and two American guys, Tyler and Andrew. It turned about that Tyler was from Seattle, had gone the University of Washington and had gone to the same church I had gone to, Mars Hill. Andrew was intending to go back to school at Weaton and work on his Masters in ministry, and went to an Anglican Mission in America church back in the States. The long ride splashing through the waves facilitated plenty of time for us to get to know each other. By the end of the day it seemed like we had been friends for months.
Swimming in the Indian Ocean was an enchanting experience, feeling the warm salty water that connected Africa to the Orient. I couldn't snorkel with the rest of the group because I didn't have contacts and without my glasses I can't see much of anything, not to mention anything underwater. Instead I allowed myself to float face up with my hands propped behind my head, my eyes closed and listened to my breath slow to the rhythm of the churning current.
We tacked our way up the channel and then headed toward an island across from Lamu. As we raced along with the wind blowing full bore into the white canvas sail, two of the Germans were counterbalancing the wind by standing on the railing precariously holding a thin rope that drooped off the mast. Suddenly the wind erratically tipped the boat and one of the Germans was tossed into the water. The other German jumped in, and the rest of us laughed. The boat slid up the beach with the swimming Germans close behind.
Captain Cook and the crew cooked us up a tasty lunch of fish they had caught and soft sweet mango. After lunch the crew sat around on the deserted white sand beach singing reggae songs in Swahili and smoking pot. "Now we go to the ruins," Ali said with a big smile. We sailed around the tip of the island and into a small canal in the mangrove trees. Suddenly the boat stopped as it grounded into the mud. "The tide isn't high enough yet to get all the way to the beach," the captain said. "We'll have to walk."
I carefully slipped in the knee high water and down in to the thick soft mud. Then taking another step my foot sunk down and met some sharp shells. I quickly withdrew from the water to examine my foot. I wiped the mud away from the cuts and saw I was bleeding. The others were already slowly making their way through the treacherous mud. I was determined not to be left behind on the adventure due to a little cut, I plunged into the murky water and began to swim.
After 10 minutes of traversing the muck and mire, we reached the beach. "It's just a little ways," the crew assured us. In Africa everything takes about twice as long as what you are told. After 40 minutes of walking through the deserted coral island, we reached a group of crumbling buildings, one of which was suppose to be a museum. The Germans in particular made it very clear that they were quite displeased at the disappointing excursion and gave Captain Ali a hard time about it all the way back to the boat.
As we sailed back to Lamu, the horizon gave way to an impressive sunset. Mountains of silvery clouds, oranges sparkling across the crests of waves, purples staining the peripheral of the islands. I looked back at the crew in the boat. A dozen people all in their twenties...singing John Denver songs and laughing at their Swahili adaptations... people from three different continents all connected for a single easy sun-soaked day...all problems forgotten. Something in me told me that this was the way it was supposed to be.

CHAPTER 16

Upon my return from the gorgeous paradise of Lamu, I immediately jumped into teaching tuition with the kids on the compound.  They have two weeks where they are out of school and we offer supplementary school so that they can get caught up.  Many of the orphans who came to Nehemiah from very difficult circumstances need a boost be on par with the rest of their class.  I had the idea to use the two weeks as an opportunity to introduce them to the Lord of the Rings.  During the first 30 minutes of the morning session, I read them a passage from the books, summarized the plot, and explained the characters.  Then in the evenings I showed them an hour and a half of the movies.  It was a wonderful opportunity to introduce symbolism, and talk about light and darkness, sin, hope, and longing. 

“Is violence bad?” I asked a morning after watching battle scenes from the night before.

“Yes…no…yes.”  The murmurs drifted back to me.

“Will Jesus be violent when he comes back?”  I watched the wheels turn.

“Yes!” I said, “He will destroy all that is evil and bad in the world and who love God will live in Heaven where there will be no more pain or tears.  But Jesus will come with a sword coming out of his mouth and will kill all his enemies!”  The kids were struck by this idea.  “Should we fight our friends or our sisters, or women? No… Should we fight the evil in this world with everything we have?  Yes!  And that’s what the elves and dwarves and hobbits are doing in the story.”

After the Lord of the Rings story time, they would split into their respective classes.  I taught the 2^nd graders multiplication, drilling them with flashcards I made.  One time I divided them into boys vs. girls, and the team that shouted the right answer first got the card.  We counted the cards at the end, and with the news that the boys had won, the whole class exploded into wild exuberance.  They were all shouting at the top of their lungs, even the girls, and were dancing madly about on the tables like cannibals.  They are a wild bunch, and each afternoon I would go home exhausted.

Later in the afternoons, Marit and I taught a “human sexuality” session.  We met all together to talk about the general issues and then split into boys and girls and discussed details separately.  I never would have guessed that I would find myself in a room full of adolescent African boys talking about penises, fallopian tubes, and masturbation!  It is quite taboo for parents to talk to their kids about sex, and Kenyan kids are told that that babies come from Nairobi.  So the fact that Marit and I were able to dispel the myths and shed light on such a dark topic, was wonderful. 

After months of anticipation, I finally was commissioned to be a lay reader in the Anglican Church of Kenya.  A lay reader is someone who is licensed by the bishop to preach, teach, assist the clergy in their church, visit the sick, and conduct morning and evening liturgies.

I took my godparents Dismas and Nafula, my roommates Kennedy and Washington, and two of the boys Elijah and Steven Ford with me.  It was the first time the boys had been to an Anglican Church and the first time they had been to church outside of Miwani.  We arrived at 8am, and I met the other 7 candidates.  I had had a cassock and surplice tailor made for me the week before and was instructed to don my black cassock as we rehearsed the complex ceremony.  It was a bit like getting married.  Sit here, stand there, kneel here, take your license there.  I arranged my black cassock robe over my trousers, and felt a bit self conscious.  The monkish costume reminded me of Alyosha in the Brothers Karamazov.  I always pictured him wearing a similar gown. 

“The bishop is coming.  Hurry!”  Someone said passing me and heading for the church gate.  We all lined up on either side of the driveway: the sixty something young confirmation candidates all in white, the other lay readers in their black robes, the clergy of the church, and the rest of the congregation.  The white sedan of the bishop slowly pulled up to the gate.  The crowd began to sing and clap.  The bishop got out and walked along the line of parishioners, shaking each of their hands.  I tried to suppress my laughter.  It was so bizarre to hold a leader is such high regard in the West.  We are so riddled with cynicism.  The bishop was treated like royalty, seen as a true hero of the people fighting for the powerless.  

The other lay reader candidates and I gathered in the vestry.  “As soon as the bishop is finished with breakfast, he will come to interview you,” we were told by a priest.  What a weird thing to have all these people wait for you to sit and eat breakfast, I thought.  As I was waiting in the hall, reading the bulletin board, the rector’s wife came up to me and said, “Come take breakfast.”  I followed her, and entered the rectors modest living room.  The room was full of clergy and church officials.  I was acquainted with most of them, but wasn’t too close with any of them.  I shook everyone’s hand, which is the Kenyan custom when entering a room, and sat silently on the stiff sofa.  The women awkwardly washed everyone’s hands with a pitcher of water and a plastic basin.  Then one of the women prayed a whisper of a prayer for the food.  I had mixed feelings as I sat eating breakfast in whispers with the bishop and his the other priests.  On the one hand I felt honored and special to be invited to this VIP gathering.  But it felt a bit strange.  Everyone knew that the only reason I was there was because I was the only white guy in the whole church.  I didn’t feel like I had done or accomplished anything that made me worthy to be there.  I felt a bit like a trophy wife.  But suppose my pride to be a VIP smothered my desire to associate with the common man.

After breakfast, the bishop had us all cram into the rector’s office where he gave us a lecture on how he didn’t want any of us to become a Judas.  “One of you could betray the work of the Church.  I want to hear that you eight people have been faithful in your ministries.”  We then slipped our white surplice over our black robes and marched together into church.

Anglicans can often make the mistake of turning spirituality into a political rally, and this particular service definitely had a taste of that to it. The service was a four-in-one occasion.  First there was the consecration of the new church, then a long sermon by the Bishop about the different roles of the church, then the confirmation of all the kids dressed up in white, then the commissioning of the lay readers, then the Eucharist, then presentations by the Mother’s Union, the Sunday school, the youths, and finally speeches by the chairman of this committee and that committee, gifts to the bishop, gifts to the bishop’s wife, etc.  They even gave a live chicken to the bishop’s driver with a long winded speech about how the driver should be careful because he was driving the whole church around (which I disagreed with).  Hour followed hour, and the service finally ended at 4 o’clock in the afternoon.  It was exhausting.  By the fifth hour of sitting in my hot robes, I picked up my novel and read to keep from falling asleep. 

CHAPTER 17

Part of my morning routine is to walk the equivalent of two city blocks to the roadside café on the farm where Helen fixes up beans, chapatti, mandazi, and tea over coal stoves.  As I was walking along one morning several weeks ago the thought came to me out of no where that I should direct a drama with the kids at Miwani Estate Primary School.  I discussed the possibility with Tobias, the school “deputy”, and got a thumbs up.  I gave a little advertisement plug at a school assembly, and posted a poem in the library for anyone interested in acting to memorize.

I decided to do a Shakespeare play.  If your going to do a play, and it might be the only play these kids will ever see, much less be in, it should be the best.  One of Jeff’s friends emailed me an adaptation of Midsummer Night’s Dream, and I thought it would fit perfectly.

I scheduled the tryouts for May 8^th and arrived to a giddy crowd of kids all in their dirty blue school uniforms.  I had them write their names down on a piece of paper and called out their names one by one to hear them present the poem.  There were about 30 kids that tried out.  Most of them were extremely shy, some couldn’t remember much of the poem, and others did a supreme performance and really put their heart into it.  I took notes and over the next couple days decided on the cast.

I went back to the school and I announced who “made it”, and handed out the scripts.  It was hard to look into a nervous eager face and say, “Sorry, there aren’t any more parts for you.”  I did a brief introduction of who Shakespeare was and introduced the characters.

“Oberon, you are the fairy king,” I said.  The boy just stared back at me. “Okay, who can tell me what a fairy is.”  Dead silence.  How on earth do you explain to someone what a fairy is? “Okay…fairies aren’t real.  They are just imaginary creatures that someone made up in their head.”  I pointed emphatically to my head. “They live in the forest in the trees and the fly around.” I demonstrated what a flying fairy might have looked like.  “They are kind of like little angels!” I said, thinking that that would adequately describe these creatures.

Many of the cast were still in class doing an exam and I went around the crumbling halls finding everyone and handing out scripts.  “Lines are the words you say, and the sentences after your character’s name are the lines that you need to memorize.”  Most of the kids were scared speechless.  I have a long way to go with these kids, but after a few practices I think they will warm up and hopefully in 5 weeks I’ll have a troupe of passionate and emotional actors.

As I was about to leave the school I saw Isaac, one of our boys from Nandi who is one of the gentler, kinder, soft spoken, and shy boys we have.  He had a pained expression and was obviously holding back tears.  Isaac had had some very painful boils on his butt that Kennedy had had to cut out with a scalpel a few days earlier.  He had missed a couple days of school because of the pain. 

“Isaac, what’s the problem?”  He couldn’t speak.  “Bonface, what’s the matter with Isaac?”

“The teacher caned him,” Bonface quietly replied.  Even though it is illegal, it is routine procedure for understaffed Kenyan teachers to cane all their students to keep a sense of control in the sea of wild kids. Nevertheless I could not turn a blind eye to this injustice, and a wave of rage crashed into me.  How could anyone beat my dear and gentle Isaac when he is already in tremendous pain?

“Who?  What teacher?  Bonface, which teacher?  That one?”

“That one,” he said pointing to a heavy set teacher.  I marched straight up to the teacher who had a switch in his hand and was beginning to whip another batch of kids who were reclining in the grass.  He had his back to me and didn’t see me approach.  The seething anger was such that I had to pray a brief prayer that the Lord would help me articulate what I needed to in the midst of the pounding adrenaline.

“What do you think you are doing?” I yelled at him.

“Oh, how are you?  Fine, fine,” he stammered with a nervous grin.  I was now covered in a thick thunder cloud of fury, and swiped his whip from his limp hand. 

“You don’t cane my kids!” I shouted, struggling to keep my words articulate.  “That boy,” I said pointing in the direction of Isaac, “had boils on his bottom!”

“Yes, yes,” the teacher said, not quite knowing what I was saying, but fully realizing that he was in trouble yet pretend everything was fine.  A group of girls on the grass all began to laugh.  This was unprecedented in school history.

“Children just go over there,” he said with pony enthusiasm.   I grabbed his arm firmly.

“Listen, you know that caning is illegal.  You can get fired for doing that. If I hear of one more time of you caning my kids, you’re going to be in big trouble.”  I was trembling with anger at this point and turning, I walked out of the gate. 

CHAPTER 18

As I will often do, I woke the other morning shortly after sunrise, put on my silky Punjab shirt, checked my email, turned on some Indian sitar music, made myself a cup of instant coffee, and did some reading on Anglicanism on the internet.  I was interrupted from my morning tasks by a metallic knock on the door.  I went to check who it was and found Rosalyn, one of the farm mothers, at the door with a bucket of chicken guts.  She wanted to keep them in my refrigerator, to which I readily agreed. 

            “Rosalyn, when are you slaughtering next?” I asked as she opened the refrigerator.  Rosalyn is in charge of all the slaughtering in the poultry department on the farm.

            “Today, right now.”  I had been thinking about the prospect of trying my hand at slaughtering for some months, and now the opportunity presented itself dreadfully close.  I drew my breath in and said, “I’ll be there.” 

            I had read an essay in college by this lady who went to a slaughter house every year to slaughter some chickens.  She wanted to feel connected to the source of the chicken she regularly ate.   I always thought this was a noble idea; chicken don’t just appear in the grocery store all clean and ready to cook.  Someone’s got to do the choppin’.  I was also reminded of a book I read last summer that was all about how everything in life is a sacrifice to others or a sacrifice of others to us.  We are consumers at our core and we take and take life and resources from the world and we should be more thankful for that life.  I walked down to the poultry meditating on these ideas, still with a bit of nervousness and pensive anxiousness about killing animals.

            Rosalyn and two other women brought the chickens in big bags and dumped them onto the slaughtering floor.  They flailed and clucked, and were generally irritated by the discomfort of such transportation.  I crouched down to examine them while Rosalyn was out collecting more.  They looked to be in a relatively healthy state, plump and clean.  All of them had uniform white feathers, and gingerly walked around the cement floor.  It took some time to get used to the smell of dried blood and chicken excrement. Fortunately I was still recovering from a bad cold, which somewhat impaired my sense of smell.  As looked around me trying to become familiar with the animals, I felt like those Indian hunters in movies who talk to the deer before killing it and thank it for giving its life so that they can live.

            When about 50 chickens had been assembled in the room, Rosalyn put on a dirty vinyl apron and set to work throwing water on the floor and wetting down the room.  Another woman took out a 6 inch kitchen knife and prepared for work.  Rosalyn, with quick experienced hands, scooped down and grabbing the feet and wing of a chicken held it out to the other woman.  The woman with another rapid twist of the hand caught the neck of the bird, twisted it, and began sawing the neck with the kitchen knife.  It was a swift process and the head slid off the body within two or three strokes.  Rosalyn then threw the twitching body into a corner where it flapped frantically. 

I watched in amazement for sometime at this foreign scene.  The women were completely stoic and treated the process as a completely mundane routine.  The water gushed into a basin.  The chickens screeched.  The corpses beat and flailed as blood trickled out of their severed necks.  It was quite overwhelming to the senses. 

“Rosalyn, I want to try.” I yelled over the din.

“You want to try cutting?  You can do the last one.”

“No, I want to do more than that.”

“Okay,” she yelled back, “take the knife.”

The woman handed me the knife, which was partly broken and hung limply from the handle.  Rosalyn expertly snatched a chicken and held it out to me.  I imitated what I saw the woman do and twisted the neck of the bird and began to saw at the neck.  The knife was surprisingly dull and it took several times plunging into it before it gave way.  Blood immediately splattered on the floor at my feet, painting my feet with red dots.  I looked in shock at my hand that still held the trembling head of the chicken.  It’s eye stared unblinkingly back at me, and then slowly closed.  I threw the head in a pile.  Before I could process anything, Rosalyn had the next chicken already waiting, I twisted and sawed again, this time with more adrenaline pumping and the head came off easier and faster. 

The rhythm of snatching, twisting, and sawing lulled me into a strange trance.  I lost sense of time and place.  Life and death instantaneously seesawing back and forth in my hands…the rush of water, the shriek of the bird, the smell of warm blood, the last shudder of the head, and the clouding of the eye as death slowly replaced panic with cool indifference.  “Your life for mine.”  I thought over and over as I took the life out of each animal. I had to hold the broken kitchen knife in an awkward position that dug into the base of my index finger, and I recall being strangely apathetic to the dull pain.  I can’t say how long all this lasted, but just as I was going to ask Rosalyn to take the knife, she said, “Last one”.  And it was over.  The lifeless pile of chickens lay in a heap.  Their white feathers now red with the bloody water they had thrashed in.

The experience reminded me that no animal meat appears in sterile cellophane packages, but that a real live breathing thinking animal had to give its life for my enjoyment of a hamburger or a barbecue chicken.  We all love to eat meat, but we don’t like to kill.  My experience helped me connect the dots.  Death is not clean or pretty, and we only fool ourselves when we pretend not to think that the meat that comes from Safeway, didn’t involve pain and ugliness. 

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For the last month, life has been like a funnel… things all around me are coming to an end.  The last time I will walk down this familiar road, the last night of showing a movie to the kids, the last time of attending church, the last drama practice.  The list goes on.  Everything careens toward that tiny hole of getting on that airplane in Nairobi, where this whole experience of being in Africa will come to a close.  How I will be able to relate all of this to people back in America will to some degree be impossible.  How I will be able to fully process all this for myself may be impossible.  Africa is a continent of paradoxes and inconsistencies, grandeur and beauty, and unparalleled passion and intensity.

The children I’ve been working with several times a week for the last several months, were visibly troubled and sad that I was leaving them.  “When will you be coming back?” they all ask me.  I think for a moment, “4 years…I’ll bring back my wife and kids to introduce to you.”  They always laugh.

The drama was quite a success.  It was like pulling teeth out of the teachers every time I came to practice in the afternoons.  They didn’t want to release their kids to do a stupid drama.  The student’s scores might drop!  I drove me crazy. But despite the foot dragging from the teachers, who in my opinion are mostly lazy and indifferent to the children’s education, the children grew into beautiful actors and actresses.  It was like watching a flower grow.  Some of the kids would mostly goof off in practice, or not take it seriously and just laugh the whole time, or they wouldn’t memorize their lines.  I poured myself into them, hour after hour.  Trying to give them an creative outlet in drama, trying to empower them to be confident and use their voice in a world where they are taught not to look adults in the eye and never say a word.  I tried to show them what it meant to be passionate on stage and set free that fire that I knew was burning inside of them.  And as I sat and watched them perform in front of their peers and teachers, they were real actors, improvising, totally in character, wholly committed to the play. I will always remember these kids who were transformed for a few hours from poor rural Africans into fairy kings and queens, dukes, and ladies. 

After being commissioned as a lay reader, I’ve been serving the Anglican community for the last month, reading scripture and praying in the service, and sometimes preaching.  It was an amazing experience to travel around to different Anglican churches in the diocese and see how each operated.  The highly centralized nature of their church government and the controlling rectors, were disappointing.  But I always met a few people in the churches who were full of love and life and the Holy Spirit.  They always had a sparkle in their eye and always said, “Send our greetings back with you to your church in America!”.

I gave my final sermon at my church, St. Stephen’s Cathedral.  It was Trinity Sunday and I expounded on the importance of unity within the trinity, marriage, the family, and the church.  I challenged the traditional African family model of the husband being the master of the home and the wife and children being his slaves.  Domestic abuse is normative. It is a disgusting and perturbing aspect of Kenyan culture that mostly remains in the dark to the idealistic tourist.  I brought it to light and encouraged the church to begin treating all people as image bearers of God.  It raised some eyebrows and caused some nervous laughter.

As I prepare to leave I have been reflecting on what has meant the most to me here.  The kids are number one on the list.  I’ve really grown to love them.  They are have given me a new of seeing life.  They are so hardy and tough.  Chin up in every situation, but always quick to give a helping hand or make a joke.  Their futures are uncertain in the midst of the governmental corruption and the vice of pagan practices that continue to throw darkness throughout their culture, but they continue to go on with life working hard without complaining or showing a sign of fear.

I will miss my church with all it’s beauty and simplicity.  I am a Kenyan Anglican, and I will always feel an affiliation to these people. I’ll miss the shiny colors of the choirs’ robes, the old English Hymns, and the old lady who fearlessly and clumsily plays the organ at church who peers over the rims of her glasses at the congregation as she bellows out the song.  I’ll miss the timeless feeling of the place.

I’ll miss the Kruegers who I work with at Nehemiah. I have spent countless hours playing cards, telling stories, reading, eating meals, watching movies, and reminiscing about Bainbridge with them.  I’ll miss Marit, who has been a friend, a sister, a nurse when sick, and a teaching colleague.  I’ll miss Jeff who has impressed me over and over again with his integrity, wisdom, resilience, and foresight.  I’ll miss Lexi, who has a incorrigible sense of humor and a curiosity for life.  And I’ll miss Kata, whose gentle and pleasant disposition has been a constant joy.

For people and things that I have met in Africa, I know I'll often stop and think about them.  It will take years to fully process the experiences I’ve had here.  It has not so much altered the course of my life in a new direction, but has reaffirmed convictions I held in theory prior to coming.  And most importantly, I am confident in the strength and love of God. 

Thank you all for your support financially, your prayers, your letters, and your encouragement during this incredible season of my life.