Potpourri

This was a great day. I am settling in to the routine and feel less like a guest, more like a staffer.

In class today I gave back the mid-terms. Some fine, some OK, some not good. I encourage them with this story.

Timothy M (previous blog) told me how philosophy helped him a year after he took the class. He was in Nairobi chatting with someone who was attending the Jomo Kenyatta University who began to say how he was learning philosophy. Timothy just listened while he went on about Hume and Kant and Descartes and so on. Then Timothy began to correct his misunderstanding of these philosophers. “What—you study philosophy in that little college in Machakos?” “O yes,” Timothy beams, “We have a solid curriculum under the finest faculty teachers.”

Hopefully something good will show up for my present students, laboring in a tough discipline that sorely stretches their minds. Most of them are entering an entirely new world of the mind.
But there is much more than learning going on here. There is a community building up.
As Kim Okesson put it when she came by with more groceries for the odd couple (George Mitchell and me), this life is in community, whereas in the States we live in our separate cubicles with little contact within anyone outside our immediate family each day. Here we see our neighboring couples and their kids on the walk or on their porch or playing on the green just outside. We meet our colleagues not merely in their offices or in the hall but at chapel and the teatime that follows. We who are adjuncts eat meals with the various families, both nationals and ex-pats.

For example, George and I along with Chuck and Sue Lewis had supper with the Ndebe family. Joseph and Anne have been here since 1985—longer than anyone else except the Kibors (Jacob is the Principal coming in 1982.) So most of the six or eight Ndebe kids have grown up here. When Ellie and I came here to visit Bob and Lois (my sister) in 1992 the Ndebe children were just wee ones. Now Samuel is in my philosophy class, while Sarah and Lois are out of high school and Eunice has given up a counseling practice in Nikuru to become dean of students here at Scott.
Anne came out of the dining area to announce that everything was ready. As the custom is she offered prayer for the meal. We filed into the dining room where Sarah was holding the basin and pouring warm water over our hands and offering a towel to dry. Sitting at a table set with place mats, sage cloth napkins, a fork on left of the china, a knife on the right and a soup spoon at the top near the over-turned water glass. Hot mats were in the center, laden with steaming brown rice, beef stew, a mixed salad of raw vegetables, and of course chapattis.

After eating, we are invited back to the living room. Song books are provided and we sing How Great Thou Art in both Kiswahili and English at once. Samuel has a guitar and sets the key. Next the Ndebes (Dad, Mom, Sarah, Lois, Samuel and six-year old Solomon) sing a capella lovely song about Jesus preparing a home for us and how it will be too bad if we are not qualified to enter there. The next song is one in English that I have never heard. “Is He Satisfied with Me?” Harmonies are true and Sam has a deep bass voice. The blend is sweet. After that Chuck Lewis is asked to offer prayer before they thank us for coming to their home and send us on our way. I wish you had been there to sense the warm love and true joy of this family.

The previous evening George and I were trying to find the house of Joshua and Zipporah, who still live in the apartment at the back of campus where they dwelt when students.

They were both in my class several years back. He sat over by the windows and she on the opposite side of the room by the door and it was nearly a week before I discovered they were man and wife. Now they have two children, Kind—a boy in standard three and a girl, Love, is in first standard.
As is often the case, they had relatives (two girl cousins) living with them and going to school hereabouts. (You can just show up at a relative’s house and stay as long as you like and they will house and feed you. Kenyan tribal life is all about hospitality. That custom is eroding somewhat nowadays.)

Joshua is the first PR man for Scott Theological College and is doing a skillful job the brass say. Zipporah was very good in philosophy, BTW. And she loves to cook. We had quite a feast. Then Joshua asked if one of us would pray before leaving. So I got the nod from George and prayed a warm blessing on their home, family, and ministries. We say goodbye to the kids.
But Joshua and Zipporah say it is a custom when guests live close by to walk them home. Torches in hand we step out under the blackest spangled sky and stroll along the new pathways that have some walk lighting on posts topped by beautiful glowing lamps. As Zipporah pairs with me she says, “You know, when an old person like yourself prays a blessing on us it is very powerful to us.” I did not know that. It is sobering and touching at the same time. This kind of community living is so enriching that one could imagine making one’s home among them, as Margaret, newly here from Glasgow (earlier blog) is doing.

Today was Gregg Okesson’s day off. Since classes have not started for the regular term, he plans the First Annual Block Head Golfing Tournament. It’s to be the block course teachers (George and me) against the full-timers. We came up with that moniker, naming it after the golf meets at the famed Hilton Head in America.

We drive the two miles to the local course. Two or three young guys leap out to meet our car by the time it comes to rest in a parking space. Business is slow today so our fears about not calling for a tee time are allayed. Into the clubhouse. An Indian man in a turban (he must be a Sikh) and two suited businessmen are in the bar area. No one is golfing today—the course is not ready. It has been too wet to mow the fairways. “We are mostly out for the exercise,” Gregg assures him. “Maybe you can charge us a reduced fee and we’ll take our chances.” OK So we pay our 150 shillings ($2.10) each.

The caddies grab two bags of old clubs we have and off we go.
The tees are like a lawn at home when it hasn’t been cut for two weeks—a bit shaggy. The fairways have mangy grass, on the thin side, with tops that can reach almost to the knee.

We send one caddy down the fairway to spot where the balls enter the rough (deep grass knee to waist high). We keep lost balls down to under a dozen and our caddies found a couple for us. All of us are rusty.
The first hole (450 yards) takes 40 minutes as we zigzag down the links from east rough to west rough. Now we are approaching the green. Only here the greens are packed dirt raked smooth (more or less) with a cup that is not sunk below ground level but flush with the surface. Your ball can bump the lip and go aglay. So we freely take mulligans and free lifts out of deep grass and mucky spots and re-spot the ball on the “brown.”

I’m keeping score—in a loose sort of way. We get off some really nice shots—the exception more than the rule. And putting is mostly luck, for pebbles and other minute debris can slow down your ball or move it off course.

On the fourth hole Gregg grabs the leg of his trousers (you never call them pants here—that has a meaning you do not want to convey) and yells “Ouch!” Then George does the same. Next is young John Bonnell. I had already flicked off an ant biting my finger.

Army ants have decided to punish us mightily for trespass. Soon the pain is mingled with fits of laughter. These ants are no joke, however. They crawl upward until they find the tenderloins that will inflict the most pain. Soon trousers are down around ankles showing hairy legs. I am thinking it is a good thing there no other golfers around. Luckily the ladies tees look like they have not been visited for many weeks.

So this is how the First Annual Block Head Golf Tournament sets the pace for the future!

It’s three hours for nine holes. Laughing and joking and insulting the other guy for his antics. Although I must say the younger two (33 and 40 years of tender age) show promise and would be a credit on a proper golf course.

On the 7th we have to drive 100 yards to clear a small pond with lovely lilies blooming on one end. George and I decide it’s time to switch to the ladies’ tee. I get over fine. George hits a nice straight ball but a wee bit soft. Plinck! Right in the pond. The caddies shake their heads. “Come on, man,” George hollers out in his Glasgow brogue, “where’s your commitment? Take off your clothes and go get it!”

As we give generous tips to the caddies for putting up with us, I ask George how he liked being a pioneer on the First Annual Block Head Golf Tournament. “It’s awful,” he groans. “My golf reputation has been sullied, my privacy invaded, and my pride humiliated. I could do without the honour!”


The Chapel message today by Chuck Lewis was about how we cope with difficulties and tragedies that come to us, much more serioous than ant attacks on a golf course. And many of these students have monumental issues to deal with—family troubles, no money for fees, books, and transport, not to mention being sick and often lonely in this foreign land. Chuck pointed out how it is OK to ask for deliverance, even if it takes a miracle—God’s Intervention. And that does happen sometimes.

Often, however, we receive “Innervention” as St. Paul did when God did not heal him of his thorn in the flesh but gave him inner grace to bear it for God’s glory. Chuck showed a photo of Barbara being hugged by someone. You could not see her face. You would not want to see her face. You see, she has a disease that only about a dozen people in the world have, where the bones of the head slowly grow together, squeezing the brain. Big time headaches every single day. Eyes bulge out from the pressure and the face is grotesque. Boils cover most of your body.

Most who suffer this malady die by age 15—and that is a blessing since nothing can be done to fix the condition. Barbara is now 60. If God takes her to glory she would be grateful. Yet Barbara is full of love for Jesus and joy in God, even though she has every “right” humanly speaking to be bitter. So no matter what we face God can give us grace to endure as he creates an “inner-vention.”
Next point under “Interaction” he mentions Russ, who is seen smiling in a photo with Lori, taken at Wheaton College 10 years ago. Christmas was coming and Russ needed to get ready to go home. So he consulted Dr. Lewis in the college counseling center.

“Looking forward to the holiday, Russ?” “No.” “Why not?”

It turns out that Russ is going home at time when his mother is expected to die within days, probably on Christmas Day. His natural father had left home when he was a child. His stepfather drinks and regularly beats him up in the mornings. His older brothers have escaped their California dysfunctional setting and have lots of money. They are about to sell the family home even though they could easily pay the taxes and utilities. And his sister is pregnant. Chuck somehow checks himself from saying there is at least one bright spot. But it’s not a happy event. The sister is 16 and having her second fatherless baby.

How do you cope with a crushing load like that Chuck asks.

I have Lori. She keeps me going.

A day later Chuck looks up this classmate of Russ and mentions that she is making all the difference to his coping with horrendous circumstances. What is your secret?
Lori says it’s nothing, really.

Well whbatever you are doing is keeping a guy going under a load that would sink most people.

Well, we go to the grade school playground and swing on the swings. Sometimes we walk along the prairie path on the old railroad bed. Sometimes we just sit and hold hands, not saying all that much. Lori is just a friend to Russ. But it makes all the difference.

Chuck sums it up. It’s nice to sing “What a Friend We Have in Jesus.” But sometimes it’s “what a Jesus we have in friends.”

Good message!

Scott Theological College is a community of friends. I am privileged to be here.