The Way Sunday Should Be

An inauspicious start. I am to go out to a village church to preach and teach today – Sunday. I did not bother to look in my date book because I was sure the time was 7:30 AM. At 7 Benson Gitchui and a student of mine (also Benson) drive up. I am still having some breakfast. Thankfully George invites them in for a cup of coffee. That gives me 10 minutes to finish, put on my tie and jacket, grab my study Bible and jump into the car. I excuse myself by thinking this is Africa not Germany—where everything has to be PRECISE! (And don’t mention The War!)

Benson knows this southbound section of the Nairobi-Mombasa Road. Where it is finished off he goes 70 mph; where the road is still the gravel washboard he can average a skillful 15 mph. A tank truck is creeping along watering down the choking dust.

In a half hour we are turning off the highway and onto dirt tracks. Everything is super dry, so we’ll not be sliding around on the turns or wallow in mud at the creeks.

We wind up and down, surrounded by dry farming shambas. The maize is knee high and ready to tassle out. But if they do not get rain soon all will be lost. The papers here warn of starvation for up to several million Kenyans. The price of grain is shooting up while people have little income to buy it. Businessmen are accused, in some cases, of profiteering. It is a dire mess! And the papers say wealthy countries are leasing land in these poor countries to raise food to be exported home. South Korea is in Madagascar. Ukraine is going to lease out a million acres or so. The new colonialism some are calling it.

Soon we are at the church—a plain rectangular building with a metal roof with a bit of colored glass in the windows. Benches and chairs, a few platform chairs, a table or two at the front. Can seat, I would guess, 250 Kenya style.

Joshua’s wife, Josephine, greets us and her girls serve us rolled chapattis and tea.
The pastor’s house is modest, with a kitchen, living room, and four bedrooms, one of which they use for storage. Did you know that a typical kitchen up here in the rural hills has nothing in it save for maybe a chair. There is no electricity here. Food is prepared on the floor using bowls and some pots—not much different than we would use if stopping on a wilderness trail somewhere to bed down and fix a bit of grub.

Joshua tells me that his wife (I had to ask him if she had a name) was also pastoring a small church in Salama. She has to walk for one hour over the hills to this town and then back after the service. Salama means peace and is home to a Muslim community with a small mosque at the center of the shops along the road. From Salama we later will see the Mukaa orphan home on the distant hilltop.

“We have time to see the river,” Joshua tells me. It is about a ten-minute walk. Sounds good to me. A little stroll before we sit for hours in the coming service—nice. It is sunny and warm, but not hot. Off we go.

We greet parishioners—"chuch membahs"—as we go. They are in their yard having breakfast before heading for church.
The rolling expanse of hills would normally be lush green this time of year. But dryness makes it all pastel. It’s not severe yet. So we are praying for some rains to come soon.

It’s downhill on a small road where goats nibble on hedges and plots are lined with sisal plants. That is the common boundary marker surveyors look for. If one tries to move the boundary (as is stealing land) the roots persist for a dozen years and the surveyors will go by that to settle boundary disputes.

At the bottom of the valley we see a dam about 30 feet across, built by “Wilson,” the white man who bought several thousand acres here a century ago. This impounded water and got the people through the droughts. Today there is a tiny trickle coming through the pipe. Below are huge boulders giving way to a pool of greenish water. A boy about 8 years of age is there. When he sees us he strips off his shirt—maybe hoping we will want him to show his prowess. I notice his green shorts have holes worn through the two back pockets and about ready to fail altogether. You see quite a few people with clothes just a thread away from rags.

Joshua shows us the shrine where tribals still offer sacrifices in times of drought. Like, I mean, animals. And the sand that keeps washing down from the hills is there for the taking. But you will suffer if you sell it for money—or even think of selling it.

Along the highway, Benson Gichui had said that there was a sacred tree right where the road had to go. But the tribals would riot it was touched. They found a creative solution. Someone went to the tribals and said that he heard the tree talking—in many languages, not just Kikamba—even the American language and that this would bring havoc to the tribe. Thus sowing fear in their minds, they agreed that this tree was a threat now and would have to be destroyed. So the road crew cut it down. You can see the trunk bulldozed off to the side of the road. Like Dagon headless in the temple of the Philistines.

Back to the watering hole. Goats are coming down to slake their thirst. Wild animals come at night. Joshua urges me to look down a narrow cut in the rocks. No water is seen below. But it is there. He says that boys will jump between these narrow rocks and fall nearly 40 feet into the darkness where the water is and then find a way to clamber out at the lower level. Very dangerous. The fathers warn their boys never to go near this place. Too dangerous! They know, because they jumped into the blackness when they were boys.

Now it is time to return. It’s all up hill. By now the sun is high. I have no hat, no sleeves to cover my arms. No water. The average Mzungu my age might have heat stroke or worse. I make it back and later lecture them that they need to think of what white-skinned people are facing so that they can provide what is needed to preclude problems. Yes—they admit. We should have thought of that. “Tell your wife (Josephine) and the ladies—they will remember!”

At 10:30 the service begins. 50 younger folk in deep blue shirts and black skirt or trousers start the slow shuffle, singing and motioning to the rhythms. I like it! They fill 5 files of about 12 people in front of the platform. They choir director is playing tapes with 3 live bass players and a keyboard guy. Electricity comes from a small generator down the hill snaking a 50 foot extension cord. Prayer by a layman lasts 10 minutes with most of the congregation standing before the Lord. Announcements. Offering. Songs by a trio of teen girls. A song by the ladies’ choir. This is GREAT! I notice the distant clock says 11:45. Then 12:15. I am introduced and start preaching after 12:30. “How long do I have?” I ask. “As long as you need.” O—this is a preacher’s heaven!
I choose the same text as in chapel at Scott: Deuteronomy 34 – Moses’ last hike up Mount Nebo. But since I have several Scott people here I cannot just repeat the message. So we talk about age of those God uses. Moses in 120 when he finishes his work gathering a throng of ex-slaves into a people. St. Paul was mid-sixties when he finishes his assignment upon a cross in seven-hilled Rome. And Jesus was half that age when he accomplished the redemption of the world on the hill of Calvary. Age and length of service mean little. Being faithful to God’s call is everything.

It’s starting toward one o’clock now. The men and boys exit so the women and girls can have their Sunday School time. We assemble under the sparse shade of an acacia tree. I request to face away from the sun in the best shade they, remembering Dr. Goldberg’s warnings about skin damage. What to say with little warning? Ephesians 5 on husbands loving their wives; children honoring parents. It’s all about giving, not getting. I pause for questions. You can tell they are not used to this. Finally a white whiskered Mzee asks what he can do for grandkids who are far from God now. At the end of the day he would come to thank me and we posed for a photo. Precious.

A man about 30 asks what he can say to people when all think they have the truth and do not need to come through Jesus. All the religions and philosophies of the world insist that one come and serve their god first and then maybe Allah or the spirits or the ancestors will do good to you in return. But our God stands alone in serving us unconditionally by doing everything for us first—including dying for us. Then He invites us to come and surrender our lives to His kingdom. Our God makes the first move and gives us the gift of faith so that we can come to him. This makes Christianity not a religion so much as a relationship. This is foreign to Islam and every other religion.

Now it is time to back to the building as the ladies are now finishing. As they adults and wee ones leave about 70 youths fill the front benches. What can I say to them? I start with a verse from Timothy and improvise from there. They actually listen! One 16 year old asks a question. Ten another question.

By now it’s after 2 PM. We are done. Now that’s doing church!

By three we are eating a meal with the elders at the pastor’s house next to the church. Chicken as tough as gristle in a thin soup. Chapattis, of course. Rice, Sukuma Weekie—a dish of cooked greens that has sustained poor people for months when there is nothing else to eat. It’s name derives from “that’s what you make do with the rest of the week when the good food is gone.”

As we leave pastor Joshua has us pick up Josephine and their two kids to make a brief side-trip to an acre of land he bought a few years ago and is having a stone house built. But prices go up while money goes down. So it is just shy of the roof and interior finish. When they can move in, he can drive to his church and drop her off in Salama, saving her two hours of “footing.” Churches are proliferating in Kenya. Joshua will get land to start another congregation to accommodate another several hundred people closer to their houses and shambas (small plot farming). Scholars call this explosion of the Gospel the emerging Southern Church—in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. It’s a pleasure to see a bit of it with my own eyes.

Back to Scott. It’s 6 PM That’s a typical Sunday for folk here. I admit I am tired. Who was it said, “my feets is tired but my soul is rested?”

I am late for supper at Shadrack and Milcah’s place with colleagues George and Nancy. They ask about Ellie and the Drapers. Personal ties with people 10,000 miles apart, yet one in our Lord Jesus, the Messiah, who came for us when we were all dead in our sins and without God, without hope in the world.

Now we walk in the light as He is in the light and have fellowship one with another.