Doing It the Right Way
Today is another day in paradise. The short rains this season may have been long by a month but the sunny weather since is all the sweeter. Sunshine all day. Low humidity. Just a zephyr of breeze. Birds sing. Flowers bloom. Kids play—girls dress up in fancy clothes and boys kick balls or ride bikes. No bugs to speak of. Mmmmmmmm!
But at times there can be trouble in Paradise. Our Chapel speaker today, psychologist Chuck Lewis, parsed the book of Job. This oldest of biblical sagas shows a prosperous man of faith and decency upon whom disasters fall without warning, though not without purpose.
Behind the scenes God and Satan are in combat. Job has a letter of recommendation signed by God. Satan impugns Job’s motives as merely that of a gold-digger. The gauntlet is thrown down. Job will be tested.
Disasters from the Enemy of God and strip this hapless man of the stuff he has worked so hard for. Even worse, those beloved children he has brought into the world and prayed over so faithfully are killed. His health collapses under the sting of boils covering his entire body so he gets no relief day or night, sitting or standing. His psychological support evaporates as his wife, seeing his misery can only say he may as well give up on God and die.
Yet Job does not cave in. God gives all; therefore it is his to take away.
Those famed friends come, showing they have hearts of compassion. And they don’t try to trivialize Job’s situation. They sit with him seven days in silent support. Finally they try to say something to explain the unexplainable. Job must have sinned or done something to bring this on. But in the end Job gets his letter of recommendation from God as a righteous man through it all. And God, angry with the four sincere but foolish friends, has Job pray for them. God then restores to Job his health and provides new wealth and children, including those girls of whom it is said, “There are none fairer than Job’s daughters.”
For lunch today I visited the home of a typical African couple. They have also been robbed by the Enemy of God’s people. Would you like to go along?
Timothy meets me at the college gate. He has a big smile and gives a cheery “Karibu!” (Welcome!) He takes my laptop in hand and we walk over hard-packed footpath/car road. He is telling me how glad he is to see his former Mwalimu (Teacher). I mention I just gave the mid-term exam. “O, I remember. Do you know what I got on that exam six years ago? 100%. A straight A!” I confess I had forgotten that, but I knew he got an A for the course and talked excitedly in those days how he was going to use philosophy in his ministry.
We turn off the main path onto a single-file track through a small plantation of coffee trees and maize. The goats—kids really—baa at us as we pass.
I think of how I interviewed him with my camcorder several years ago. He was so excited. Philosophy was his cup of chai. He would use it in ministry with university students and witness for the Gospel, taking a church in an urban setting.
We go by a building whose walls and roof are of corrugated roofing. “That’s an African Independent Church. You can hear some in there singing.” As we turn at the corner we step alongside an adobe building.
Timothy explains that the African Inland Church (AIC) that the College here is connected with had some problems that were unresolved for a long time. Some congregations grew so frustrated that they broke away and formed their own association—keeping the same (hence confusing) initials: AIC
I can’t help but wonder if Satan is still trying to derail God’s people. The church on earth is no paradise. That awaits the church in glory.
We duck through a narrow door in a gate that could swing open wide enough for a vehicle. This opens upon a modest courtyard, perhaps 15 feet wide and 30 feet long. On each side there are doorless openings to one room and two room apartments. We greet a woman who is sitting in the only chair in view with a plump boy of perhaps a year on her lap. Above the sky is blue with a few friendly puffs of clouds.
On the right we stoop a bit to enter the home of Timothy and Peninah. Peninah comes forth in a sage green outfit, kerchief folded up into a hat that sweeps aloft with her hairdo. She is all smiles. “Please sit down.” There is one four person couch in this 10x10 room. A tiny wood table is the only other furniture piece—the size of a milking stool.
“This is Elizabeth, Mwalimu…”
I find that she is a student at Scott in her second year. She is an orphan and comes to visit Peninah often. Sweet girl and very shy. She wants to serve God now that some have come forward from her church to provide school fees. I think of the countless orphans in Africa who are as destitute as Job unless some Good Samaritan intervenes.
Peninah busies herself in the kitchen. I peek in for a nanosecond so as not to stare. It is like other kitchens in these rental cubes for the poor. A room empty of cabinets. No furniture. No appliances. A small charcoal hibachi on the floor. A few pans and pots. No table. She squats near the floor to prep the rice and vegetables.
So Timothy and I talk of how things are going. While they were engaged, Timothy and Peninah made what we euphemistically call in the States “a mistake.” They made some “bad decisions.” They ended up marrying hastily, incurring a mountain of debt, and under discipline by the church and the College. Friends forsake them. They are crushed.
But like Job they refuse to curse God and cave in. Like King David they confess their sin and seek reconciliation, after first trying to hidehave it all. For over a year they have worked through a difficult situation with church elders and college officials. Now the dark cloud is breaking. They know the Lord has forgiven them and the slate is wiped clean. They have been restored to fellowship and cleared for ministry. They feel the burden is lifted and are rejoicing in the sunshine again and eager to do ministry. This is their passion.
Elizabeth brings an empty basin and a jug of warm water. I swish my hands in it, shake off the drops, and let them air dry.
Peninah brings in a soup bowl filled with rice, peas & carrots, and some chopped meat (probably goat). She sets it in front of me with a soup spoon. Elizabeth gets a smaller helping, while the couple shares a bowl the size of mine. Water and pineapple flavored juice make up our drinks. Peninah prays for the meal—this seems to be the custom in all the local homes that the woman prays.
After lunch I try to use my laptop to show them some slides. But the software is missing and since the power is out (usual during daylight) the batteries are about to shut down we give up on showing slides of India.
Timothy tells me that Elizabeth slipped a note under the door early this morning to the effect that church of 700 in Mombasa needs a pastor and that Timothy would be perfect. So he is to call them ASAP to seize the opportunity. While he and Peninah have jobs at a local school, that is not what God has called them to. They each earn 600 shillings a month ($9). But their rent is 500 shillings. And even though the landlord took a shine to them, they have trouble finding money for food. They pray daily for what they need. And God is faithful. Not ahead of time, but on time, enough for a day or two comes along when they have more month than money. I realize that they have spent everything to feed me this simple meal.
I find that Timothy is praying fervently that the church will accept him. The fact that it is 300 miles from here is good—a fresh start away from any gossiping tongues. God may forget our sins, but often people do not.
Elizabeth excuses herself to go back to campus.
Timothy asks me if I know that Peninah is expecting. “Yes,” I reply, “but I am waiting for you to tell me.” A baby is coming within a month or two and they are so happy! In Kenya you have kids even if you have nothing. And God does provide. They show me an outfit that says “I am a happy boy—my mum and dad love God.”
We join hands and I pray that God will open a door. I give thanks that they have handled their sin properly and are even more equipped to minister than ever. I ask that the Lord will restore what the “locusts have eaten” and make them mighty in ministry.
Peninah walks as far as the turn in the trail. Timothy walks with me the five minutes back to campus. I ask him to wait a minute since I have something for him. Suspecting that he has been trusting God for money to call Mombasa since they likely have spent their last shilling to feed me, I “bless him” with a couple of notes.
I fully expect our prayers to be answered. They are trusting to God to open or close the door. Timothy is an extremely intelligent man with a good heart. They will accomplish an immense amount of good once in ministry. He will grow and deepen his church. He will maintain integrity in his life. He will reach out to university people and engage the many Muslims in that city.
It will never be paradise again. But the sun will shine and bring forth much good fruit.
Thanks for coming with me.
Wednesday, January 10, 2007
Tuesday, January 09, 2007
Hiking the Hills
Hello again
I gave a mid-term today. I'm braced for disappointment. : )
I had a great response to my Chapel message, despite it's challenging nature. I include it here in case you are interested. Several have asked me for copies and/or came to consult with me about it. The day is not lost!
A Pilgrim’s Guide
Hiking the Hills of Holiness with Jesus at Your Side
Dr. James W. Gustafson
Key verse: I Peter 1:16 You must he holy for I am holy, says the Lord.
Jesus lived a perfectly holy life. We are destined to be like him when we see him as he is. Meanwhile we must strive to be different from this unholy world.
“Holiness” means “set apart for special use.” We are set apart for God’s use. Holiness is that attribute that applies to all the other attributes of God. His power is a holy power, his love an holy love, his justice an holy justice and so on. God gave an example of how he looks at our unholiness when Ananias and Sapphire conspired to lie to the Holy Spirit.
I have been a Christian for about 50 years. I entered by the narrow gate and began to hike the narrow way with Jesus many years ago. By now I should be nearing the summit where the Father’s House beckons me. But I am still in foothills. My progress is so slow. Why am I not more holy?
A.W. Tozer once said that we are each as holy as we want to be. In other words we have no excuse. God is willing. It is we who allow distractions. The world is too much with us.
Augustine said “Make me holy—but not yet.” He was enjoying the “pleasures of sin for a season.” So often we are settling for the paltry pleasures of this world when we could reach for the lasting satisfactions of the spirit. Bonhoeffer said that as Christians we have already forsaken the world. We live in the world but must not be of the world. This world is not my home, I’m just a –passing through, says the songwriter.
Too many of us say, “I prayer the sinners prayer. I accepted Jesus. When I sin (and that’s not all that often) I have access to forgiveness 24/7 I have my ticket for the heavenly banquet that Jesus purchased and gave me.”
Really? God accepted me—and only because Jesus stood in my place. And I am ver fortunate that God looks in favor upon me and delights in me. I signed on to God’s program. It’s more like joining the army. You belong to the commanders, who tell me when to arise, when to eat, when to march in parade and train on the field. And it may cost me my life! We do not become Christians to lounge in the Officer’s Club sipping chai! We are in the trenches getting dirty and bruised and wounded.
What a mess our world is in. War, genocide, immorality, people proud of their sins. And even in the Bible churches, leaders fall into disgrace through sexual sin or a greedy exploitation of those who trust them. I pray that if ever I fall into public disgrace God will take me off the field at once lest I do more damage to the cause of my Lord.
Some say that I don’t understand how hard it is to be holy these days. Temptations come to us all the time through TV, ads, movies, news. Society tolerates depravity more than in the past? Really? The church flourished in the Roman world which was even more degraded than today. We can have no excuses.
I Corinthians 6:19 says my body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who lives in me and I must honor God with my body. Think of it, everywhere I go everything I think and do, God has to be there because he is in me. That should motivate me to better effort.
Ephesians 4:21-24 to put off the old self and to put on the new self created to be like God in holiness.
Colossians 3:5-10 commands me to put to death sexual lusts and greed for money which is idolatry.
I Thessalonians 4:3-8 tells me not to let lust control my body but to live a holy life.
And especially Galatians 5:19-25 lists sins having to do with sex, those having to do with attempts to control events by witchcraft and the power of idols, those having to with nasty relationships with other people. People living that way “will not inherit the kingdom of God.” We are to show the fruit of the Holy Spirit—love, joy , peace, and so on.
This is repeated so often we must take it more seriously. Our God is a consuming fire. He has high expectations. He provides all the assistance we need—his own being within us. I need to be more serious about this.
How can I make more progress, hiking in the hills of holiness toward the Holy City?
Monitor your mind when it is idling, that is, when you are not concentrating on anything in particular. What does my mind drift to? Is it pleasure, money, ambition, worldly dreams, comfort, escape? Am I rummaging through the garbage of life?
When I am out on the trail and a bug flies into my mouth, I just spit it into the bushes. But if it happens in your house or in a cathedral, I won’t just spit it on the floor? Why not? Because your house is special, a church is holy ground. But Scripture says inside me is God’s holy presence. How often do I keep this before my eyes?
When I was courting Ellie many years ago, did I have to write notes to myself to be sure not to forget about her during the day? Of course not. I thought about her every time my mind relaxed from a task I had to do. Why? I loved her; I was crazy about her. I thought about her all the time! Do I love God? Is he the default position in m mind? Do my thoughts go readily to him? Philippians 4 tells that keep thinking about things that are true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent and praiseworthy? I have a long way to go on the hills of holiness.
When someone cuts in front of me in the queue at the bank or the market, I find myself judging that person—what’s wrong with that so and so? Do I think maybe he has just lost a child in death or that she may have lost her job or gotten bad news, so that I give them a break? Why am I not more like Jesus in this? I am not as holy as I should be.
What about time? Is it harder for me to pray and read my Bible than it is to watch TV, chatter on the phone, gossip with friends, follow sports, surf the Internet? What is it that will satisfy my heart? The things of this world? No—I am happy when I ma making a difference for God.
What about money? I am strategizing how get more? Am I dreaming about a fancier lifestyle? Greed is idolatry. Covetousness is sin. I should be content with what God provides. All in this world is rubbish or destined to be rubble. Why do I divert my focus?
What about home? A Christian home should not b like a typical home in the culture. Is it a god-filled home, where we live in humility, mutual forgiveness and love? How do I judge my spouse, parents or siblings? Do I want God to judge me that way? As a husband am I to expect her to serve me? My job as a husband is to help my wife fulfill the gifts and calling has given her, to build her up. Her job is to do the same for me. We live not to be served but to serve.
What about my goals. What do you want to be when you have walked on the trail with Jesus for 50 years or more? The key question every day is this: will what I am doing advance my progress upward in holiness?
The world flatters us: “It’s all about you!” God says “it’s all about me. In me alone is life, health, shalom.” All who are godly in Christ Jesus will suffer. Am I lounging in the officers club or fighting in the trenches? Watts wrote this hymn: Must I be carried to the skies on flowery beds of ease, while other fought to win the prize and sailed through bloody seas?
And when the Holy Spirit comes in power, changes are astonishing.
Peter was an “I don’t” person. I don’t eat unclean food; I don’t’ go into Gentile houses. God dragged him kicking and screaming into the house of Cornelius, a gentile. God humbled him so that would accept the rebuke of Paul when he drew back from fellowship with Gentile believers.
Paul was an “I do” person—a religious terrorist, rounding up infidels and putting them to death. He had to become blind so he could see Jesus. And he used his energy to reach the Gentiles. He was willing to be reconciled to John Mark after their falling out.
John, brother of James was a son of thunder. But wanting to have power at Jesus right hand so as to lord it over others, he was cowardly enough to get his mom to ask Jesus for the seats of power. But when God was through him he was in a prison camp on Patmos, powerless and gentle as a lamb.
You may say with me, “I am not good at this holiness program!”
Question: is you heart in it? If you want to be good at football, your heart must be in it. Or music, you must devote yourself day and night. Or to paint or cook or parent or write.
You belong 100% to God. Is he your passion? Am I yielding to the Holy Spirit, concentrating on that holiness without which no one will see the Lord.
As we pray now, close the eyes. Let us each give God permission to be the Commander not only of the Hosts of Heaven but of our lives. Are we willing for God to deploy us anywhere He knows we can help the kingdom cause? Is it OK if he takes me or my loved ones home to his headquarters?
Truth is, I do not need to be wealthy. I do not need to be healthy. I don’t need my prestige, my position, my respect. I don’t need to be smart. I don’t need my family and loved ones. I don’t even need to live—if I have God and God has me. Jesus is all I need. Like Jesus is all I want to be. Jesus is holy. And holiness is all I long for, holiness is all I want to achieve.
Be holy, for I am holy, says the Lord.
Benediction: Now unto him who is able to present you faultless before His throne, to the only God our Savior, be glory and majesty authority and power through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
I gave a mid-term today. I'm braced for disappointment. : )
I had a great response to my Chapel message, despite it's challenging nature. I include it here in case you are interested. Several have asked me for copies and/or came to consult with me about it. The day is not lost!
A Pilgrim’s Guide
Hiking the Hills of Holiness with Jesus at Your Side
Dr. James W. Gustafson
Key verse: I Peter 1:16 You must he holy for I am holy, says the Lord.
Jesus lived a perfectly holy life. We are destined to be like him when we see him as he is. Meanwhile we must strive to be different from this unholy world.
“Holiness” means “set apart for special use.” We are set apart for God’s use. Holiness is that attribute that applies to all the other attributes of God. His power is a holy power, his love an holy love, his justice an holy justice and so on. God gave an example of how he looks at our unholiness when Ananias and Sapphire conspired to lie to the Holy Spirit.
I have been a Christian for about 50 years. I entered by the narrow gate and began to hike the narrow way with Jesus many years ago. By now I should be nearing the summit where the Father’s House beckons me. But I am still in foothills. My progress is so slow. Why am I not more holy?
A.W. Tozer once said that we are each as holy as we want to be. In other words we have no excuse. God is willing. It is we who allow distractions. The world is too much with us.
Augustine said “Make me holy—but not yet.” He was enjoying the “pleasures of sin for a season.” So often we are settling for the paltry pleasures of this world when we could reach for the lasting satisfactions of the spirit. Bonhoeffer said that as Christians we have already forsaken the world. We live in the world but must not be of the world. This world is not my home, I’m just a –passing through, says the songwriter.
Too many of us say, “I prayer the sinners prayer. I accepted Jesus. When I sin (and that’s not all that often) I have access to forgiveness 24/7 I have my ticket for the heavenly banquet that Jesus purchased and gave me.”
Really? God accepted me—and only because Jesus stood in my place. And I am ver fortunate that God looks in favor upon me and delights in me. I signed on to God’s program. It’s more like joining the army. You belong to the commanders, who tell me when to arise, when to eat, when to march in parade and train on the field. And it may cost me my life! We do not become Christians to lounge in the Officer’s Club sipping chai! We are in the trenches getting dirty and bruised and wounded.
What a mess our world is in. War, genocide, immorality, people proud of their sins. And even in the Bible churches, leaders fall into disgrace through sexual sin or a greedy exploitation of those who trust them. I pray that if ever I fall into public disgrace God will take me off the field at once lest I do more damage to the cause of my Lord.
Some say that I don’t understand how hard it is to be holy these days. Temptations come to us all the time through TV, ads, movies, news. Society tolerates depravity more than in the past? Really? The church flourished in the Roman world which was even more degraded than today. We can have no excuses.
I Corinthians 6:19 says my body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who lives in me and I must honor God with my body. Think of it, everywhere I go everything I think and do, God has to be there because he is in me. That should motivate me to better effort.
Ephesians 4:21-24 to put off the old self and to put on the new self created to be like God in holiness.
Colossians 3:5-10 commands me to put to death sexual lusts and greed for money which is idolatry.
I Thessalonians 4:3-8 tells me not to let lust control my body but to live a holy life.
And especially Galatians 5:19-25 lists sins having to do with sex, those having to do with attempts to control events by witchcraft and the power of idols, those having to with nasty relationships with other people. People living that way “will not inherit the kingdom of God.” We are to show the fruit of the Holy Spirit—love, joy , peace, and so on.
This is repeated so often we must take it more seriously. Our God is a consuming fire. He has high expectations. He provides all the assistance we need—his own being within us. I need to be more serious about this.
How can I make more progress, hiking in the hills of holiness toward the Holy City?
Monitor your mind when it is idling, that is, when you are not concentrating on anything in particular. What does my mind drift to? Is it pleasure, money, ambition, worldly dreams, comfort, escape? Am I rummaging through the garbage of life?
When I am out on the trail and a bug flies into my mouth, I just spit it into the bushes. But if it happens in your house or in a cathedral, I won’t just spit it on the floor? Why not? Because your house is special, a church is holy ground. But Scripture says inside me is God’s holy presence. How often do I keep this before my eyes?
When I was courting Ellie many years ago, did I have to write notes to myself to be sure not to forget about her during the day? Of course not. I thought about her every time my mind relaxed from a task I had to do. Why? I loved her; I was crazy about her. I thought about her all the time! Do I love God? Is he the default position in m mind? Do my thoughts go readily to him? Philippians 4 tells that keep thinking about things that are true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent and praiseworthy? I have a long way to go on the hills of holiness.
When someone cuts in front of me in the queue at the bank or the market, I find myself judging that person—what’s wrong with that so and so? Do I think maybe he has just lost a child in death or that she may have lost her job or gotten bad news, so that I give them a break? Why am I not more like Jesus in this? I am not as holy as I should be.
What about time? Is it harder for me to pray and read my Bible than it is to watch TV, chatter on the phone, gossip with friends, follow sports, surf the Internet? What is it that will satisfy my heart? The things of this world? No—I am happy when I ma making a difference for God.
What about money? I am strategizing how get more? Am I dreaming about a fancier lifestyle? Greed is idolatry. Covetousness is sin. I should be content with what God provides. All in this world is rubbish or destined to be rubble. Why do I divert my focus?
What about home? A Christian home should not b like a typical home in the culture. Is it a god-filled home, where we live in humility, mutual forgiveness and love? How do I judge my spouse, parents or siblings? Do I want God to judge me that way? As a husband am I to expect her to serve me? My job as a husband is to help my wife fulfill the gifts and calling has given her, to build her up. Her job is to do the same for me. We live not to be served but to serve.
What about my goals. What do you want to be when you have walked on the trail with Jesus for 50 years or more? The key question every day is this: will what I am doing advance my progress upward in holiness?
The world flatters us: “It’s all about you!” God says “it’s all about me. In me alone is life, health, shalom.” All who are godly in Christ Jesus will suffer. Am I lounging in the officers club or fighting in the trenches? Watts wrote this hymn: Must I be carried to the skies on flowery beds of ease, while other fought to win the prize and sailed through bloody seas?
And when the Holy Spirit comes in power, changes are astonishing.
Peter was an “I don’t” person. I don’t eat unclean food; I don’t’ go into Gentile houses. God dragged him kicking and screaming into the house of Cornelius, a gentile. God humbled him so that would accept the rebuke of Paul when he drew back from fellowship with Gentile believers.
Paul was an “I do” person—a religious terrorist, rounding up infidels and putting them to death. He had to become blind so he could see Jesus. And he used his energy to reach the Gentiles. He was willing to be reconciled to John Mark after their falling out.
John, brother of James was a son of thunder. But wanting to have power at Jesus right hand so as to lord it over others, he was cowardly enough to get his mom to ask Jesus for the seats of power. But when God was through him he was in a prison camp on Patmos, powerless and gentle as a lamb.
You may say with me, “I am not good at this holiness program!”
Question: is you heart in it? If you want to be good at football, your heart must be in it. Or music, you must devote yourself day and night. Or to paint or cook or parent or write.
You belong 100% to God. Is he your passion? Am I yielding to the Holy Spirit, concentrating on that holiness without which no one will see the Lord.
As we pray now, close the eyes. Let us each give God permission to be the Commander not only of the Hosts of Heaven but of our lives. Are we willing for God to deploy us anywhere He knows we can help the kingdom cause? Is it OK if he takes me or my loved ones home to his headquarters?
Truth is, I do not need to be wealthy. I do not need to be healthy. I don’t need my prestige, my position, my respect. I don’t need to be smart. I don’t need my family and loved ones. I don’t even need to live—if I have God and God has me. Jesus is all I need. Like Jesus is all I want to be. Jesus is holy. And holiness is all I long for, holiness is all I want to achieve.
Be holy, for I am holy, says the Lord.
Benediction: Now unto him who is able to present you faultless before His throne, to the only God our Savior, be glory and majesty authority and power through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Friday, January 05, 2007
Losses
“I write off all my achievements as losses in order that I might win Christ.”
That is my paraphrase of Philippians 3:8 and the theme of this post.
Our lives have been shifted from the loss column to the win column in the standings. The heavenly playoff season is underway. The stakes are high. It’s all or nothing, do or die.
The other team seemed assured of victory by a lopsided score. The commentators acted a bit embarrassed as the team in black forced their opponents to fumble, to choke, to lose ground on almost every play.
But then the player from nowhere was sent in to substitute for an ineffective QB. “Who is this guy?” Nobody seemed to know. Someone suggested Carpenter U. “Nobody’s ever gotten to the Cosmic Bowl from Carpenter! Whoever he is he won’t last long. They’ll chew him up."
But it ain’t over ‘til its over as the saying goes.
The team in black roughed him up pretty bad. The white jerseys even got blood stains you could see from the stands. But the mystery man pulled off a miracle turn-around. Carpenter had done the impossible. “It’s a miracle.” “We’ve never seen anything like it in all our years of covering these events.” The presses had to be stopped; the story re-written. Our team had moved from the loss column to the win column.
This week at Scott the Carpenter’s team got thrown for a loss. On Wednesday in Chapel the second year student leader announced that he had a call at four a.m. from one of the class members asking for prayer for his boy who was ill and getting worse as the night had worn on. The father called back at dawn to say the Lord had taken his son.
It was a time to “weep with those who weep.” Africans are used to grieving. They experience the raw fragility of humanity. Starvation is not unknown. Accidents happen all the time that are preventable with better roads and safety equipment. Medical care is spotty – and in some remote areas non-existent. Disease picks off the weak ones in the countless herd of humanity here.
Many prayers went up and a coin collection was taken in chapel today to help the family with funeral expenses. We sang Spafford’s stirring hymn: It Is Well with My Soul. I asked my students later if they knew the story of that hymn. Most of them did. William Spafford, his wife, and two daughters planned to sail to England about 100 years ago. His Chicago business required him to delay a week, so his wife and girls sailed without him, ready to re-unite in England a week later. Spafford got a terse telegram a few days later from his wife. “Ship sank STOP I alone survive STOP.”
On his passage to join his wife in Europe he asked the steward to awaken him when the steamer got to the place where the tragedy had occurred. There in the night he tossed two wreaths into the sea, returned to his cabin and wrote these inspired words.
“When peace like a river attendeth my way; when sorrows like sea-billows role; whatever my lot, Thou hast taught me to say: “It is well, it is well with my soul.”
“Though Satan should buffet, though trials should come, let this blest assurance control: The Lord has regarded my helpless estate. It is well; it is well with my soul.”
Today we learned that the boy’s sister had been shielded at first from what had happened. But she demanded to know why she couldn’t go in to see her sick brother. When they told her he was dead she wept uncontrollably for a long time and would not be comforted.
In class today we were dealing with the problem of evil in philosophy of religion. All religions are attempts to explain why suffering, pain and death are our constant companions. Mr. Spafford embraced the Christian explanation. This world is out of whack, but only temporarily. The carpenter has come and everything in the loss column will be shifted to the win column. The outcome of the Cosmic Bowl has been settled, but we are still waiting for the winning team to get back for the hometown celebration.
The dean told me today that we would likely have to adjust our schedule, for most of the students will go the funeral for their colleague's son, and it is a four hour journey each way. So for Wednesday next we ask for a banner of prayer to be lifted before the Throne of Grace. Please stand with this community in this time of sadness and vulnerability.
Now there is Margaret, who came today from Scotland to help teach several faculty kids being home-schooled.
We were all at the Principal’s house for dinner – Jacob and Esther Kibor’s. Margaret is woman about fifty. She is a lively conversationalist.
Sue Lewis was asking Jacob about his story. And Jacob has a fascinating story, having grown up in a desert area in north Kenya, living in a small skin covered hut about 12 feet in diameter. His mother slept on one side of the floor with the sisters; his father on the other with Jacob and his brothers. It being very hot most of the time the kids were not into clothes very much. Why bother? And they were too poor anyway.
His father somehow heard the Gospel and decided to move to where he could learn more and maybe better their lives. But mother would not budge. So Dad took Jacob and headed out to a small city. None of them were literate. But Jacob found a way to learn to read and thus educated his father by the dim light of a campfire every night. Soon his mother came with the rest of the children and over time they converted from tribal animistic religion to embrace Jesus. Everything began to change because, having no resources whatsoever they had to depend on the Lord. And the Lord took care of them. Jacob now has a PhD as does Esther his wife. Both are at the top both in intellectual firepower and Christ-like living.
Then Margaret began to tell her story. Her husband died quite a few years back, leaving her to raise their three children. Through many years of hard work she launched them into adulthood. She found herself soon after in a relationship with a young man not much older than her son. She was 36 and he 22 when he asked her to marry him. After consulting her pastor, who probed her heart, she accepted the proposal and they were married and soon had two children.
Moving from Glasgow to London to find better employment, her new husband, offered a job, accepted the opportunity to work for high pay in Canada. He would work two weeks and the company would fly him back for a week at home every month.
On one visit home he took her to dinner and ended the evening by saying he had met a younger woman in Canada and he wanted a divorce.
Margaret was devastated. She said as a Christian she didn’t accept divorce. So if he wanted to leave he would have to carry everything through, which he did. She sank into a deep depression. George Mitchell and others were concerned she would take her life to end the pain of her rejection and loss.
In the Psalms, which John Calvin called the “anatomy of the soul,” it mentions those who “wandered in desert wastelands” or “sat in darkness and deepest gloom” until they “cried out to the Lord and he delivered them from their distress.” (Psalm 107) To give the screw another turn, a few days prior to her young husband’s announcement, Margaret had realized that even though she had given her life to God at age 13 and had felt that she was to serve him as a missionary, she was no longer as committed as once she was. She had gone into her bedroom, gotten on her knees and had made a covenant with God, giving him total control over the rest of her life. Then the bombshell had come.
Gradually God lifted her spirits and she applied to serve God in Africa in fidelity to her covenant. But as a now divorced woman, she was disqualified by the mission. Undaunted she wrote to a mission executive who knew her character. He wrote to Jacob Kibor. And today was her first day at Scott Theological College. She had a wee bit of a cry when she was hanging pictures of her kids and grandchildren on the wall. But as she walked about campus she felt totally at home. This was her new home that God had provided and she would love the children here and teach them, assured that God would help her.
A story of loss. But we all were wiping our eyes along with Margaret as she “gave thanks to the Lord for his unfailing love.” (Psalm 107:8)
On a lighter note, George was quoting an obscure Danish theologian in his chapel message. Johannes Pedersen. Looking out at me he asked “Did I pronounce it correctly?” I gave a thumbs up. “I’m glad to be supported by my ex-Scandinavian friend.” Gregg Okesson, another Swede, sitting behind me, whispered "I didn’t know you could lose your ethnicity!” That would indeed be another loss. Just what George had in mind is a matter for speculation. I hope he didn't meam ex-friend!
But George lost a wee bit this week, too. He had come with a suitcase of clothes to give away: football shirts and a pair of canvass shoes and lots of ties. Getting dressed for class after George had gone out this morning, I realized the two ties I had with me clashed with the shirt for the day. “I’ll look at those ties,” I says to myself, says I. Splendid – here’s one with right colors. George won’t object if I wear it today. Well at lunch I was in love with that tie. It had airplanes and maps of the northeast USA and northeast Europe in the design. So I asked George if he would let me have it. “Sure,” he says, it’s one of my favorites but I can get another when I get home.” “No, no, no – I thought it was one of your giveaways. I’m not going to take your tie.” “Yes you will – I want you to have as memento of our friendship.”
So George lost his favorite tie.
Later he asks me what size neck I have. 16.5 or 17. He comes back with a new shirt Jean had bought at a thrift shop but it’s too small at the neck. I try it on. The sleeves are long enough for a Maasai’s arms! "No, no – you fold them back and put links in them!" "O, I see! Perfect!"
I used to wear French cuffs a lot when I was in my teens and twenties. And I still have cuff links, one set given to me for being a groomsman when Bob Draper married my sister, Lois. That was 1950.
So now George will no doubt say that he met me and lost his shirt!
Enough! I’ll speak no more of losses!
(BTW, thanks for reading this. It is nice to have someone with whom to share these experiences. Asante sana!)
That is my paraphrase of Philippians 3:8 and the theme of this post.
Our lives have been shifted from the loss column to the win column in the standings. The heavenly playoff season is underway. The stakes are high. It’s all or nothing, do or die.
The other team seemed assured of victory by a lopsided score. The commentators acted a bit embarrassed as the team in black forced their opponents to fumble, to choke, to lose ground on almost every play.
But then the player from nowhere was sent in to substitute for an ineffective QB. “Who is this guy?” Nobody seemed to know. Someone suggested Carpenter U. “Nobody’s ever gotten to the Cosmic Bowl from Carpenter! Whoever he is he won’t last long. They’ll chew him up."
But it ain’t over ‘til its over as the saying goes.
The team in black roughed him up pretty bad. The white jerseys even got blood stains you could see from the stands. But the mystery man pulled off a miracle turn-around. Carpenter had done the impossible. “It’s a miracle.” “We’ve never seen anything like it in all our years of covering these events.” The presses had to be stopped; the story re-written. Our team had moved from the loss column to the win column.
This week at Scott the Carpenter’s team got thrown for a loss. On Wednesday in Chapel the second year student leader announced that he had a call at four a.m. from one of the class members asking for prayer for his boy who was ill and getting worse as the night had worn on. The father called back at dawn to say the Lord had taken his son.
It was a time to “weep with those who weep.” Africans are used to grieving. They experience the raw fragility of humanity. Starvation is not unknown. Accidents happen all the time that are preventable with better roads and safety equipment. Medical care is spotty – and in some remote areas non-existent. Disease picks off the weak ones in the countless herd of humanity here.
Many prayers went up and a coin collection was taken in chapel today to help the family with funeral expenses. We sang Spafford’s stirring hymn: It Is Well with My Soul. I asked my students later if they knew the story of that hymn. Most of them did. William Spafford, his wife, and two daughters planned to sail to England about 100 years ago. His Chicago business required him to delay a week, so his wife and girls sailed without him, ready to re-unite in England a week later. Spafford got a terse telegram a few days later from his wife. “Ship sank STOP I alone survive STOP.”
On his passage to join his wife in Europe he asked the steward to awaken him when the steamer got to the place where the tragedy had occurred. There in the night he tossed two wreaths into the sea, returned to his cabin and wrote these inspired words.
“When peace like a river attendeth my way; when sorrows like sea-billows role; whatever my lot, Thou hast taught me to say: “It is well, it is well with my soul.”
“Though Satan should buffet, though trials should come, let this blest assurance control: The Lord has regarded my helpless estate. It is well; it is well with my soul.”
Today we learned that the boy’s sister had been shielded at first from what had happened. But she demanded to know why she couldn’t go in to see her sick brother. When they told her he was dead she wept uncontrollably for a long time and would not be comforted.
In class today we were dealing with the problem of evil in philosophy of religion. All religions are attempts to explain why suffering, pain and death are our constant companions. Mr. Spafford embraced the Christian explanation. This world is out of whack, but only temporarily. The carpenter has come and everything in the loss column will be shifted to the win column. The outcome of the Cosmic Bowl has been settled, but we are still waiting for the winning team to get back for the hometown celebration.
The dean told me today that we would likely have to adjust our schedule, for most of the students will go the funeral for their colleague's son, and it is a four hour journey each way. So for Wednesday next we ask for a banner of prayer to be lifted before the Throne of Grace. Please stand with this community in this time of sadness and vulnerability.
Now there is Margaret, who came today from Scotland to help teach several faculty kids being home-schooled.
We were all at the Principal’s house for dinner – Jacob and Esther Kibor’s. Margaret is woman about fifty. She is a lively conversationalist.
Sue Lewis was asking Jacob about his story. And Jacob has a fascinating story, having grown up in a desert area in north Kenya, living in a small skin covered hut about 12 feet in diameter. His mother slept on one side of the floor with the sisters; his father on the other with Jacob and his brothers. It being very hot most of the time the kids were not into clothes very much. Why bother? And they were too poor anyway.
His father somehow heard the Gospel and decided to move to where he could learn more and maybe better their lives. But mother would not budge. So Dad took Jacob and headed out to a small city. None of them were literate. But Jacob found a way to learn to read and thus educated his father by the dim light of a campfire every night. Soon his mother came with the rest of the children and over time they converted from tribal animistic religion to embrace Jesus. Everything began to change because, having no resources whatsoever they had to depend on the Lord. And the Lord took care of them. Jacob now has a PhD as does Esther his wife. Both are at the top both in intellectual firepower and Christ-like living.
Then Margaret began to tell her story. Her husband died quite a few years back, leaving her to raise their three children. Through many years of hard work she launched them into adulthood. She found herself soon after in a relationship with a young man not much older than her son. She was 36 and he 22 when he asked her to marry him. After consulting her pastor, who probed her heart, she accepted the proposal and they were married and soon had two children.
Moving from Glasgow to London to find better employment, her new husband, offered a job, accepted the opportunity to work for high pay in Canada. He would work two weeks and the company would fly him back for a week at home every month.
On one visit home he took her to dinner and ended the evening by saying he had met a younger woman in Canada and he wanted a divorce.
Margaret was devastated. She said as a Christian she didn’t accept divorce. So if he wanted to leave he would have to carry everything through, which he did. She sank into a deep depression. George Mitchell and others were concerned she would take her life to end the pain of her rejection and loss.
In the Psalms, which John Calvin called the “anatomy of the soul,” it mentions those who “wandered in desert wastelands” or “sat in darkness and deepest gloom” until they “cried out to the Lord and he delivered them from their distress.” (Psalm 107) To give the screw another turn, a few days prior to her young husband’s announcement, Margaret had realized that even though she had given her life to God at age 13 and had felt that she was to serve him as a missionary, she was no longer as committed as once she was. She had gone into her bedroom, gotten on her knees and had made a covenant with God, giving him total control over the rest of her life. Then the bombshell had come.
Gradually God lifted her spirits and she applied to serve God in Africa in fidelity to her covenant. But as a now divorced woman, she was disqualified by the mission. Undaunted she wrote to a mission executive who knew her character. He wrote to Jacob Kibor. And today was her first day at Scott Theological College. She had a wee bit of a cry when she was hanging pictures of her kids and grandchildren on the wall. But as she walked about campus she felt totally at home. This was her new home that God had provided and she would love the children here and teach them, assured that God would help her.
A story of loss. But we all were wiping our eyes along with Margaret as she “gave thanks to the Lord for his unfailing love.” (Psalm 107:8)
On a lighter note, George was quoting an obscure Danish theologian in his chapel message. Johannes Pedersen. Looking out at me he asked “Did I pronounce it correctly?” I gave a thumbs up. “I’m glad to be supported by my ex-Scandinavian friend.” Gregg Okesson, another Swede, sitting behind me, whispered "I didn’t know you could lose your ethnicity!” That would indeed be another loss. Just what George had in mind is a matter for speculation. I hope he didn't meam ex-friend!
But George lost a wee bit this week, too. He had come with a suitcase of clothes to give away: football shirts and a pair of canvass shoes and lots of ties. Getting dressed for class after George had gone out this morning, I realized the two ties I had with me clashed with the shirt for the day. “I’ll look at those ties,” I says to myself, says I. Splendid – here’s one with right colors. George won’t object if I wear it today. Well at lunch I was in love with that tie. It had airplanes and maps of the northeast USA and northeast Europe in the design. So I asked George if he would let me have it. “Sure,” he says, it’s one of my favorites but I can get another when I get home.” “No, no, no – I thought it was one of your giveaways. I’m not going to take your tie.” “Yes you will – I want you to have as memento of our friendship.”
So George lost his favorite tie.
Later he asks me what size neck I have. 16.5 or 17. He comes back with a new shirt Jean had bought at a thrift shop but it’s too small at the neck. I try it on. The sleeves are long enough for a Maasai’s arms! "No, no – you fold them back and put links in them!" "O, I see! Perfect!"
I used to wear French cuffs a lot when I was in my teens and twenties. And I still have cuff links, one set given to me for being a groomsman when Bob Draper married my sister, Lois. That was 1950.
So now George will no doubt say that he met me and lost his shirt!
Enough! I’ll speak no more of losses!
(BTW, thanks for reading this. It is nice to have someone with whom to share these experiences. Asante sana!)
Patience is a virtue
Pastor David Midwood advised us never to pray for more patience—because the only way patience can be achieved is through times of frustration and trials.
This is one of those days.
On the “mission field” one has to find a way to absorb frustrations. They arise when the things we think should be easy and/or reliable have a way of slipping off the table.
Take my poor colleague, Dr. “Jolly” George Mitchell. The rota has him preaching in chapel today at 10:40. This is the day that started with the power outage and hurricane lantern fiasco. To our delight, we found that the trusty old Scott generator had kicked in, providing power to the chapel and to the administration building. So George has his power point pictures loaded into his laptop and is ready to go. He asks the staff to set it up with the projector in the chapel so he’ll be all set when classes pause for the daily assembly period.
So the hard-working adjuncts all head off to their classes. Power is on, overhead projectors are shining. Things look good. While the rains of the night are generously blessing the land all morning and we have to shout to be heard above the din of the dewy damp drops on the metal roofs, it’s nothing we cannot take in stride. We are seasoned cross-cultural teachers!
Chapel is full house today, for late arriving students have taken residence. Ken Hall (of the incredible Tanzania army ant story), a diminutive man, is chapel leader. But his mousy voice is no match for the drumbeat on the roof. I try to read his lips and catch the occasional phrase. But where’s George, our morning speaker?
Ah! Here he comes, panting, all bedraggled from the rain assaulting him on the walk from his classroom to chapel. He has the biggest classroom on campus but it’s also the farthest away. He starts to rummage through his backpack, moaning and groaning in muted tones.
“What’s the matter, George?” I ask. “Someone loaned the connector cord that links the laptop to the projector to a student, who passed it on to another and it’s nowhere to be found! So without the PowerPoint I’ll need my Bible for the notes in it, and I can’ find it! They’re singing the hymn and I’ll be on straightaway after the prayer!”
So I notice one of the many compartments in his bag is still shut. I unzip. “Is this it, George?” I ask, handing him what looks like a well worn Bible, worthy of an elderly Scotch divine. “O praise God—you’ve saved me!” “No, George—get this straight: Jesus saved you. I only found your Bible. Now go preach and don’t hold back.”
Of course, as a seasoned preacher, he does a fine job without the visual show. But it is frustrating all the same. Learning patience—it’s a huge learning curve.
In my philosophy class all 26 students are present for the first time. Two had missed the first day (which is equal to a week of class time). Maybe they had traveling delays, as some are in transit several days to get here, hop scotching from bus to matatu (mini-van) to tuk-tuk (a tiny 3-three-wheeled conveyance, a sort of motorized rickshaw) as need dictates. Some are from Sudan or Uganda or Rwanda or Tanzania perhaps. (Ten countries are represented on campus now, including Laura, a lovely blond 19 year old from Holland taking a “break year” after High School.) Some have been sent home to raise their tuition fees, for Africans are culturally used to just showing up, expecting to be taken in and provided for if they have inadequate resources to pay their freight. That’s the way it is in the tribal life many have come from.
Some are now handing in questions for me to answer. I was astounded by the first one, from Milka, who is enrolled in the less ambitious Diploma Programme:
“Post modernity challenges every discipline of education and generally all meta-narratives. It does not give any answer to whatever controversy it creates. To my opinion philosophy is a discipline which sort of is similar to this. Please respond.”
This is a graduate level question! Or at least a senior bachelor-of-arts student’s question. You don’t expect that from a Diploma student.
Several others wonder why they should study European philosophy if they are going to minister the Gospel in African churches. I hope I gave a satisfactory answer. Other students seem to be engrossed already. The deputy principal told me some in the class, when asked, said “we are getting into deep things.”
This is why I love to teach in Kenya. I don’t have to raise the (brain) dead before I can teach them—not here. They are eager to have me stretch their minds.
Just as we break for lunch, a familiar face smiles at me from the doorway. It is Benson Peter Nzioka, a local Akamba (tribe) man our family is linked to. A relationship somewhat similar to a “sister-city” compact between cities on different continents.
Peter will take some lunch in the dining hall while I eat with the faculty family that is hosting me and George, along with Chuck and Sue Lewis (teaching a course in counseling). So an hour later I invite Peter to come the guest house. I remind him that this new house I’m staying in is where the Draper’s house once stood. “O, yes,” he replies, “as a 12-year-old lad I used to come here to find yard work so our family could have food.”
That’s how my sister and her husband met this boy when they were teaching back in the 1980s. They soon noticed that Peter was honest, hard-working and very bright. So they began to send little things home with him for his "poorest of the poor" fatherless family. Soon they met his mother and sisters and brothers and decided they should encourage Peter to go to university. To abbreviate a long and stirring story, Peter got a degree in social studies from a Kenyan university and began to take on the role of head-of-the-household, looking out for his mother, Grace, especially. But grinding poverty was eating up every advance. They could not afford $5.00 a month rent in the mud brick shack and were being evicted. At that time my sister Lois approached our extended family to see if we could do something for this worthy Kenyan family. With but little sacrifice on our part we raised the small amount needed to buy them an acre of land and build a stone house. Grace is ambitious, weaving and selling baskets and growing corn, cowpeas and fruit trees on the land, as well as chickens and sometimes a goat. They are still scraping by but are slowly lifting themselves with somehwhat better-paying jobs and the next generation will be able to go on to college. I had the honor of marrying Peter and Gladys here in 1993. That saga will have wait for another blog.
I show Peter the box of clothing I brought over for the family—mainly for the kids. We bought most of it at Building 19. He is so grateful for the socks, knit hats, shirts and sweaters, etc. We arrange for me to go to Nairobi next week to have a feast that Gladys (his wife) will prepare for the 15 or more of us. They are so excited to have anyone of our family come to see them.
Peter and Gladys work with the “nobodies” living in a slum area of Nairobi—a typical modern city that daily receives country folks looking for a job instead of scraping a living from field and forest in the back country. I had advised Peter two years ago to get a part-time job so he could feed his family properly because these people cannot pay him anything.
Gladys once gave their food to a needier family and told the kids they would have to pray to their Heavenly Father to feed them, since they had nothing left for themselves. They don’t eat every day often-times. Peter explains that he is convinced that as long as God gives him strength he is going to devote himself to the needs of the people in his little barrio church, for that’s what he is called to do. No part-time job. I decide not to challenge a commitment like that. So I give him enough cash to cover his transport and the food Gladys will need to buy for the meal next week on Saturday the 13th.
I think sometimes that I have troubles! Peter and Gladys must have the patience of Job!
Just as Peter is getting into the car taking him downtown, another face appears. It is Timothy Muthusi, one of my star students of a few years ago. He is determined to write the great African philosophy some day. Timothy married another of my former students, Peninah. They had a rocky start from some decisions they made at the time they were about to marry. But the clouds are now lifting for them and they feel a new joy in the Lord and a new welcome in their restored church ministry. Patiently waiting for God to restore their confidence and joy has deepened their lives. They are living next door to the campus and will give me lunch next Wednesday in their home. Patience.
All day it has been raining. The locals love all the rain they can get—it’s better than the drought they often suffer. But Ken Hall tells me there’s too much rain and that can damage crops as badly as drought.
It’s not too bad to be a little frustrated because you are running behind when the interruptions are so beautiful. Who is it who said that life is what happens during the interruptions you never planned for?
An item you may be wondering about. Have you noticed all these African students have a Bible name? Shadrack, Festus, Solomon, Zechariah, Peninah and so on. In the Christian community a child is given his tribal name and also a baptismal name, usually from the Bible (no Herod or Judas as yet). And when we get a class roster the alphabetical list is by their baptismal name because most tribal surnames begin with M or N making it very difficult to make a manageable set of grade records.
As a gale force wind (at least it sounds like one) clears the storm clouds out, I think how people never seem to know that too much rain can be bad for harvests. November “short rains” should be over by Christmas. Not this season. As kids we used to sing “It ain’t gonna rain no mo’, no mo’ It ain’t gone rain no mo’! How the heck can I wash my neck if ain’t gonna rain no mo’?” The first time Ellie and I came here every roof had gutters directing rain water to a cistern to save for the two dry seasons. That precious water had to be boiled before use and when the supply ran out water had to be trucked in at great cost. But now Scott has a fine deep well. So we don’t mind so much if it ain’t gonna rain no mo’!
Weather can teach us patience, too. Patience, they say, is a virtue. And all virtues accumulate slowly over time, often at a glacial pace. No short-cuts possible. Don't buy any book titled "Ten Quick Steps to Patience."
This is one of those days.
On the “mission field” one has to find a way to absorb frustrations. They arise when the things we think should be easy and/or reliable have a way of slipping off the table.
Take my poor colleague, Dr. “Jolly” George Mitchell. The rota has him preaching in chapel today at 10:40. This is the day that started with the power outage and hurricane lantern fiasco. To our delight, we found that the trusty old Scott generator had kicked in, providing power to the chapel and to the administration building. So George has his power point pictures loaded into his laptop and is ready to go. He asks the staff to set it up with the projector in the chapel so he’ll be all set when classes pause for the daily assembly period.
So the hard-working adjuncts all head off to their classes. Power is on, overhead projectors are shining. Things look good. While the rains of the night are generously blessing the land all morning and we have to shout to be heard above the din of the dewy damp drops on the metal roofs, it’s nothing we cannot take in stride. We are seasoned cross-cultural teachers!
Chapel is full house today, for late arriving students have taken residence. Ken Hall (of the incredible Tanzania army ant story), a diminutive man, is chapel leader. But his mousy voice is no match for the drumbeat on the roof. I try to read his lips and catch the occasional phrase. But where’s George, our morning speaker?
Ah! Here he comes, panting, all bedraggled from the rain assaulting him on the walk from his classroom to chapel. He has the biggest classroom on campus but it’s also the farthest away. He starts to rummage through his backpack, moaning and groaning in muted tones.
“What’s the matter, George?” I ask. “Someone loaned the connector cord that links the laptop to the projector to a student, who passed it on to another and it’s nowhere to be found! So without the PowerPoint I’ll need my Bible for the notes in it, and I can’ find it! They’re singing the hymn and I’ll be on straightaway after the prayer!”
So I notice one of the many compartments in his bag is still shut. I unzip. “Is this it, George?” I ask, handing him what looks like a well worn Bible, worthy of an elderly Scotch divine. “O praise God—you’ve saved me!” “No, George—get this straight: Jesus saved you. I only found your Bible. Now go preach and don’t hold back.”
Of course, as a seasoned preacher, he does a fine job without the visual show. But it is frustrating all the same. Learning patience—it’s a huge learning curve.
In my philosophy class all 26 students are present for the first time. Two had missed the first day (which is equal to a week of class time). Maybe they had traveling delays, as some are in transit several days to get here, hop scotching from bus to matatu (mini-van) to tuk-tuk (a tiny 3-three-wheeled conveyance, a sort of motorized rickshaw) as need dictates. Some are from Sudan or Uganda or Rwanda or Tanzania perhaps. (Ten countries are represented on campus now, including Laura, a lovely blond 19 year old from Holland taking a “break year” after High School.) Some have been sent home to raise their tuition fees, for Africans are culturally used to just showing up, expecting to be taken in and provided for if they have inadequate resources to pay their freight. That’s the way it is in the tribal life many have come from.
Some are now handing in questions for me to answer. I was astounded by the first one, from Milka, who is enrolled in the less ambitious Diploma Programme:
“Post modernity challenges every discipline of education and generally all meta-narratives. It does not give any answer to whatever controversy it creates. To my opinion philosophy is a discipline which sort of is similar to this. Please respond.”
This is a graduate level question! Or at least a senior bachelor-of-arts student’s question. You don’t expect that from a Diploma student.
Several others wonder why they should study European philosophy if they are going to minister the Gospel in African churches. I hope I gave a satisfactory answer. Other students seem to be engrossed already. The deputy principal told me some in the class, when asked, said “we are getting into deep things.”
This is why I love to teach in Kenya. I don’t have to raise the (brain) dead before I can teach them—not here. They are eager to have me stretch their minds.
Just as we break for lunch, a familiar face smiles at me from the doorway. It is Benson Peter Nzioka, a local Akamba (tribe) man our family is linked to. A relationship somewhat similar to a “sister-city” compact between cities on different continents.
Peter will take some lunch in the dining hall while I eat with the faculty family that is hosting me and George, along with Chuck and Sue Lewis (teaching a course in counseling). So an hour later I invite Peter to come the guest house. I remind him that this new house I’m staying in is where the Draper’s house once stood. “O, yes,” he replies, “as a 12-year-old lad I used to come here to find yard work so our family could have food.”
That’s how my sister and her husband met this boy when they were teaching back in the 1980s. They soon noticed that Peter was honest, hard-working and very bright. So they began to send little things home with him for his "poorest of the poor" fatherless family. Soon they met his mother and sisters and brothers and decided they should encourage Peter to go to university. To abbreviate a long and stirring story, Peter got a degree in social studies from a Kenyan university and began to take on the role of head-of-the-household, looking out for his mother, Grace, especially. But grinding poverty was eating up every advance. They could not afford $5.00 a month rent in the mud brick shack and were being evicted. At that time my sister Lois approached our extended family to see if we could do something for this worthy Kenyan family. With but little sacrifice on our part we raised the small amount needed to buy them an acre of land and build a stone house. Grace is ambitious, weaving and selling baskets and growing corn, cowpeas and fruit trees on the land, as well as chickens and sometimes a goat. They are still scraping by but are slowly lifting themselves with somehwhat better-paying jobs and the next generation will be able to go on to college. I had the honor of marrying Peter and Gladys here in 1993. That saga will have wait for another blog.
I show Peter the box of clothing I brought over for the family—mainly for the kids. We bought most of it at Building 19. He is so grateful for the socks, knit hats, shirts and sweaters, etc. We arrange for me to go to Nairobi next week to have a feast that Gladys (his wife) will prepare for the 15 or more of us. They are so excited to have anyone of our family come to see them.
Peter and Gladys work with the “nobodies” living in a slum area of Nairobi—a typical modern city that daily receives country folks looking for a job instead of scraping a living from field and forest in the back country. I had advised Peter two years ago to get a part-time job so he could feed his family properly because these people cannot pay him anything.
Gladys once gave their food to a needier family and told the kids they would have to pray to their Heavenly Father to feed them, since they had nothing left for themselves. They don’t eat every day often-times. Peter explains that he is convinced that as long as God gives him strength he is going to devote himself to the needs of the people in his little barrio church, for that’s what he is called to do. No part-time job. I decide not to challenge a commitment like that. So I give him enough cash to cover his transport and the food Gladys will need to buy for the meal next week on Saturday the 13th.
I think sometimes that I have troubles! Peter and Gladys must have the patience of Job!
Just as Peter is getting into the car taking him downtown, another face appears. It is Timothy Muthusi, one of my star students of a few years ago. He is determined to write the great African philosophy some day. Timothy married another of my former students, Peninah. They had a rocky start from some decisions they made at the time they were about to marry. But the clouds are now lifting for them and they feel a new joy in the Lord and a new welcome in their restored church ministry. Patiently waiting for God to restore their confidence and joy has deepened their lives. They are living next door to the campus and will give me lunch next Wednesday in their home. Patience.
All day it has been raining. The locals love all the rain they can get—it’s better than the drought they often suffer. But Ken Hall tells me there’s too much rain and that can damage crops as badly as drought.
It’s not too bad to be a little frustrated because you are running behind when the interruptions are so beautiful. Who is it who said that life is what happens during the interruptions you never planned for?
An item you may be wondering about. Have you noticed all these African students have a Bible name? Shadrack, Festus, Solomon, Zechariah, Peninah and so on. In the Christian community a child is given his tribal name and also a baptismal name, usually from the Bible (no Herod or Judas as yet). And when we get a class roster the alphabetical list is by their baptismal name because most tribal surnames begin with M or N making it very difficult to make a manageable set of grade records.
As a gale force wind (at least it sounds like one) clears the storm clouds out, I think how people never seem to know that too much rain can be bad for harvests. November “short rains” should be over by Christmas. Not this season. As kids we used to sing “It ain’t gonna rain no mo’, no mo’ It ain’t gone rain no mo’! How the heck can I wash my neck if ain’t gonna rain no mo’?” The first time Ellie and I came here every roof had gutters directing rain water to a cistern to save for the two dry seasons. That precious water had to be boiled before use and when the supply ran out water had to be trucked in at great cost. But now Scott has a fine deep well. So we don’t mind so much if it ain’t gonna rain no mo’!
Weather can teach us patience, too. Patience, they say, is a virtue. And all virtues accumulate slowly over time, often at a glacial pace. No short-cuts possible. Don't buy any book titled "Ten Quick Steps to Patience."
Thursday, January 04, 2007
Life with Jolly George
Now that my roommate has come things are a bit lively. Dr. George Mitchell is a pastor and Bible scholar from Glasgow. You can tell by his brogue. When Greg Okesson, dean at the college here, announced that George was coming back, the students clapped. He asked some of them, “What do you like about Dr. Mitchell?” “His jokes.” “Can you understand them?” “No—but they are funny and we laugh with him.” Some guys get all the breaks.
George always has a story. And he always has a handout. He gives the kids balloons. He collects scarves and ladies head scarves and men’s ties and all sorts of bric-a-brac that he gives to students, faculty and wives, to gatekeepers and grounds men and the like. He brings Gideon Testaments and Bible study guides—just about anything that can be used. And in Kenya everything can be used (even if it is used) and given a lot of mileage.
He even brought a bunch of books by a world renowned AIDS specialist. And that reminded Gregg that some doctor from the USA left 200 condoms at Scott for the new clinic on campus. Hold on! This is a Christian college training pastors and church workers. But these students go out on the field every weekend and over semester breaks. And we all know about Africa’s AIDS problem and the thousands of kids either diseased or orphaned.
But this is a shame culture. There are things that go on you don’t acknowledge and certainly you don’t talk about. This contributes to the epidemic. Gregg decides to take them to the clinic guy. “Here’s a box of 200 condoms.” No reply. Just a fleeting bulging of the eyes. Pause. “OK, you can put them over there.” This man is not about to discuss it. Will these just sit there for years? Will someone discuss it at a pastor’s conference and see them go to where they can do some good? Stay tuned.
Here’s George again dispensing joy wherever he goes. And he has a big challenge, teaching the first years (freshmen) the Gospels. A big class of over 40 students. I think he’ll handle it OK.
He handed out the Gideon books – a nice leatherette version with gilt edges and a place ribbon: New Testament and Psalms—to his class. (More bribery?) When some straggle in late he says, “Sorry you’re coming in late—I’ve just given out the last of the Bibles. I expect you to be here on time.” Atta boy, George. You tell ‘em. But he says everything with that big toothy smile and lovely brogue. He’s built like Santa Claus—not for speed but for comfort, as portly Brinley Evans used to say. (Brinley was a West Church missionary from England serving in Nigeria who used to teach our kids “Jesus loves me” in Hausa, supported by his violin. My children and I can still sing it, some 40 years later!)
So here is one of George’s stories.
A lad in Glasgow, Gordon Thompson, has an alcoholic mum and no father at home. Living in worst areas of Glasgow, he drops out of school at age 14. With help of his brother he talks his way into being a dishwasher at a restaurant with permission to sleep on the floor. He’s not going home again. This is in a notoriously bad side of the tracks.
He’s a good worker and over time he learns all the jobs in the restaurant and ends up being the chef! Now he is making money for the first time and he decides to go buy his first suit of clothes.
He asks a waitress where he should go to show off his new suit. “O,” she says, “when people want to show of their clothes they go to church. You can go to the one right down the street.”
So Gordon goes to the Baptist Church, hears the Gospel and gets saved. He decides to go back to school. He goes to a Bible College and has a hard time due to “poor learning skills.” Enter George Mitchell who teaches Bible, Hebrew and Greek in a nearby seminary. Testing Gordon they find he is dyslexic—and no one in the Bible College caught it despite several years of his study there. Now George has lectures on a CD. “Here,” he says, “play this over and over until you have in down pat.”
Eventually Gordon graduates and is ordained a pastor in a church in the tough district that no one will take on. He gets a car and puts a big cross on the boot (trunk) so in a few months every one knows the Baptist pastor’s car. He dives into the problems with the Gospel message and people get converted and baptized. George keeps contact and brings in clothing for Gordon to give out. One was a fur coat someone donated. So a woman in that neighborhood is walking around in a fur coat.
“Can you use a wedding dress, Gordon?” “Oh yes—some of the couples I marry use borrowed clothes for their wedding.” So a wedding dress gets recycled gain and again.
But the church is being vandalized. He goes to a man in the tenement that overlooks the church property. “John, where did you get those running shoes?” “From you, Pastor.” “And what about that suit over in the closet there?” “From you.” “OK—do you think you can help me?” “I’ll see what I can do.”
This man finds a woman there who is mostly at home. She gets involved in the church. So whenever she spots hooligans in the area she throws the window up, sticks out her head and yells at them: “you’re not invisible—I know what you’re up to.” No more vandalism.
But the flat roof of the church leaks. Gordon starts a fund to raise the 75 thousand quid needed for a pitched roof. Lady X often plays the national bingo. She calls Gordon: “I’ve just won 120,000 pounds. Can you use it even if it comes from gambling?” “If you want to donate it, just put it in the offering when you are ready.” So next Sunday Gordon has the money for the roof repair.
By now Gordon is getting calls from other churches, upscale. But he sees that the deacons are fighting the pastor and the pastor is fighting the flock. “I want no part of it. This is where God is doing a work!”
So tomorrow when George preaches in chapel no one will fall asleep. No way!
Speaking of chapel, the opening of the term today was graced by a fine message by Gregg Okesson on II Peter 1:3-4. “His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness…. Through these he has given us very great and precious promises, so that through them we may participate in the divine nature and escape the corruption in the world caused by evil desires.”
African theologians make a lot of the idea of participation. Rather than seeking knowledge through detached objective analysis as westerners do, they stress that we learn by participation in the lives of other people as well as in nature (through working in the fields and forests or herding animals). Life is relational. And that includes participating in the divine nature of God, the creator of all that is. God came into the fragility of humanity (where life is threatened by powerful forces we have little power over) in order to redeem us and ultimately deliver us from our vulnerability. The incarnation exposed God to the vulnerability of being a helpless baby, a country rabbi, and a condemned malefactor. Thus God is able to provide all we need until we share his glory in the resurrection to come. Our humanity is no barrier between us and God but is rather the vehicle by which we come to share in God’s divine nature. In Him we live and move and have our being!
This is another example of how we can learn from another cultural perspective and enrich our understanding of the life God has given us.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch….
It’s 5 am Thursday January 5. A voice in the wilderness calls from the next room. “Brother Jim? I canna find me torrrch and there’s no power. Can you help me?”
My trusty shake and bake flash at the ready, we stumble downstairs. “George,” says I, “we are like the foolish virgins—we forgot to get oil and trim our lamps!” “Aye, you are spot on, brother,” says he.
George remembered there were two candles on the coffee table. “Do we even have matches?” I tell him where they are in the kitchen. So that’s a start. We unwrap the shrink-package from the brand new hurricane lanterns and go to the porch to pour in some kerosene. Soon we have two lanterns aglow.
But there’s no power and George is preaching chapel today, hoping to use PowerPoint. Plan B?
So it’s a cold shave and shower today. No tea either as the pot is electric. Thankfully, Kim Okesson gave us some hard boiled eggs yesterday.
So I’m up stairs doing Bodylastics exercise. George is in the lav singing from the Messiah the aria “The People Who Walk in Darkness Have Seen a Great Light.” So I join in a bit. In these concrete houses we sound like a couple of basso profundos at the Met.
As I said, it’s always an adventure with Jolly George—Dr Mitchell the Glaswegian scholar.
George always has a story. And he always has a handout. He gives the kids balloons. He collects scarves and ladies head scarves and men’s ties and all sorts of bric-a-brac that he gives to students, faculty and wives, to gatekeepers and grounds men and the like. He brings Gideon Testaments and Bible study guides—just about anything that can be used. And in Kenya everything can be used (even if it is used) and given a lot of mileage.
He even brought a bunch of books by a world renowned AIDS specialist. And that reminded Gregg that some doctor from the USA left 200 condoms at Scott for the new clinic on campus. Hold on! This is a Christian college training pastors and church workers. But these students go out on the field every weekend and over semester breaks. And we all know about Africa’s AIDS problem and the thousands of kids either diseased or orphaned.
But this is a shame culture. There are things that go on you don’t acknowledge and certainly you don’t talk about. This contributes to the epidemic. Gregg decides to take them to the clinic guy. “Here’s a box of 200 condoms.” No reply. Just a fleeting bulging of the eyes. Pause. “OK, you can put them over there.” This man is not about to discuss it. Will these just sit there for years? Will someone discuss it at a pastor’s conference and see them go to where they can do some good? Stay tuned.
Here’s George again dispensing joy wherever he goes. And he has a big challenge, teaching the first years (freshmen) the Gospels. A big class of over 40 students. I think he’ll handle it OK.
He handed out the Gideon books – a nice leatherette version with gilt edges and a place ribbon: New Testament and Psalms—to his class. (More bribery?) When some straggle in late he says, “Sorry you’re coming in late—I’ve just given out the last of the Bibles. I expect you to be here on time.” Atta boy, George. You tell ‘em. But he says everything with that big toothy smile and lovely brogue. He’s built like Santa Claus—not for speed but for comfort, as portly Brinley Evans used to say. (Brinley was a West Church missionary from England serving in Nigeria who used to teach our kids “Jesus loves me” in Hausa, supported by his violin. My children and I can still sing it, some 40 years later!)
So here is one of George’s stories.
A lad in Glasgow, Gordon Thompson, has an alcoholic mum and no father at home. Living in worst areas of Glasgow, he drops out of school at age 14. With help of his brother he talks his way into being a dishwasher at a restaurant with permission to sleep on the floor. He’s not going home again. This is in a notoriously bad side of the tracks.
He’s a good worker and over time he learns all the jobs in the restaurant and ends up being the chef! Now he is making money for the first time and he decides to go buy his first suit of clothes.
He asks a waitress where he should go to show off his new suit. “O,” she says, “when people want to show of their clothes they go to church. You can go to the one right down the street.”
So Gordon goes to the Baptist Church, hears the Gospel and gets saved. He decides to go back to school. He goes to a Bible College and has a hard time due to “poor learning skills.” Enter George Mitchell who teaches Bible, Hebrew and Greek in a nearby seminary. Testing Gordon they find he is dyslexic—and no one in the Bible College caught it despite several years of his study there. Now George has lectures on a CD. “Here,” he says, “play this over and over until you have in down pat.”
Eventually Gordon graduates and is ordained a pastor in a church in the tough district that no one will take on. He gets a car and puts a big cross on the boot (trunk) so in a few months every one knows the Baptist pastor’s car. He dives into the problems with the Gospel message and people get converted and baptized. George keeps contact and brings in clothing for Gordon to give out. One was a fur coat someone donated. So a woman in that neighborhood is walking around in a fur coat.
“Can you use a wedding dress, Gordon?” “Oh yes—some of the couples I marry use borrowed clothes for their wedding.” So a wedding dress gets recycled gain and again.
But the church is being vandalized. He goes to a man in the tenement that overlooks the church property. “John, where did you get those running shoes?” “From you, Pastor.” “And what about that suit over in the closet there?” “From you.” “OK—do you think you can help me?” “I’ll see what I can do.”
This man finds a woman there who is mostly at home. She gets involved in the church. So whenever she spots hooligans in the area she throws the window up, sticks out her head and yells at them: “you’re not invisible—I know what you’re up to.” No more vandalism.
But the flat roof of the church leaks. Gordon starts a fund to raise the 75 thousand quid needed for a pitched roof. Lady X often plays the national bingo. She calls Gordon: “I’ve just won 120,000 pounds. Can you use it even if it comes from gambling?” “If you want to donate it, just put it in the offering when you are ready.” So next Sunday Gordon has the money for the roof repair.
By now Gordon is getting calls from other churches, upscale. But he sees that the deacons are fighting the pastor and the pastor is fighting the flock. “I want no part of it. This is where God is doing a work!”
So tomorrow when George preaches in chapel no one will fall asleep. No way!
Speaking of chapel, the opening of the term today was graced by a fine message by Gregg Okesson on II Peter 1:3-4. “His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness…. Through these he has given us very great and precious promises, so that through them we may participate in the divine nature and escape the corruption in the world caused by evil desires.”
African theologians make a lot of the idea of participation. Rather than seeking knowledge through detached objective analysis as westerners do, they stress that we learn by participation in the lives of other people as well as in nature (through working in the fields and forests or herding animals). Life is relational. And that includes participating in the divine nature of God, the creator of all that is. God came into the fragility of humanity (where life is threatened by powerful forces we have little power over) in order to redeem us and ultimately deliver us from our vulnerability. The incarnation exposed God to the vulnerability of being a helpless baby, a country rabbi, and a condemned malefactor. Thus God is able to provide all we need until we share his glory in the resurrection to come. Our humanity is no barrier between us and God but is rather the vehicle by which we come to share in God’s divine nature. In Him we live and move and have our being!
This is another example of how we can learn from another cultural perspective and enrich our understanding of the life God has given us.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch….
It’s 5 am Thursday January 5. A voice in the wilderness calls from the next room. “Brother Jim? I canna find me torrrch and there’s no power. Can you help me?”
My trusty shake and bake flash at the ready, we stumble downstairs. “George,” says I, “we are like the foolish virgins—we forgot to get oil and trim our lamps!” “Aye, you are spot on, brother,” says he.
George remembered there were two candles on the coffee table. “Do we even have matches?” I tell him where they are in the kitchen. So that’s a start. We unwrap the shrink-package from the brand new hurricane lanterns and go to the porch to pour in some kerosene. Soon we have two lanterns aglow.
But there’s no power and George is preaching chapel today, hoping to use PowerPoint. Plan B?
So it’s a cold shave and shower today. No tea either as the pot is electric. Thankfully, Kim Okesson gave us some hard boiled eggs yesterday.
So I’m up stairs doing Bodylastics exercise. George is in the lav singing from the Messiah the aria “The People Who Walk in Darkness Have Seen a Great Light.” So I join in a bit. In these concrete houses we sound like a couple of basso profundos at the Met.
As I said, it’s always an adventure with Jolly George—Dr Mitchell the Glaswegian scholar.
Wednesday, January 03, 2007
Sleeping Alone
Sleeping lone in a new house in a strange land is new one for me. My to-be-housemate is still in Scotland, snuggled tight in his bed while visions of sugar plums dance in his head. No one has ever stayed here in this four bedroom, three bath house, perfumed with the taint of fresh concrete and enamel paint. It’s 1:30 at night. Spreading the netting over the bed, I’m too tired to care about ghosts or goblins. Using my “shake and shine” no-batteries flashlight, I flip of the bare bulb ceiling light and shove off to dreamland.
Seven hours later the cry of the Ibis jolts me awake. Tuesday, January 02, and no classes. This is shake-down day. No rush—I’ll just steal a few more winks. Soon it’s nine and I haul myself out of bed. A good sleep is the best cure for jetlag. Sleepily I switch on the water heater and go down to raid the brand new fridge. Milk and passion fruit juice – that’s nice. Open the brand new cupboard. A brand new set of dishes for four. Granola and Wheetabix and bread for the brand new toaster. Open a shrink wrapped set of brand new silverware. Do up the dishes in a brand new sink with a brand new bottle of detergent. You get the picture. I’ll wait another day to try out the brand new stove, coffee maker and teapot.
At 10 Gregg Okesson gives me the tour of campus. (He is a grandson of Cecil Petrie and his late wife Victoria who WCC supported since the 1960s until their retirement. Cecil grew up in Lowell and served in Tanzania when it was Tanganyika)
I try to remember the names of families in the faculty houses. Some are the same as ten years ago. But most are new to me. I am glad to learn that Scott has its largest and best-trained faculty ever with 70% nationals. The library building is under expansion, incorporating several seminar rooms and large multi-media lecture hall. Two faculty houses has been converted—one to a faculty office complex and the other to a medical clinic, now served by a staff member with some medical training short of MD.
Actually the national ministry of education on a certification visit asked, “how can you be a leading university and have no clinic and a shortage of faculty offices?” Scott Theological College, though only having 130 students is one of only three colleges in Kenya to have a full accreditation from the government. And it is the only Christian college in that number. Small, yes, but on the cutting edge. So thanks to our computer team for boosting them into the tech era—and to many other churches that have sent money to make good things happen here. Under Gregg’s deanship Scott is soon to become the first to dive into web-based education here in Kenya.
But we’ll talk about that later. Now it’s on to the scramble to get an updated syllabus ready in time for classes tomorrow. John Kimani adjusts the setting on my laptop so I can get email from home.
Students are straggling in. Warm “karibu” from those who were year two years ago, not to mention the many faculty and staff who are so welcoming. Makes me feel at home.
After supper at Karen and John Bonnell’s (more Wheaton graduates!) we head for home. “Forgot my torch,” says George. “Me, too,” says I. So we pick our way through the darkness the 300 yards. No sooner am I in the house when I remember I needed to borrow some AC/DC adapters and I head back, this time with my flashlight. What’s that sound? Sprinkles, too. Better grab my folding umbrella before I dash back to Bonnell’s.
The return trip this time gets me in the teeth of a gale pelting down big gum-drops of rain. What good is this doll-sized folding umbrella? Three short minutes across the green and I in—soaked in sneakers and slacks up to my waist!
But that’s why things are so green this year. Usually the November rains are over before Christmas. But not this season. Rain most days. Rained all day Christmas, I’m told. So there should be good crops. That means less hunger for the country poor who try to raise what they can. Poverty here is a big problem. It’s even worse in drier areas and in neighboring Tanzania where many eat once a day and not much at that. Gregg tells of visiting people in areas where the nearest road is many miles away. A village they lived seemed almost urban even though it was 6 hours to the nearest small city where you could actually buy stuff and visit a doctor.
Maybe if I go to the local golf course there will be grass on the “greens.” I kid you not. I played there once 10 years ago. You need caddy, not to carry your rented bag of 5 clubs, but to find your ball in the weeds and bushes. No mowing here except by the odd wandering cow or goat. And the cup is in the middle a square of dirt that is raked free of weeds—to some extent. After a few holes in the baking sun you are ready for the “19th” hole and something at least liquid even if not green.
Although in Kenya sometimes that is green, too.
Seven hours later the cry of the Ibis jolts me awake. Tuesday, January 02, and no classes. This is shake-down day. No rush—I’ll just steal a few more winks. Soon it’s nine and I haul myself out of bed. A good sleep is the best cure for jetlag. Sleepily I switch on the water heater and go down to raid the brand new fridge. Milk and passion fruit juice – that’s nice. Open the brand new cupboard. A brand new set of dishes for four. Granola and Wheetabix and bread for the brand new toaster. Open a shrink wrapped set of brand new silverware. Do up the dishes in a brand new sink with a brand new bottle of detergent. You get the picture. I’ll wait another day to try out the brand new stove, coffee maker and teapot.
At 10 Gregg Okesson gives me the tour of campus. (He is a grandson of Cecil Petrie and his late wife Victoria who WCC supported since the 1960s until their retirement. Cecil grew up in Lowell and served in Tanzania when it was Tanganyika)
I try to remember the names of families in the faculty houses. Some are the same as ten years ago. But most are new to me. I am glad to learn that Scott has its largest and best-trained faculty ever with 70% nationals. The library building is under expansion, incorporating several seminar rooms and large multi-media lecture hall. Two faculty houses has been converted—one to a faculty office complex and the other to a medical clinic, now served by a staff member with some medical training short of MD.
Actually the national ministry of education on a certification visit asked, “how can you be a leading university and have no clinic and a shortage of faculty offices?” Scott Theological College, though only having 130 students is one of only three colleges in Kenya to have a full accreditation from the government. And it is the only Christian college in that number. Small, yes, but on the cutting edge. So thanks to our computer team for boosting them into the tech era—and to many other churches that have sent money to make good things happen here. Under Gregg’s deanship Scott is soon to become the first to dive into web-based education here in Kenya.
But we’ll talk about that later. Now it’s on to the scramble to get an updated syllabus ready in time for classes tomorrow. John Kimani adjusts the setting on my laptop so I can get email from home.
Students are straggling in. Warm “karibu” from those who were year two years ago, not to mention the many faculty and staff who are so welcoming. Makes me feel at home.
After supper at Karen and John Bonnell’s (more Wheaton graduates!) we head for home. “Forgot my torch,” says George. “Me, too,” says I. So we pick our way through the darkness the 300 yards. No sooner am I in the house when I remember I needed to borrow some AC/DC adapters and I head back, this time with my flashlight. What’s that sound? Sprinkles, too. Better grab my folding umbrella before I dash back to Bonnell’s.
The return trip this time gets me in the teeth of a gale pelting down big gum-drops of rain. What good is this doll-sized folding umbrella? Three short minutes across the green and I in—soaked in sneakers and slacks up to my waist!
But that’s why things are so green this year. Usually the November rains are over before Christmas. But not this season. Rain most days. Rained all day Christmas, I’m told. So there should be good crops. That means less hunger for the country poor who try to raise what they can. Poverty here is a big problem. It’s even worse in drier areas and in neighboring Tanzania where many eat once a day and not much at that. Gregg tells of visiting people in areas where the nearest road is many miles away. A village they lived seemed almost urban even though it was 6 hours to the nearest small city where you could actually buy stuff and visit a doctor.
Maybe if I go to the local golf course there will be grass on the “greens.” I kid you not. I played there once 10 years ago. You need caddy, not to carry your rented bag of 5 clubs, but to find your ball in the weeds and bushes. No mowing here except by the odd wandering cow or goat. And the cup is in the middle a square of dirt that is raked free of weeds—to some extent. After a few holes in the baking sun you are ready for the “19th” hole and something at least liquid even if not green.
Although in Kenya sometimes that is green, too.
Happy New Year
Happy New Year, Mrs. Calabash—wherever you are….
Six miles above the Lybian Desert I find it odd to be working on a computer. This Dell is a laptop on loan from Northern Essex Community College. And let me tell you, it is really excited to be up here with all the other elite laptops—in Africa, no less! It really enjoyed the inflight movie, too. “Cars.” It’s already begging me to take it to India next fall.
The first day of this journey (don’t you like the way the British always say “journey?” sounds so much classier than “trip!”) and no wardrobe malfunction yet. Probably that’s because I’ve been watching for it. It will get me when I’m off guard—like when I’m preaching in chapel next week.
Good thing, too. You see, I’m wearing my new Christmas shirt: RED. I wasn’t going to risk it on this long voyage. But then I figured red is part of the Kenyan flag, along with black and a bit of green and white. Maybe that will smooth my way by the customs guys in Nairobi. Not that I’ve ever had them look at anything before, But a little color psychology never hurt, hence my red shirt and my black slacks. If they question me on anything at customs, I’ve got my line at the ready. “They tell us we all came from Africa originally…. So I’m just coming home for a few days.” Think that’ll work?
Reminds me of Dr. Tim Tennent (GCTS world missions professor) telling me how on one trip he was tired (journey, I mean) of waiting in the customs line at Delhi’s Indira Gandhi airport. Seeing the “India Citizens Only” line empty, he went there. “This for Indians!” he was told. He replied in Hindi, “But India is the mother of us all!” The official smiled as he stamped the passport and waved Tim through.
On the leg from Boston to Heathrow I’m sitting in an aisle seat trying to eat my meal of Beef Broulaise, having some tea with my slice of pie. Pretty cramped as you likely know. So just when I have tea in aisle side hand, a big fat lady comes by and knocks my elbow. Yep—you guessed it. Tea all over the tray table, sloshing a little on my RED shirt! I am ready to cry! All day I have been happily humming that old song from the 50s—“All I Want for Christmas is My New Red Shirt.”
Fortunately, doubtless by some angelic intervention, this male actually had folded out a napkin (serviette here in Europe) so that most of it got absorbed. Most, not all. A little wash-up in the lav and I’m good to go, just a small damp spot by my belt that will dry in a flash in these dehydration tubes they call airliners. Ellie would have been proud!
So now I’m on the Kenya leg and am waving at Colonel Ghadaffi, a new-found friend of the USA, (once he saw that he has better chances of getting Lybia out of poverty by aligning with the west rather than sticking with his Arab brothers. As I look out the window it’s just sand dunes forever down there. No towns. No hamlets. No nuttin’. Maybe scorpions and such like. Wave after wave of silica. (I think that’s where they filmed the Holy Family fleeing to Egypt in the “Nativity” film—certainly not the Sinai Peninsula.)
I’m praying for the Muslim world. It’s a world that thinks it has the final truth about everything. We need to pray for them. Truth is, they have very little understanding of science, theology, their own” history, or even the Koran itself. I believe God is now taking the great risk of stirring the world scene so that the truth has a chance to come to the surface. I hope to contribute to that in a tiny way with my online World Religions course this spring semester.
But I know it’s hard to get people to think about things that may challenge their present worldview.
I read once that the eminent atheist philosopher Bertrand Russell (who wrote “Why I Am Not a Christian” back in the 1920s) telling how he was giving a lecture about the modern scientific worldview and how the earth spins in space in tune with the law of gravitation. In the questions that followed his lecture, a formidable British woman opined that his theory was ridiculous. “What does the world rest on?” she demanded. He asked her what her view of it was. “It’s balanced on the back a great turtle,” she replied smugly. “And what does the turtle rest on?” he queried, thinking he had her on the verge of defeat. “O no you don’t, young man!” she bristled. “I see where you are going with that question—it’s turtles all the way down!”
Six miles above the Lybian Desert I find it odd to be working on a computer. This Dell is a laptop on loan from Northern Essex Community College. And let me tell you, it is really excited to be up here with all the other elite laptops—in Africa, no less! It really enjoyed the inflight movie, too. “Cars.” It’s already begging me to take it to India next fall.
The first day of this journey (don’t you like the way the British always say “journey?” sounds so much classier than “trip!”) and no wardrobe malfunction yet. Probably that’s because I’ve been watching for it. It will get me when I’m off guard—like when I’m preaching in chapel next week.
Good thing, too. You see, I’m wearing my new Christmas shirt: RED. I wasn’t going to risk it on this long voyage. But then I figured red is part of the Kenyan flag, along with black and a bit of green and white. Maybe that will smooth my way by the customs guys in Nairobi. Not that I’ve ever had them look at anything before, But a little color psychology never hurt, hence my red shirt and my black slacks. If they question me on anything at customs, I’ve got my line at the ready. “They tell us we all came from Africa originally…. So I’m just coming home for a few days.” Think that’ll work?
Reminds me of Dr. Tim Tennent (GCTS world missions professor) telling me how on one trip he was tired (journey, I mean) of waiting in the customs line at Delhi’s Indira Gandhi airport. Seeing the “India Citizens Only” line empty, he went there. “This for Indians!” he was told. He replied in Hindi, “But India is the mother of us all!” The official smiled as he stamped the passport and waved Tim through.
On the leg from Boston to Heathrow I’m sitting in an aisle seat trying to eat my meal of Beef Broulaise, having some tea with my slice of pie. Pretty cramped as you likely know. So just when I have tea in aisle side hand, a big fat lady comes by and knocks my elbow. Yep—you guessed it. Tea all over the tray table, sloshing a little on my RED shirt! I am ready to cry! All day I have been happily humming that old song from the 50s—“All I Want for Christmas is My New Red Shirt.”
Fortunately, doubtless by some angelic intervention, this male actually had folded out a napkin (serviette here in Europe) so that most of it got absorbed. Most, not all. A little wash-up in the lav and I’m good to go, just a small damp spot by my belt that will dry in a flash in these dehydration tubes they call airliners. Ellie would have been proud!
So now I’m on the Kenya leg and am waving at Colonel Ghadaffi, a new-found friend of the USA, (once he saw that he has better chances of getting Lybia out of poverty by aligning with the west rather than sticking with his Arab brothers. As I look out the window it’s just sand dunes forever down there. No towns. No hamlets. No nuttin’. Maybe scorpions and such like. Wave after wave of silica. (I think that’s where they filmed the Holy Family fleeing to Egypt in the “Nativity” film—certainly not the Sinai Peninsula.)
I’m praying for the Muslim world. It’s a world that thinks it has the final truth about everything. We need to pray for them. Truth is, they have very little understanding of science, theology, their own” history, or even the Koran itself. I believe God is now taking the great risk of stirring the world scene so that the truth has a chance to come to the surface. I hope to contribute to that in a tiny way with my online World Religions course this spring semester.
But I know it’s hard to get people to think about things that may challenge their present worldview.
I read once that the eminent atheist philosopher Bertrand Russell (who wrote “Why I Am Not a Christian” back in the 1920s) telling how he was giving a lecture about the modern scientific worldview and how the earth spins in space in tune with the law of gravitation. In the questions that followed his lecture, a formidable British woman opined that his theory was ridiculous. “What does the world rest on?” she demanded. He asked her what her view of it was. “It’s balanced on the back a great turtle,” she replied smugly. “And what does the turtle rest on?” he queried, thinking he had her on the verge of defeat. “O no you don’t, young man!” she bristled. “I see where you are going with that question—it’s turtles all the way down!”
How the Weather Grinch Stole Christmas
How the Weather Grinch Stole Christmas
I’m so glad someone is reading my BLOG this time. You may be the only one. Can’t say I blame the others. I mean, people who have time to read the mindless meanderings of a troubled mind like mine need to get a life.
I often advise my students with this admonition: “Try to be involved in your own life!”
That may sound like a joke. But you would be surprised how many people are caught up in the lives of celebrities, sports heroes, political bigwigs and so on. So anyway – I’m glad you are reading this at this time. I do not imply that you are a lifeless blob hibernating through the winter of 007
Which reminds me of why I am not loathe to leave New England right now. In Narnia it was forever winter and never Christmas. Well, this season it is forever Christmas and never winter. I mean—advent was weeks ago, Christmas has come and gone, and epiphany will soon be over, and we have had no snow whatsoever. That is disgusting! So I may as well fly off to the summertime just south of the equator in good old Kenya. Scott Theological College is my destination, where I am to teach a “block course” in philosophy. That means it is a between term two weeks where students take one course in triple time.
This is my seventh time doing this, starting in 1993. As you probably know, seven is a great number, biblically speaking. I will shape my course into seven lectures of seven hours each with exams having seven questions and a paper of 777 words. Yes—perfection is my goal!
OK. It’s now one hour before I leave—and we have had an inch of snow. Doesn’t really count for much. Ask any kid around here. Besides, why waste snow when it’s not a school day? “If snow means a day off….”
Except for me, the perfessor. Teaching online as I do, there has to be a major meltdown of infrastructure for me to get an extra day off. But then, I no longer chew my nails when December final exams come and a teacher prays for no snow because there’s only five days to get your fall grades in before Christmas.
Ooops! Here is Jim Herrick, with Helen and Zach, taking me to Logan before they head off to First Night in Beantown. Boston had the first First Night. Now they are all over the country! I wonder if I’ll be able to see the ice sculptures on the Boston Common when I take off tonight.
And do they have fireworks in Nova Scotia? My only hope of seeing them from aloft. I will meet the New Year half-way across the Atlantic.
See ya…….
LATER. 40 minutes to Logan – no traffic to speak of. Jim & Zack wave goodbye. Every time I am left at Logan’s curb my mind zips instantly to “have I left something crucial behind?” No – I have my passport, my ticket (just some paper I printed out at home saying I have electronic tickets. Not too reassuring to a guy who grew up on those stiff cards with zillions of codes all over them that you had to go to grad school to decipher.
Anyway, I struggle (a big bag and a box to check, plus a bulging carryon and a laptop) to the ticket counter. Seems like I was in the zigzag line quite a while. But a glance at my watch tells me it is barely 6 pm and I am next in the check-in queue. Big bag is 61.5 lbs; box is 24 lbs. All the bags move on conveyor belts, so the near-retirement lady checking my ticket doesn’t have to lift a thing! She tells me that sometime in February the weight limit drops from 70 lbs. to 50 lbs.
Next is the ex-ray machine. “Take laptops out of case and place in a grey bin. Have your passport and boarding pass ready. Place shoes, belts, and pocket items in a bin.” I’m clean. I’m happy. I didn’t even have to take off my glasses. (O, that’s right. I don’t wear glasses anymore. Got tired of them and I’m doing all right. Saving on lens cleaner, too. And blinking cleans your eye in snow and rain a lot quicker than a hand can clean glasses.) I MADE IT. Now I can relax. It’s too late to second-guess anything now. I have what I have—no turning back. Sort of like the Wise Men when they got to the edge of Syria. “The King’s going to get the gift I packed; we just passed the last Wal*Mart.” So Jim Jetstafson is safe in the arms of the airline industry for the next 20 hours.
So I pass the time until boarding by transferring all data from my 2006 date book to the 2007 edition. Five hours before the ball drops at Times Square and I’m already to good to go. I’ll just sit here at the food court until boarding time. I hear the girls at the McDonald’s talking about when they get off and how they’ll shower and head out for the festivities.
Lord, I pray, keep us all in your care on this a most dangerous night of the year. May it be so for you and yours.
I’m so glad someone is reading my BLOG this time. You may be the only one. Can’t say I blame the others. I mean, people who have time to read the mindless meanderings of a troubled mind like mine need to get a life.
I often advise my students with this admonition: “Try to be involved in your own life!”
That may sound like a joke. But you would be surprised how many people are caught up in the lives of celebrities, sports heroes, political bigwigs and so on. So anyway – I’m glad you are reading this at this time. I do not imply that you are a lifeless blob hibernating through the winter of 007
Which reminds me of why I am not loathe to leave New England right now. In Narnia it was forever winter and never Christmas. Well, this season it is forever Christmas and never winter. I mean—advent was weeks ago, Christmas has come and gone, and epiphany will soon be over, and we have had no snow whatsoever. That is disgusting! So I may as well fly off to the summertime just south of the equator in good old Kenya. Scott Theological College is my destination, where I am to teach a “block course” in philosophy. That means it is a between term two weeks where students take one course in triple time.
This is my seventh time doing this, starting in 1993. As you probably know, seven is a great number, biblically speaking. I will shape my course into seven lectures of seven hours each with exams having seven questions and a paper of 777 words. Yes—perfection is my goal!
OK. It’s now one hour before I leave—and we have had an inch of snow. Doesn’t really count for much. Ask any kid around here. Besides, why waste snow when it’s not a school day? “If snow means a day off….”
Except for me, the perfessor. Teaching online as I do, there has to be a major meltdown of infrastructure for me to get an extra day off. But then, I no longer chew my nails when December final exams come and a teacher prays for no snow because there’s only five days to get your fall grades in before Christmas.
Ooops! Here is Jim Herrick, with Helen and Zach, taking me to Logan before they head off to First Night in Beantown. Boston had the first First Night. Now they are all over the country! I wonder if I’ll be able to see the ice sculptures on the Boston Common when I take off tonight.
And do they have fireworks in Nova Scotia? My only hope of seeing them from aloft. I will meet the New Year half-way across the Atlantic.
See ya…….
LATER. 40 minutes to Logan – no traffic to speak of. Jim & Zack wave goodbye. Every time I am left at Logan’s curb my mind zips instantly to “have I left something crucial behind?” No – I have my passport, my ticket (just some paper I printed out at home saying I have electronic tickets. Not too reassuring to a guy who grew up on those stiff cards with zillions of codes all over them that you had to go to grad school to decipher.
Anyway, I struggle (a big bag and a box to check, plus a bulging carryon and a laptop) to the ticket counter. Seems like I was in the zigzag line quite a while. But a glance at my watch tells me it is barely 6 pm and I am next in the check-in queue. Big bag is 61.5 lbs; box is 24 lbs. All the bags move on conveyor belts, so the near-retirement lady checking my ticket doesn’t have to lift a thing! She tells me that sometime in February the weight limit drops from 70 lbs. to 50 lbs.
Next is the ex-ray machine. “Take laptops out of case and place in a grey bin. Have your passport and boarding pass ready. Place shoes, belts, and pocket items in a bin.” I’m clean. I’m happy. I didn’t even have to take off my glasses. (O, that’s right. I don’t wear glasses anymore. Got tired of them and I’m doing all right. Saving on lens cleaner, too. And blinking cleans your eye in snow and rain a lot quicker than a hand can clean glasses.) I MADE IT. Now I can relax. It’s too late to second-guess anything now. I have what I have—no turning back. Sort of like the Wise Men when they got to the edge of Syria. “The King’s going to get the gift I packed; we just passed the last Wal*Mart.” So Jim Jetstafson is safe in the arms of the airline industry for the next 20 hours.
So I pass the time until boarding by transferring all data from my 2006 date book to the 2007 edition. Five hours before the ball drops at Times Square and I’m already to good to go. I’ll just sit here at the food court until boarding time. I hear the girls at the McDonald’s talking about when they get off and how they’ll shower and head out for the festivities.
Lord, I pray, keep us all in your care on this a most dangerous night of the year. May it be so for you and yours.
Saturday, November 11, 2006
Mr. Toad's Wild Ride
Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride
The most gasp-filled hour in road race history might be the hour-long ride to Indira Ghandi International Airport in Delhi. A thousand near misses leaves me exhausted. It is dusk going on night. Highway lights are dim in many places. Some cars and trucks have one or no headlights. And the air is full of dust and smoke. So it was really hard to see the elephant, mahout atop, plodding down a thoroughfare in Delhi! Amazingly, I have never seen cars stopped due to an accident or even a bump or scrape, nor a dead dog, pig, or cow along the road, much less an elephant. (And we think hitting a moose is dangerous—think of hitting an elephant…!)
At the terminal four score taxis and cars are stopping for disembarkation of passengers while others jockey to extricate themselves from the tangle—like a worm trying to get out of a box of night crawlers.
The queue starts on the sidewalk. In ten minutes I am inside the terminal building with my carryon and a big bag that is not nearly so heavy now that I have delivered my colleagues' extra textbooks to the librarian at NTC.
Immediately one is in a second queue. They screen only your checked bags here, right by the front door, putting a white band around each piece that says “Indian Airlines Security Checked Delhi.” OK, one down.
There’s no signage in this huge hall. You have to get close enough to read the TV screen each airline has over each of its check in stations. What the heck – I’ll go left. Wrong! I ask one of the numberless uniformed people where to find Continental. “Back—go back.”
I’ve never seen so many personnel. Soldiers in khaki, some with bamboo-looking batons, others with really old sub-machine guns. And guys in white shirts rounding up the trolleys, which are free for use here. Of course one thing India has is cheap labor more than putting motors in everything. Blue uniform people herding folks to this check-in counter or that. Women in red jackets (Indians like red—it’s in their flag) and navy skirts checking us. “Sir, did you pack your bag yourself? Did anyone give you anything to take? Has it been in your possession?” This drill happens to me twice in twenty minutes. “Do you have anything in your carry-on with batteries?” “O yes, my camera has four AA.” Anything else?” ‘Not that I can think of.” “No cell phone?” “O, yes the cell phone—I haven’t used it since I got to India! Sorry.” “OK. Sir.”
(BTW, in the college in India I am “Sir.” At Northern Essex Community College I am “Who?”)
At the final screening there is no concern for shoes, unlike the USA (probably due to Richard Reid, the would-be shoe bomber). But I dump everything in my pockets into the plastic bin—it’s easier that way. In the queue my turn comes next. I go through the “rose arbor” labeled “Gents” after which one undergoes the wand. Pretty intimate, too. Women go through the ladies’ gate and then behind a modesty screen where a madam supposedly gives her the wand once-over. (I mean, how would I know?) This is so different from the high tech whole body “air puff” scanners you stand in at the new Liberty Airport at Newark.
Now I am at the gate. It is after midnight. We are taking off in a Boeing 777 for non-stop 16 hour flight to Newark. I must say goodbye to India. It’s been a wild ride!
Speaking of saying goodbye, as I was grading finals in the guesthouse the night before I left, a young man came to the hallway. “You don’t remember me, do you?” “Ashish!” I cry, rising to hug this friend I haven’t seen for two years. “Don’t tell me it’s you!”
(BTW—you pronounce his name like a sneeze—or maybe a minced oath, depending on the degree of excitement. My emphasis was definitely the sneeze!)
Ashish is the one I’ve been telling people about for two years. In 2004 Tim Tennent (Gordon-Conwell Seminary prof), Matthew from a church in Topsfield, and I were looking at a map of India so Asheesh (Gesundheit!) could point out the remote mountain area where God was calling him to start a ministry. It was a place with zero Christians—possibly very dangerous. “What do you need from us as you go?” I had asked him. “I want no money. God will provide for me. But please—your prayers.”
So he tells me how God now has blessed the ministry with a school with 64 kids and several teachers. He showed me a video clip on his cell phone of kids reciting the Lord’s Prayer two words at a time—that’s how they start learning English. All from Hindu families who know the emphasis but want their kids to get ahead and learn English, Also he has three churches already—all by prayer and pluck!
Three years ago I had asked Ashish (Gesundheit!) [Sorry this is starting to sound like a Victor Borge routine] about marriage. He is a very good-looking son-of-a-gun. “I don’t think about it,” he had said, “Mom will let me know when she’s found someone.”
Well—BIG NEWS! He is now engaged to Reba, a student I had in my class last year, on December 18.
“You ARE COMING, Dr. G!”
“I wish I could, but no, I won’t be in India then.”
“You MUST come to see us wed—and experience a true Indian ceremony.”
I truly wished I could go—but it’s not exactly a few towns downriver from Haverhill.
He (see how cleverly I avoided the Gesundheit by using the pronoun this time?) calls Reba who is across the driveway in the Women’s Hostel to have her come to the guesthouse.
They are so devoted—you can see it their eyes. I want a photo. I have to ask them to stand closer to close the 18-inch gap between them for a good picture. They manage to inch a bit closer, but not anywhere near touching. Why? This is India! In the USA a couple 5 weeks from marriage would show no daylight at all between them. I doubt Ashish and Reba have ever kissed. I don’t know how they have such discipline in India. But they do—and I admire it.
Well, Mr. Toad, we’ve had a wild ride together.
When I get to Boston I just might find someone at the airport willing to make this toad a prince!
The most gasp-filled hour in road race history might be the hour-long ride to Indira Ghandi International Airport in Delhi. A thousand near misses leaves me exhausted. It is dusk going on night. Highway lights are dim in many places. Some cars and trucks have one or no headlights. And the air is full of dust and smoke. So it was really hard to see the elephant, mahout atop, plodding down a thoroughfare in Delhi! Amazingly, I have never seen cars stopped due to an accident or even a bump or scrape, nor a dead dog, pig, or cow along the road, much less an elephant. (And we think hitting a moose is dangerous—think of hitting an elephant…!)
At the terminal four score taxis and cars are stopping for disembarkation of passengers while others jockey to extricate themselves from the tangle—like a worm trying to get out of a box of night crawlers.
The queue starts on the sidewalk. In ten minutes I am inside the terminal building with my carryon and a big bag that is not nearly so heavy now that I have delivered my colleagues' extra textbooks to the librarian at NTC.
Immediately one is in a second queue. They screen only your checked bags here, right by the front door, putting a white band around each piece that says “Indian Airlines Security Checked Delhi.” OK, one down.
There’s no signage in this huge hall. You have to get close enough to read the TV screen each airline has over each of its check in stations. What the heck – I’ll go left. Wrong! I ask one of the numberless uniformed people where to find Continental. “Back—go back.”
I’ve never seen so many personnel. Soldiers in khaki, some with bamboo-looking batons, others with really old sub-machine guns. And guys in white shirts rounding up the trolleys, which are free for use here. Of course one thing India has is cheap labor more than putting motors in everything. Blue uniform people herding folks to this check-in counter or that. Women in red jackets (Indians like red—it’s in their flag) and navy skirts checking us. “Sir, did you pack your bag yourself? Did anyone give you anything to take? Has it been in your possession?” This drill happens to me twice in twenty minutes. “Do you have anything in your carry-on with batteries?” “O yes, my camera has four AA.” Anything else?” ‘Not that I can think of.” “No cell phone?” “O, yes the cell phone—I haven’t used it since I got to India! Sorry.” “OK. Sir.”
(BTW, in the college in India I am “Sir.” At Northern Essex Community College I am “Who?”)
At the final screening there is no concern for shoes, unlike the USA (probably due to Richard Reid, the would-be shoe bomber). But I dump everything in my pockets into the plastic bin—it’s easier that way. In the queue my turn comes next. I go through the “rose arbor” labeled “Gents” after which one undergoes the wand. Pretty intimate, too. Women go through the ladies’ gate and then behind a modesty screen where a madam supposedly gives her the wand once-over. (I mean, how would I know?) This is so different from the high tech whole body “air puff” scanners you stand in at the new Liberty Airport at Newark.
Now I am at the gate. It is after midnight. We are taking off in a Boeing 777 for non-stop 16 hour flight to Newark. I must say goodbye to India. It’s been a wild ride!
Speaking of saying goodbye, as I was grading finals in the guesthouse the night before I left, a young man came to the hallway. “You don’t remember me, do you?” “Ashish!” I cry, rising to hug this friend I haven’t seen for two years. “Don’t tell me it’s you!”
(BTW—you pronounce his name like a sneeze—or maybe a minced oath, depending on the degree of excitement. My emphasis was definitely the sneeze!)
Ashish is the one I’ve been telling people about for two years. In 2004 Tim Tennent (Gordon-Conwell Seminary prof), Matthew from a church in Topsfield, and I were looking at a map of India so Asheesh (Gesundheit!) could point out the remote mountain area where God was calling him to start a ministry. It was a place with zero Christians—possibly very dangerous. “What do you need from us as you go?” I had asked him. “I want no money. God will provide for me. But please—your prayers.”
So he tells me how God now has blessed the ministry with a school with 64 kids and several teachers. He showed me a video clip on his cell phone of kids reciting the Lord’s Prayer two words at a time—that’s how they start learning English. All from Hindu families who know the emphasis but want their kids to get ahead and learn English, Also he has three churches already—all by prayer and pluck!
Three years ago I had asked Ashish (Gesundheit!) [Sorry this is starting to sound like a Victor Borge routine] about marriage. He is a very good-looking son-of-a-gun. “I don’t think about it,” he had said, “Mom will let me know when she’s found someone.”
Well—BIG NEWS! He is now engaged to Reba, a student I had in my class last year, on December 18.
“You ARE COMING, Dr. G!”
“I wish I could, but no, I won’t be in India then.”
“You MUST come to see us wed—and experience a true Indian ceremony.”
I truly wished I could go—but it’s not exactly a few towns downriver from Haverhill.
He (see how cleverly I avoided the Gesundheit by using the pronoun this time?) calls Reba who is across the driveway in the Women’s Hostel to have her come to the guesthouse.
They are so devoted—you can see it their eyes. I want a photo. I have to ask them to stand closer to close the 18-inch gap between them for a good picture. They manage to inch a bit closer, but not anywhere near touching. Why? This is India! In the USA a couple 5 weeks from marriage would show no daylight at all between them. I doubt Ashish and Reba have ever kissed. I don’t know how they have such discipline in India. But they do—and I admire it.
Well, Mr. Toad, we’ve had a wild ride together.
When I get to Boston I just might find someone at the airport willing to make this toad a prince!
Friday, November 10, 2006
Greater Light
A Greater Light
On this campus in Uttaranchal, north India, the walkway lights go off at 4:45. It is still night and except for the beams from the moon this morning I would have needed my flashlight (one of those “shake and shine” types I sent for on TV) to get down the steps on the paths that circle the campus.
At 5 the bells ring to wake the girls in the women’s hostel nestled safely between the guesthouse and the faculty apartments. The college is supremely in loco parentis here. I slip quietly by to breathe the cool air—probably 62 degrees I would guess. Students keep asking “are you not cold?” My shadow is sharp since the moon is waning but gibbous, several hours from setting. First light timidly approaches the mountains to the east.
By the time I am making my fifth round dawn is beginning to paint the pastel watercolors that will deepen over eastern horizon. I notice my shadow is losing strength. When sunrise comes, even if the disc is hidden behind the mountains for a while, the shadow will fade and disappear.
Another sun arises. “Arise, shine, for thy light has come; and the glory of Lord shines upon thee.” Drawing near in heart to the “Light that has come into the world” the shadows weaken and die. Just as the moon is still there when I search the sky for it, it no longer casts a shadow. The greater light dispels all darkness and shadows of the night.
Today I will walk in the light as He is in the light. I will have fellowship with brothers and sisters here and around the world. I will reflect His light by God’s grace in all I do. I am no longer a child of the shadows, for the sun of righteousness has arisen with healing for me in his wings. I face today with joy and confidence.
Now that the sun has ascended beyond the peaks of the mountains I notice that the quad has billowing tent pavilions, erected during the night. Is a medieval festival coming? Will I see horsemen with lance and armor competing for the fair ones? Soon I see a banner welcoming children in the name of World Vision.
After chapel I will give my seniors their final exam. But at the end of the service (where a senior destined for tent revival ministry preacher—yes—going overtime, giving an altar call for rededication, and just about splitting my ears with 120 decibel punctuation of his text from Hosea chapter 1) Dr. Samuel, Principal, calls me to the platform to thank me for my service with a brightly packaged small (thankfully) gift. I express thanks for the blessings given by this vibrant community of faith, leaving them with a verse from James chapter sever, verse one: “Trials and tests come in the morning, but joy comes at noon.” Everyone laughs except my poor ethics students!
Fast forward>>>
Exams are over. I am snapping photos of the festivities. “Uncle, uncle!” the children cry. I take a picture of some boys near the playground. Then of some girls sitting on the grass having a boxed “Happy Meal.” Soon a jumping swarm of giggles clamors for foto, foto. That’s the trouble with these digitals—they know they can see themselves a few seconds after the click. Now music is sounding. On the banked wall the chapel praise team is tuning up. I get a snap of the students singing a gesture song with about 200 kids. Most classes have been cancelled for the day—save for my accursed final exam.
A young married couple comes to the guesthouse. He is now teaching here, while his wife is one of the assistants to the Registrar. I had been to their house in a nearby village with Dr. Tim Tennent of Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary and one-time interim preaching pastor at our church in Haverhill. They have a six-month baby boy. I find it strange that he is unnamed as yet. (I doubt it’s like Kenya, where a child is named after a father figure in hopes is sponsorship for school fees, etc. That has happened to me and to my sister Lois who was a missionary teacher there for 11 years.)
They have come for prayer.
What do you want Jesus to do for you today?
I have severe back pain from childbirth. And an occasional pain the goes from my chest to my back shoulder. I want for you to pray for me.
Do you want me to anoint you according to James 5?
So I explain that there is no oil. OK, you can use a few molecules of butter from the kitchen. So I pray according to God’s will that Jesus will heal her.
Her husband also praises God for deliverance from a darkness that deepened in his life since his father’s death last spring (detailed in a previous Blog) and asks for a sponsor so he can go for his higher degree in two years when the college can release him. He is so humble, so gifted, so worthy. I will pray his needs will be met at the right time.
As they go I give them some snacks I don’t need for their kids. And encourage her to find a doctor to find out her shoulder problem. Someone told her it might need a muscle relaxant. And she said she had had a spinal shot for the birth. I tell her agonizing the aftermath was for my wife when the doctor used a spinal block when our Rachel came into the world.
We part, our faces glowing with the joy of our God.
The greater light! The greater light!
On this campus in Uttaranchal, north India, the walkway lights go off at 4:45. It is still night and except for the beams from the moon this morning I would have needed my flashlight (one of those “shake and shine” types I sent for on TV) to get down the steps on the paths that circle the campus.
At 5 the bells ring to wake the girls in the women’s hostel nestled safely between the guesthouse and the faculty apartments. The college is supremely in loco parentis here. I slip quietly by to breathe the cool air—probably 62 degrees I would guess. Students keep asking “are you not cold?” My shadow is sharp since the moon is waning but gibbous, several hours from setting. First light timidly approaches the mountains to the east.
By the time I am making my fifth round dawn is beginning to paint the pastel watercolors that will deepen over eastern horizon. I notice my shadow is losing strength. When sunrise comes, even if the disc is hidden behind the mountains for a while, the shadow will fade and disappear.
Another sun arises. “Arise, shine, for thy light has come; and the glory of Lord shines upon thee.” Drawing near in heart to the “Light that has come into the world” the shadows weaken and die. Just as the moon is still there when I search the sky for it, it no longer casts a shadow. The greater light dispels all darkness and shadows of the night.
Today I will walk in the light as He is in the light. I will have fellowship with brothers and sisters here and around the world. I will reflect His light by God’s grace in all I do. I am no longer a child of the shadows, for the sun of righteousness has arisen with healing for me in his wings. I face today with joy and confidence.
Now that the sun has ascended beyond the peaks of the mountains I notice that the quad has billowing tent pavilions, erected during the night. Is a medieval festival coming? Will I see horsemen with lance and armor competing for the fair ones? Soon I see a banner welcoming children in the name of World Vision.
After chapel I will give my seniors their final exam. But at the end of the service (where a senior destined for tent revival ministry preacher—yes—going overtime, giving an altar call for rededication, and just about splitting my ears with 120 decibel punctuation of his text from Hosea chapter 1) Dr. Samuel, Principal, calls me to the platform to thank me for my service with a brightly packaged small (thankfully) gift. I express thanks for the blessings given by this vibrant community of faith, leaving them with a verse from James chapter sever, verse one: “Trials and tests come in the morning, but joy comes at noon.” Everyone laughs except my poor ethics students!
Fast forward>>>
Exams are over. I am snapping photos of the festivities. “Uncle, uncle!” the children cry. I take a picture of some boys near the playground. Then of some girls sitting on the grass having a boxed “Happy Meal.” Soon a jumping swarm of giggles clamors for foto, foto. That’s the trouble with these digitals—they know they can see themselves a few seconds after the click. Now music is sounding. On the banked wall the chapel praise team is tuning up. I get a snap of the students singing a gesture song with about 200 kids. Most classes have been cancelled for the day—save for my accursed final exam.
A young married couple comes to the guesthouse. He is now teaching here, while his wife is one of the assistants to the Registrar. I had been to their house in a nearby village with Dr. Tim Tennent of Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary and one-time interim preaching pastor at our church in Haverhill. They have a six-month baby boy. I find it strange that he is unnamed as yet. (I doubt it’s like Kenya, where a child is named after a father figure in hopes is sponsorship for school fees, etc. That has happened to me and to my sister Lois who was a missionary teacher there for 11 years.)
They have come for prayer.
What do you want Jesus to do for you today?
I have severe back pain from childbirth. And an occasional pain the goes from my chest to my back shoulder. I want for you to pray for me.
Do you want me to anoint you according to James 5?
So I explain that there is no oil. OK, you can use a few molecules of butter from the kitchen. So I pray according to God’s will that Jesus will heal her.
Her husband also praises God for deliverance from a darkness that deepened in his life since his father’s death last spring (detailed in a previous Blog) and asks for a sponsor so he can go for his higher degree in two years when the college can release him. He is so humble, so gifted, so worthy. I will pray his needs will be met at the right time.
As they go I give them some snacks I don’t need for their kids. And encourage her to find a doctor to find out her shoulder problem. Someone told her it might need a muscle relaxant. And she said she had had a spinal shot for the birth. I tell her agonizing the aftermath was for my wife when the doctor used a spinal block when our Rachel came into the world.
We part, our faces glowing with the joy of our God.
The greater light! The greater light!
Big Tests
Big Tests
Some say that life is a test. Will I flunk or pass?
Who grades the test? Maybe the grade is given when people stand by the casket and say truthfully what a fine person I am, or speak polite lies about me that everyone knows is BS.
Or maybe the Heavenly Professor is keeping records of our scores in order to compute a final grade before promoting us or demoting us.
Hindus here have a middle view. There is no one to keep score. But something in the universe makes us reap what we sow—no more, no less. So I keep coming back to re-sit the exam (maybe millions of time) until the equation of my actions comes up with the right answer: zero. “Put in all the pluses and minuses of your good and bad actions, and when it comes out zero, you’re done.” Moksha—release from the suffering at last. At that point, just when a westerner would be looking forward to the heavenly holidays in a celestial Hawaii now that he’s passed life’s test and graduated, the Hindu world says I enter an eternal coma. I’m there—but not as me. My drop is lost in the Ocean of the One, whose sound is the relentless “Om.”
Here at the college the students are studying for my exam, as from one born out of time. You see, this is the first two weeks of the term and exams should be far in the future. I am crafting my diabolical questions today! Heh, heh…! No, really – I give the questions ahead of time—they’re complex, as one expects in philosophy. No multiple choice here.
But the preaching class for seniors is taking chapels. And K.J.K. (in India people have no names, just initials) is in the back row with his grading template—sort of like speech class in college. And they speak in English with a colleague translating.
Yesterday a young man (who refused to choose a free tie from the collection Dave Walker brought in his traveling thrift shop, since he already had a tie—one—a single tie. Since he can only wear one at a time, let another student take it) in his bright shirt, tie and jacket, called on his buddies to start off with a skit. A bunch of money-grubbing guys come to the temple to cheat the backwards bumpkins. The Jesus and disciples arrive and drive them out, declaring the temple is house of prayer not a den of robbers.
Nice set-up. He goes on with an exposition of the text, closing with an object lesson. Out comes a glass of water from the back of the pulpit. In goes some chemical that makes it look yucky. Then another bromide and it turns wine color as the cleansing power of Jesus’ sacrifice starts to work. To my mind, it all broke down there, since he had no chemical to precipitate out the pollutants to make the liquid crystal clear again. I don’t know what grade KJK will give him. But it a nice try—probably an A for ingenuity anyway.
But this morning a girl (oops! I mean young woman) in a canary yellow sari has the service. She is articulate and animated and actually moves the backbenchers. That’s us
faculty—who have heard a thousand sermons. After the benediction, KJK tells me that a few months ago when her turn came to present to the class, she collapsed in tears and couldn’t do it. When she enrolled here a couple of years ago, she spoke NO English. On her second try she stumbled through pathetically. On her third try she did OK. And now today—the final exam—one would think English was her mother tongue. What skillful use of vocabulary. What animated gestures. What sincerity of heart. She will be a powerful communicator. And her text and theme was how we should rejoice when we suffer dishonor for Jesus’ name, just as the early Christians did and as many former students here are now doing in the hostile environment of north India.
Big tests, for sure.
Life is at the least, a test. Hearts need examination. Motives must be sifted. Plus and minus. Wheat and chaff. Gold and stubble.
I hope my Teacher is as pleased in the end with me as KJK is with this unlikely treasure in Public Speaking 101.
Some say that life is a test. Will I flunk or pass?
Who grades the test? Maybe the grade is given when people stand by the casket and say truthfully what a fine person I am, or speak polite lies about me that everyone knows is BS.
Or maybe the Heavenly Professor is keeping records of our scores in order to compute a final grade before promoting us or demoting us.
Hindus here have a middle view. There is no one to keep score. But something in the universe makes us reap what we sow—no more, no less. So I keep coming back to re-sit the exam (maybe millions of time) until the equation of my actions comes up with the right answer: zero. “Put in all the pluses and minuses of your good and bad actions, and when it comes out zero, you’re done.” Moksha—release from the suffering at last. At that point, just when a westerner would be looking forward to the heavenly holidays in a celestial Hawaii now that he’s passed life’s test and graduated, the Hindu world says I enter an eternal coma. I’m there—but not as me. My drop is lost in the Ocean of the One, whose sound is the relentless “Om.”
Here at the college the students are studying for my exam, as from one born out of time. You see, this is the first two weeks of the term and exams should be far in the future. I am crafting my diabolical questions today! Heh, heh…! No, really – I give the questions ahead of time—they’re complex, as one expects in philosophy. No multiple choice here.
But the preaching class for seniors is taking chapels. And K.J.K. (in India people have no names, just initials) is in the back row with his grading template—sort of like speech class in college. And they speak in English with a colleague translating.
Yesterday a young man (who refused to choose a free tie from the collection Dave Walker brought in his traveling thrift shop, since he already had a tie—one—a single tie. Since he can only wear one at a time, let another student take it) in his bright shirt, tie and jacket, called on his buddies to start off with a skit. A bunch of money-grubbing guys come to the temple to cheat the backwards bumpkins. The Jesus and disciples arrive and drive them out, declaring the temple is house of prayer not a den of robbers.
Nice set-up. He goes on with an exposition of the text, closing with an object lesson. Out comes a glass of water from the back of the pulpit. In goes some chemical that makes it look yucky. Then another bromide and it turns wine color as the cleansing power of Jesus’ sacrifice starts to work. To my mind, it all broke down there, since he had no chemical to precipitate out the pollutants to make the liquid crystal clear again. I don’t know what grade KJK will give him. But it a nice try—probably an A for ingenuity anyway.
But this morning a girl (oops! I mean young woman) in a canary yellow sari has the service. She is articulate and animated and actually moves the backbenchers. That’s us
faculty—who have heard a thousand sermons. After the benediction, KJK tells me that a few months ago when her turn came to present to the class, she collapsed in tears and couldn’t do it. When she enrolled here a couple of years ago, she spoke NO English. On her second try she stumbled through pathetically. On her third try she did OK. And now today—the final exam—one would think English was her mother tongue. What skillful use of vocabulary. What animated gestures. What sincerity of heart. She will be a powerful communicator. And her text and theme was how we should rejoice when we suffer dishonor for Jesus’ name, just as the early Christians did and as many former students here are now doing in the hostile environment of north India.
Big tests, for sure.
Life is at the least, a test. Hearts need examination. Motives must be sifted. Plus and minus. Wheat and chaff. Gold and stubble.
I hope my Teacher is as pleased in the end with me as KJK is with this unlikely treasure in Public Speaking 101.
Too Much Time
Too Much Time on My Hands
One the things (dangerous thought it may be) I enjoy about going on these trips is that my fancy takes its flight. My friend, Bill Hopkins, likes to hear my outside-the-box thoughts, but, being a practical man who actually fixes and maintains things that relate to the real world—heavy machinery—says that his job in our friendship is to hold firmly onto my feet. He is fearful that I will rise like a hot-air balloon and wander forever in the clouds.
While I am occupied steadily here with the ethics course and with reading new books and supervising the 6th edition of The Quest for Truth (soon to be published here in India), I do have an environment in which new thoughts—or old thoughts revisited—can dance like sugar plums in my head. (A little musical allusion there—Nutcracker by Tchaikovsky, in case you missed it.)
Noting the vitality of the new churches being started by NTC graduates here, I note how good it is that they have not yet grown top-heavy. I say not yet because it is the nature of energetic enterprises birthed at great sacrifice eventually to become structures to maintain. A bureaucracy grows up around it that requires maintenance. And over time we have a sluggish and top-heavy monument trying to preserve, usually unsuccessfully, the vibrancy of previous years.
This certainly has happened thousands of times in the history of the People of the Way of Jesus. And there is nothing wrong with organization and structure. In fact it is essential and valuable. But as someone mentioned about governments, bureaucracies have a way of justifying their own needs until they kill the host upon which they feed (a bit of biological allusion there, in case you missed it). I have observed this—in my own brief lifetime—in the history of congregationalism, where a top-brass elite, ever-further removed from the people,e spends resources on things that the people do not want (or would not want if they knew the truth about it) and that does not feed the true purpose of the congregations. Fearing now that dark days are coming upon the church—the evangelical church—in our nation, am I wrong in guessing (am I no prophet nor the son of a prophet) that the day of the “successful” church is waning?
Even here in India the news of the latest big name scandal among evangelicals is noised abroad. The damage of personal sinning among those who should know they “will be judged by a stricter standard” is immeasurable. Bringing shame to our Lord’s name is close to unforgivable. So what enables people like this? One (but not the only, I know) cause is that we have forsaken humble holiness for the lure of being power brokers in the world system. We know from two millennia of our history that every one of us needs someone to hold us accountable. The saints of the early church, the medieval church, and the reformed church knew this. The Apostles taught this. The preachers preach it. It is thus inexplicable that the leaders of a congregation do not demand that people who represent the congregation—its public face—submit to accountability.
Big churches. Big budgets. Big bucks. Big temptations. I wish there were a lay council in every church to probe its pastors and teachers on possible hidden sins. I picture the future as one where smaller congregations—perhaps joining forces for special programs that need critical mass—become the wave of the future. Why do people flock to large churches and mega-churches? I suspect that many (not all) of them go for what is really entertainment value. Better music, preaching, worship space. And perhaps even for anonymity. Do we unconsciously adopt the reigning ethos of our day: better to look good than be good? And one result is that pastors get to hide behind their persona so that they insulate themselves from careful examination of the soul in the presence of “confessors.”
Have any of us really done what is costly? Confession (commanded in the New Testament) is one of those costly requirements for those how are walking in the Way. Why is this so rare in our communities of faith today?
Have we ever had to walk by faith in any significant way?
Lord, do what you know it will take to take us deeper. So often we are more hearers of your words than doers.
Trim our church apparatus. Help us to shrink our professional overhead and develop and use the gifts of the laity. Show more how they can be bi-vocational ministers, just as St. Paul was. The world is on the edge of doom and we are prettying up our suites on Titanic Earth.
“Hey, Bill! Pull me down! The oxygen is thin up here and it’s making me a Jeremiah—which I surely do not want!”
Whew—that was close….
O! Here’s another thought that comes when you have too much time on your hands. Do you recall the account of Mary sitting at the feet of Rabbi Jesus? You know the reason why she was there instead of helping with the work? She was weaker than Martha, that’s why. It was Martha who greeted the guests and made them comfortable. It was she who ventured out when her brother Lazarus had died to meet Jesus and his party when they approached Bethany. Meanwhile, Mary weeps or sits dreamily at Jesus’ feet to gain strength from him. “She has chosen the better part,” Jesus said, rebuking Martha. But why was it better? Because Mary needed reassurance. She was not a take-charge type that knows what to do and how to do it. Martha recognized Jesus as Messiah and believed he could save every situation. So she went about using her gift of hospitality. While Mary found what she needed. They were a matched pair. I don’t think there is any basis for judging either of them harshly. You people who say “Someone around here has got to tend the store!” need to know you are valued. Without you, the Marys of the world would have no chance to sit at the Master’s feet.
“What does that have to do with anything,” you ask? Wait a minute – I didn’t know ideas had to be connected. This is a blog, not a philosophy essay! (You want essays? See my other blog sites.)
Item: Ajit came to see me last night at the Guest House. (Dave Walker, my missionary housemate, has more drop-bys than I do. But then, he is the color man around here—just going into rooms when there is a free period and asking if they want him to fill the time. The entire class stays—every time! He holds them spell-bound and they come for private advice.) Ajit is a vibrant, earnest early-twenties guy—so happy he is going to graduate in March and start as associate pastor at a church hear his home district. He comes from a solidly middle-class Hindu family, who wanted him to be a doctor. And he has enough smarts, no question. They have cast him out of the family since he gave his life to Christ. But he is happy to suffer for the one who suffered so for his rescue. He plies me with many questions about how to be a good pastor. He already loves the people there so much. He wants to show them how to be co-ministers with him—to visit the sick and the poor in their afflictions and to reach out to Hindus and Muslims. He says his goal is to write a book a year. But his plan is this. Gather a dozen people for weekly Bible study and encourage them to probe his teaching on a Bible book and then to put it to use. Then he can compile into a sort of collaborative Bible commentary. Naturally, I affirm his desire. Then he starts asking about marriage. “What qualities does a pastor require in a wife?” Well that’s right down my alley. I have a lot of wisdom in theory and lots of blessing in experience on that one.
Then he asks about a man on campus that has his sights on a girl who comes from a higher socio-economic station and he doesn’t know if it is proper to seek her hand. Besides, she is several years younger than he and at NTC long after he graduates. How can we advise this man? After pointing out a few obvious cautions for to use to advise this friend, he tells me “I am that man! I believe God has shown me this classmate is to be my wife!”
Hoo-boy…! Breathe deep here.
Ajit quickly comes to see that he needs to give her space to search her own heart. She must come to it on her own. (Well, I’ve counseled people before in that kind of situation. But usually in vain.) To my delight he says that he will not push but will wait for her to make an approach to him, since she knows how he feels about her already. “If she comes, then I know God is in it. If not, I will know God is not in it.
Bingo! I assure him that in this way he walks by faith. He will see ten years from now how the right path was already planned for him and he will have no regrets—no matter how it turns out.
Amazing. The guy with too much time on his hands actually made a difference in the real world—helping fix something so the real world is a little less broken.
Thanks, Bill. I know you were holding my rope and gently bringing me back to planet Earth.
One the things (dangerous thought it may be) I enjoy about going on these trips is that my fancy takes its flight. My friend, Bill Hopkins, likes to hear my outside-the-box thoughts, but, being a practical man who actually fixes and maintains things that relate to the real world—heavy machinery—says that his job in our friendship is to hold firmly onto my feet. He is fearful that I will rise like a hot-air balloon and wander forever in the clouds.
While I am occupied steadily here with the ethics course and with reading new books and supervising the 6th edition of The Quest for Truth (soon to be published here in India), I do have an environment in which new thoughts—or old thoughts revisited—can dance like sugar plums in my head. (A little musical allusion there—Nutcracker by Tchaikovsky, in case you missed it.)
Noting the vitality of the new churches being started by NTC graduates here, I note how good it is that they have not yet grown top-heavy. I say not yet because it is the nature of energetic enterprises birthed at great sacrifice eventually to become structures to maintain. A bureaucracy grows up around it that requires maintenance. And over time we have a sluggish and top-heavy monument trying to preserve, usually unsuccessfully, the vibrancy of previous years.
This certainly has happened thousands of times in the history of the People of the Way of Jesus. And there is nothing wrong with organization and structure. In fact it is essential and valuable. But as someone mentioned about governments, bureaucracies have a way of justifying their own needs until they kill the host upon which they feed (a bit of biological allusion there, in case you missed it). I have observed this—in my own brief lifetime—in the history of congregationalism, where a top-brass elite, ever-further removed from the people,e spends resources on things that the people do not want (or would not want if they knew the truth about it) and that does not feed the true purpose of the congregations. Fearing now that dark days are coming upon the church—the evangelical church—in our nation, am I wrong in guessing (am I no prophet nor the son of a prophet) that the day of the “successful” church is waning?
Even here in India the news of the latest big name scandal among evangelicals is noised abroad. The damage of personal sinning among those who should know they “will be judged by a stricter standard” is immeasurable. Bringing shame to our Lord’s name is close to unforgivable. So what enables people like this? One (but not the only, I know) cause is that we have forsaken humble holiness for the lure of being power brokers in the world system. We know from two millennia of our history that every one of us needs someone to hold us accountable. The saints of the early church, the medieval church, and the reformed church knew this. The Apostles taught this. The preachers preach it. It is thus inexplicable that the leaders of a congregation do not demand that people who represent the congregation—its public face—submit to accountability.
Big churches. Big budgets. Big bucks. Big temptations. I wish there were a lay council in every church to probe its pastors and teachers on possible hidden sins. I picture the future as one where smaller congregations—perhaps joining forces for special programs that need critical mass—become the wave of the future. Why do people flock to large churches and mega-churches? I suspect that many (not all) of them go for what is really entertainment value. Better music, preaching, worship space. And perhaps even for anonymity. Do we unconsciously adopt the reigning ethos of our day: better to look good than be good? And one result is that pastors get to hide behind their persona so that they insulate themselves from careful examination of the soul in the presence of “confessors.”
Have any of us really done what is costly? Confession (commanded in the New Testament) is one of those costly requirements for those how are walking in the Way. Why is this so rare in our communities of faith today?
Have we ever had to walk by faith in any significant way?
Lord, do what you know it will take to take us deeper. So often we are more hearers of your words than doers.
Trim our church apparatus. Help us to shrink our professional overhead and develop and use the gifts of the laity. Show more how they can be bi-vocational ministers, just as St. Paul was. The world is on the edge of doom and we are prettying up our suites on Titanic Earth.
“Hey, Bill! Pull me down! The oxygen is thin up here and it’s making me a Jeremiah—which I surely do not want!”
Whew—that was close….
O! Here’s another thought that comes when you have too much time on your hands. Do you recall the account of Mary sitting at the feet of Rabbi Jesus? You know the reason why she was there instead of helping with the work? She was weaker than Martha, that’s why. It was Martha who greeted the guests and made them comfortable. It was she who ventured out when her brother Lazarus had died to meet Jesus and his party when they approached Bethany. Meanwhile, Mary weeps or sits dreamily at Jesus’ feet to gain strength from him. “She has chosen the better part,” Jesus said, rebuking Martha. But why was it better? Because Mary needed reassurance. She was not a take-charge type that knows what to do and how to do it. Martha recognized Jesus as Messiah and believed he could save every situation. So she went about using her gift of hospitality. While Mary found what she needed. They were a matched pair. I don’t think there is any basis for judging either of them harshly. You people who say “Someone around here has got to tend the store!” need to know you are valued. Without you, the Marys of the world would have no chance to sit at the Master’s feet.
“What does that have to do with anything,” you ask? Wait a minute – I didn’t know ideas had to be connected. This is a blog, not a philosophy essay! (You want essays? See my other blog sites.)
Item: Ajit came to see me last night at the Guest House. (Dave Walker, my missionary housemate, has more drop-bys than I do. But then, he is the color man around here—just going into rooms when there is a free period and asking if they want him to fill the time. The entire class stays—every time! He holds them spell-bound and they come for private advice.) Ajit is a vibrant, earnest early-twenties guy—so happy he is going to graduate in March and start as associate pastor at a church hear his home district. He comes from a solidly middle-class Hindu family, who wanted him to be a doctor. And he has enough smarts, no question. They have cast him out of the family since he gave his life to Christ. But he is happy to suffer for the one who suffered so for his rescue. He plies me with many questions about how to be a good pastor. He already loves the people there so much. He wants to show them how to be co-ministers with him—to visit the sick and the poor in their afflictions and to reach out to Hindus and Muslims. He says his goal is to write a book a year. But his plan is this. Gather a dozen people for weekly Bible study and encourage them to probe his teaching on a Bible book and then to put it to use. Then he can compile into a sort of collaborative Bible commentary. Naturally, I affirm his desire. Then he starts asking about marriage. “What qualities does a pastor require in a wife?” Well that’s right down my alley. I have a lot of wisdom in theory and lots of blessing in experience on that one.
Then he asks about a man on campus that has his sights on a girl who comes from a higher socio-economic station and he doesn’t know if it is proper to seek her hand. Besides, she is several years younger than he and at NTC long after he graduates. How can we advise this man? After pointing out a few obvious cautions for to use to advise this friend, he tells me “I am that man! I believe God has shown me this classmate is to be my wife!”
Hoo-boy…! Breathe deep here.
Ajit quickly comes to see that he needs to give her space to search her own heart. She must come to it on her own. (Well, I’ve counseled people before in that kind of situation. But usually in vain.) To my delight he says that he will not push but will wait for her to make an approach to him, since she knows how he feels about her already. “If she comes, then I know God is in it. If not, I will know God is not in it.
Bingo! I assure him that in this way he walks by faith. He will see ten years from now how the right path was already planned for him and he will have no regrets—no matter how it turns out.
Amazing. The guy with too much time on his hands actually made a difference in the real world—helping fix something so the real world is a little less broken.
Thanks, Bill. I know you were holding my rope and gently bringing me back to planet Earth.
Monday, November 06, 2006
Day by Day
Here at New Theological College in India, Sunday has a different flavor. Hindus and Muslim workmen are on the job and cities and towns bustle with commerce, while Christians flock to church. And while the Christian community is a small percentage of he population, the census puts India over the 1 billion mark as the world’s most populous nation, resulting in there being a hefty number of those who claim to be followers of Christ.
As dawn emerges lazily through the haze that hugs the mountains, I hear the clear tones of the bell at the Buddhist monastery just over the wall from the Guest House. More distant is the drone of traffic, the everlasting honking of horns, and clatter of machinery. Workmen are putting new Mediterranean red tiles on the office building. But for me, it is day of worship.
I am privileged to be the preacher today. I arrive before 9 o’clock, meditating as people trickle in. Sunday School children occupy front seats facing the main congregation at a right angle. All of us are on plastic chairs such as we put on our patios for summer. By 9 o’clock the 250-seat room is full.
Student musicians take their places: two Yamaha keyboards, a drum set, bongos, plus guitar and bass. Professor Bison presides today. After a song we listen to his comments on Psalm 84. As he reads the text I hear the sublime setting of the text in Brahms’ Requiem: How lovely is thy dwelling place, O Lord of hosts. My soul longs, yea faints, for the courts of the Lord…. Even the sparrow has found her a house and the swallow a nest where she may lay her young, even thine altars, O God. Blessed are those who dwell in thy house ever praising your name.”
I wonder what it was like for the Son of Korah who wrote this Old Testament song of praise, watching birds flying in and out during the sacrifices 3000 years ago in Jerusalem.
Bison has a sweet, gentle air about him. He is Lecturer in Old Testament. An Indian man, with his spiky black hair he appears to have some oriental genes in his ancestry. His homily would be the whole deal back in the states—or even here in mainline denominations. But this community is charismatic—on the sane edge of Pentecostalism. So while there is seldom anything to make me uncomfortable as Calvinistic Congregationalist, I now they are going to give us a three-course meal of spiritual food.
Now comes the serious praise music. 30 minutes of lively singing, switching seamlessly between Hindi and English. While I stand enjoying clapping the rhythms I suddenly realize I can sing the words now—but only for a season. The tempo quickens. The volume rises. Then “at the top of the ascent” it quiets to simultaneous praying from the worshipers while the keyboard plays an ever more quiet background. Part one comes to a close.
Part two features announcements and a call for prayer requests. There are many. I hope someone who is going to be asked to pray is writing them down!
Two late-thirties women from Australia are introduced. They are specialists in disability remediation and are working at the prestigious Buddhist Library and Ashram a few blocks away. (That complex was dedicated a few years back by the Dalai Lama himself! Devotees come from the entire world to spend time in study and meditation—at luxury prices. But the view of the Himalayan foothills here—a mere 8000 feet above sea level make a spectacular venue. And you can come if you have the bucks—it’s not just for Buddhists.)
Now the kids come on stage, adjusting microphones so their squeaky voices can be heard. A few stumble over the cords as their protagonist yanks hers across the 10-foot platform. A plastic chair is set for the boy with a crown, holding a book in his lap: “The Book of Life.” A girl approaches. “I have come to enter heaven.”
You cannot go unless your name is in the Book of Life.
Will you check me, please?
What is your name?
Elise.
Abraham, Moses, David, Jonah….Elise! You may enter now.
Another girl approaches, same theme.
What is your name?
Iska
Mmmmm… I cannot find your name. Angel! Come take her to hell!
No! Oh! It is full of spiders and snakes and is too hot!
(She turns to see Elise going in the other direction.)
Elise, they are taking me to hell. I don’t want. I was good – in fact you did more bad than I did. How do you get to go to heaven?
I confessed and took Jesus as Savior, so they wrote my name in the Book.
Announcer: The moral is, accept Jesus as your personal Savior while there is yet time.
Now is the time for prayer from the brother who wrote down all those requests. He prays for 5 minutes fervently, mentioning each one and also for “Auntie and Uncle” (the founders of the college) and for the speaker of the morning, that hearts may be open to hear the Word of God.
I know it is OK to slip some US dollars into the velvet bag that the young lady stretches out along the rows. During the offering a male soloist sings a lively number accompanied by a keyboardist whose fills are unbelievable –he shifts patches skillfully to get saxophones, flute, sitars etc. into the mix of sounds. The principal, Dr. Samuel, had given a prayer of dedication to the new drum set and Yamaha—a gift of the North Shore Baptist Church in Massachusetts. “You have stored the old ones safely away, I trust,” he said with a worried look. Nothing much is tossed out here.
It’s now an hour and a half into the service: my turn to open the Scriptures and preach the Gospel. I had chosen II Corinthians 5:1-9, focusing on verse 7: we walk by faith and not by sight. The translator was really good. We established a rhythm very quickly. Preaching this way gives one time to think a little more one’s feet while the Hindi echo is going forth. Words were flowing as I illustrated the text by the story of Phillemon Busolo, a Kenyan who attends West Church along with his wife and two boys.
Fast forward>>>>>
Just a few minutes ago S__ M___ came by to share with me privately. He is the man who works with Dr. Timothy Tennent of Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary in translating resources for ministry into Hindi (India’s first official language)—a very gifted young man who also teaches here. I had him as guest in class, where he shows how natural he is in communicating.
But he wanted to tell me his story. Born in central India, his mother died shortly after his birth. S was raised as a charity project by other family members. His father was a teacher in the outback of India. They lived in a mud house about the size of a modest garage in the USA. Later his father took another young woman as “wife”, so S has now two half-brothers.
When S was 15, orphaned and neglected and dreaming of Bollywood, he saw Jesus in a dream and gave his life to God. Raised Hindu, his family shunned him. So he had to rely on God to get an education, to come to this college, meet and marry a young widow here (that, too is another touching story since widows with children have zero value in India) and teach here.
But last February his father died—by witchcraft. Raised in rural India, he claims there is a lot of that going on. The perpetrators were his father’s “wife” and another woman he kept in the household. Outcast and bereft, S was mourning deep within. Carrying on his work, no one knew the darkness creeping back into his soul. “I have no address. No house or land of his own. No family left.” He was so low he hesitated to come even to church Sunday.
Then he heard me reading II Corinthians 5:1 “Now we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven not built by human hands. Meanwhile we groan, longing to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling….” God’s spirit came over him. The sun broke through his depression and he was full of joy in his faith once again.
This is why we are left on earth—to be instruments of blessing that God may use us, unworthy as we are, to let the love and grace of Christ bring hope and healing.
Day by day. Day by day, God is good to his people.
As I sit on this sunny, cool day at a computer in a specious 4 desk office in NTC’s newest building, the girl at the desk, in her flowing sari, breezes in to ask, “Sir, would like to tehk some tea?” “O yes,” I reply, “I missed the all-college tea time at 10:30 because I was online in the library.” (You have to take Internet here when it is “awailable.” So I had been locked in the library—literally— for 15 minutes while the staff went for tea.) Soon a delicate cup of chai will be set on the edge of my desk. Maybe I could become a mahatma here in time if I work on it. I think I’m getting close. Life has its pleasant moments! Ah! Here it is now. In less time than it takes to write paragraph!
Here at New Theological College in India, Sunday has a different flavor. Hindus and Muslim workmen are on the job and cities and towns bustle with commerce, while Christians flock to church. And while the Christian community is a small percentage of he population, the census puts India over the 1 billion mark as the world’s most populous nation, resulting in there being a hefty number of those who claim to be followers of Christ.
As dawn emerges lazily through the haze that hugs the mountains, I hear the clear tones of the bell at the Buddhist monastery just over the wall from the Guest House. More distant is the drone of traffic, the everlasting honking of horns, and clatter of machinery. Workmen are putting new Mediterranean red tiles on the office building. But for me, it is day of worship.
I am privileged to be the preacher today. I arrive before 9 o’clock, meditating as people trickle in. Sunday School children occupy front seats facing the main congregation at a right angle. All of us are on plastic chairs such as we put on our patios for summer. By 9 o’clock the 250-seat room is full.
Student musicians take their places: two Yamaha keyboards, a drum set, bongos, plus guitar and bass. Professor Bison presides today. After a song we listen to his comments on Psalm 84. As he reads the text I hear the sublime setting of the text in Brahms’ Requiem: How lovely is thy dwelling place, O Lord of hosts. My soul longs, yea faints, for the courts of the Lord…. Even the sparrow has found her a house and the swallow a nest where she may lay her young, even thine altars, O God. Blessed are those who dwell in thy house ever praising your name.”
I wonder what it was like for the Son of Korah who wrote this Old Testament song of praise, watching birds flying in and out during the sacrifices 3000 years ago in Jerusalem.
Bison has a sweet, gentle air about him. He is Lecturer in Old Testament. An Indian man, with his spiky black hair he appears to have some oriental genes in his ancestry. His homily would be the whole deal back in the states—or even here in mainline denominations. But this community is charismatic—on the sane edge of Pentecostalism. So while there is seldom anything to make me uncomfortable as Calvinistic Congregationalist, I now they are going to give us a three-course meal of spiritual food.
Now comes the serious praise music. 30 minutes of lively singing, switching seamlessly between Hindi and English. While I stand enjoying clapping the rhythms I suddenly realize I can sing the words now—but only for a season. The tempo quickens. The volume rises. Then “at the top of the ascent” it quiets to simultaneous praying from the worshipers while the keyboard plays an ever more quiet background. Part one comes to a close.
Part two features announcements and a call for prayer requests. There are many. I hope someone who is going to be asked to pray is writing them down!
Two late-thirties women from Australia are introduced. They are specialists in disability remediation and are working at the prestigious Buddhist Library and Ashram a few blocks away. (That complex was dedicated a few years back by the Dalai Lama himself! Devotees come from the entire world to spend time in study and meditation—at luxury prices. But the view of the Himalayan foothills here—a mere 8000 feet above sea level make a spectacular venue. And you can come if you have the bucks—it’s not just for Buddhists.)
Now the kids come on stage, adjusting microphones so their squeaky voices can be heard. A few stumble over the cords as their protagonist yanks hers across the 10-foot platform. A plastic chair is set for the boy with a crown, holding a book in his lap: “The Book of Life.” A girl approaches. “I have come to enter heaven.”
You cannot go unless your name is in the Book of Life.
Will you check me, please?
What is your name?
Elise.
Abraham, Moses, David, Jonah….Elise! You may enter now.
Another girl approaches, same theme.
What is your name?
Iska
Mmmmm… I cannot find your name. Angel! Come take her to hell!
No! Oh! It is full of spiders and snakes and is too hot!
(She turns to see Elise going in the other direction.)
Elise, they are taking me to hell. I don’t want. I was good – in fact you did more bad than I did. How do you get to go to heaven?
I confessed and took Jesus as Savior, so they wrote my name in the Book.
Announcer: The moral is, accept Jesus as your personal Savior while there is yet time.
Now is the time for prayer from the brother who wrote down all those requests. He prays for 5 minutes fervently, mentioning each one and also for “Auntie and Uncle” (the founders of the college) and for the speaker of the morning, that hearts may be open to hear the Word of God.
I know it is OK to slip some US dollars into the velvet bag that the young lady stretches out along the rows. During the offering a male soloist sings a lively number accompanied by a keyboardist whose fills are unbelievable –he shifts patches skillfully to get saxophones, flute, sitars etc. into the mix of sounds. The principal, Dr. Samuel, had given a prayer of dedication to the new drum set and Yamaha—a gift of the North Shore Baptist Church in Massachusetts. “You have stored the old ones safely away, I trust,” he said with a worried look. Nothing much is tossed out here.
It’s now an hour and a half into the service: my turn to open the Scriptures and preach the Gospel. I had chosen II Corinthians 5:1-9, focusing on verse 7: we walk by faith and not by sight. The translator was really good. We established a rhythm very quickly. Preaching this way gives one time to think a little more one’s feet while the Hindi echo is going forth. Words were flowing as I illustrated the text by the story of Phillemon Busolo, a Kenyan who attends West Church along with his wife and two boys.
Fast forward>>>>>
Just a few minutes ago S__ M___ came by to share with me privately. He is the man who works with Dr. Timothy Tennent of Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary in translating resources for ministry into Hindi (India’s first official language)—a very gifted young man who also teaches here. I had him as guest in class, where he shows how natural he is in communicating.
But he wanted to tell me his story. Born in central India, his mother died shortly after his birth. S was raised as a charity project by other family members. His father was a teacher in the outback of India. They lived in a mud house about the size of a modest garage in the USA. Later his father took another young woman as “wife”, so S has now two half-brothers.
When S was 15, orphaned and neglected and dreaming of Bollywood, he saw Jesus in a dream and gave his life to God. Raised Hindu, his family shunned him. So he had to rely on God to get an education, to come to this college, meet and marry a young widow here (that, too is another touching story since widows with children have zero value in India) and teach here.
But last February his father died—by witchcraft. Raised in rural India, he claims there is a lot of that going on. The perpetrators were his father’s “wife” and another woman he kept in the household. Outcast and bereft, S was mourning deep within. Carrying on his work, no one knew the darkness creeping back into his soul. “I have no address. No house or land of his own. No family left.” He was so low he hesitated to come even to church Sunday.
Then he heard me reading II Corinthians 5:1 “Now we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven not built by human hands. Meanwhile we groan, longing to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling….” God’s spirit came over him. The sun broke through his depression and he was full of joy in his faith once again.
This is why we are left on earth—to be instruments of blessing that God may use us, unworthy as we are, to let the love and grace of Christ bring hope and healing.
Day by day. Day by day, God is good to his people.
As I sit on this sunny, cool day at a computer in a specious 4 desk office in NTC’s newest building, the girl at the desk, in her flowing sari, breezes in to ask, “Sir, would like to tehk some tea?” “O yes,” I reply, “I missed the all-college tea time at 10:30 because I was online in the library.” (You have to take Internet here when it is “awailable.” So I had been locked in the library—literally— for 15 minutes while the staff went for tea.) Soon a delicate cup of chai will be set on the edge of my desk. Maybe I could become a mahatma here in time if I work on it. I think I’m getting close. Life has its pleasant moments! Ah! Here it is now. In less time than it takes to write paragraph!
Friday, November 03, 2006
He Promised Never to Leave Me Alone
After a breakfast of porridge, toast and chai, I was introduced to Adrienne Thompson and her aid, Caroline, of the Parker Foundation in Richmond, VA. This family foundation funds projects for Christian ministry, mostly international. The young (25-ish) women do the traveling for the foundation to scope out worthy projects. New Theological College here has been awarded some funds and they have come to interview deans and faculty for the home office. Possibly you will see an article in Christianity Today this season including their findings entitled: “What It Means to Be a Counter-cultural Christian in Today’s World.” Each culture (including the USA) needs voices to speak truth for God to the power structures of government and education. The women are staying here but a day before heading off to Hyderabad and other India locations to gather information.
In the Chapel sermon, a senior student chose the text I Peter 1:1-9, explaining how our trials refine us to reflect the glory of God in our lives. I thought of our dear friends Barry Noonan and Patrick and Katie, in the loss of wife/mother Maryann this week to cancer. What sorrow must be theirs as they undergo this trial. While we prayed for her healing more than once, she has now experienced the final healing that God effects when He calls us to himself. But broken hearts result, often crying out, “Why. Why now?” The hymn this morning was an old one, set to Indian rhythms: He Promised Never to Leave Me Alone. This is a hope to comfort and sustain us in sore trials.
I find it illuminating to be in another context like this away from home. There I can fool myself that the world is safe place to call home. But this world is often at war with goodness and justice and shalom. Here I am face to face with poverty of goods and of spirit, for the battle of good and evil is obvious. Reports come daily from graduates who are in the danger of battle as they bring good news to people not always welcoming. We hear of persecutions and threats. We know that the worldwide community of faith is, as always, under siege.
And yet there is joy and thankfulness everywhere evident. I am always learning from brothers and sisters here.
Yesterday at my evening session, Dr. M.T. Cherian agreed to lecture on Hindu ethics. Masterfully he had the students interacting and laughing while he drove home the concepts of karma and dharma: find your assigned place in life (according to caste) and do your duty without fail for god and god alone, not your own desires. Then you may rise in the next re-birth and eventually achieve moksha—liberation. Your life now is exactly what you have created by your past, reaping what you have sown. A brilliant example of good pedagogy.
And to top off my amazement, my housemate, Dave Walker, shared over breakfast with the women visiting for the day some of his experiences. He is a former pastor who has gone into mission work on his own. Traveling to places all over the world, he preaches mostly to the common people, wins converts, starts churches, trains leaders in a few small Bible schools he sets up. What he has accomplished is astounding. One man making a difference. He is away from home about 36 weeks a year with his wife’s encouragement. (Sounds suspicious to me. Yet he says they have a great marriage, having raised 5 boys now adults. He now has the first girl in the line for several generations – a granddaughter 5 months old in Detroit.)
When speaking in a public hall in a city near Calcutta the police came in to arrest him, since it is against India law for foreigners to proselytize. He stood up to the officer, who was drunk, and the Lord gave him the right words so he was not charged. A church started there and is going to this day. Another time he was in prison for 9 months in India. In yet another location he was brought to the police station where the charge man took his passport and visa and was adamant about prosecuting him. But almost miraculously the man had a sudden change of heart and said, “It’s OK, you can preach here. But I am assigning an officer to protect you because there is a mob growing that wants to kill you!” Another time in Nigeria he got word of some who wanted to harm him. The brothers, not having a basket or a wall to lower him over (see Acts 9:23-25), smuggled him to safety. Dave now has work ongoing in Malawi, Rwanda, Brazil, India, Nigeria and I forget where else.
Dave is so self-deprecating and humble. I had no idea for four days that I was sleeping every night next to a giant for God.
Dave told me that when he was pastoring, missionaries coming to his church would say we appreciate your funds but we really ask your prayers. “O sure,” he would think, “that’s good PR.” But when he got out on the battlefield he realized that while funds are a blessing, the prayers are a matter of life and death.
So it is that each of us, stumbling as we do, add a little to the kingdom work as we strive to be faithful to the small tasks assigned to us. I am little more humble than when I left Haverhill last week. I am certain I have a long way to go on that score.
"He promised never to leave me alone."
You can take that two ways. Both apply to me today.
In the Chapel sermon, a senior student chose the text I Peter 1:1-9, explaining how our trials refine us to reflect the glory of God in our lives. I thought of our dear friends Barry Noonan and Patrick and Katie, in the loss of wife/mother Maryann this week to cancer. What sorrow must be theirs as they undergo this trial. While we prayed for her healing more than once, she has now experienced the final healing that God effects when He calls us to himself. But broken hearts result, often crying out, “Why. Why now?” The hymn this morning was an old one, set to Indian rhythms: He Promised Never to Leave Me Alone. This is a hope to comfort and sustain us in sore trials.
I find it illuminating to be in another context like this away from home. There I can fool myself that the world is safe place to call home. But this world is often at war with goodness and justice and shalom. Here I am face to face with poverty of goods and of spirit, for the battle of good and evil is obvious. Reports come daily from graduates who are in the danger of battle as they bring good news to people not always welcoming. We hear of persecutions and threats. We know that the worldwide community of faith is, as always, under siege.
And yet there is joy and thankfulness everywhere evident. I am always learning from brothers and sisters here.
Yesterday at my evening session, Dr. M.T. Cherian agreed to lecture on Hindu ethics. Masterfully he had the students interacting and laughing while he drove home the concepts of karma and dharma: find your assigned place in life (according to caste) and do your duty without fail for god and god alone, not your own desires. Then you may rise in the next re-birth and eventually achieve moksha—liberation. Your life now is exactly what you have created by your past, reaping what you have sown. A brilliant example of good pedagogy.
And to top off my amazement, my housemate, Dave Walker, shared over breakfast with the women visiting for the day some of his experiences. He is a former pastor who has gone into mission work on his own. Traveling to places all over the world, he preaches mostly to the common people, wins converts, starts churches, trains leaders in a few small Bible schools he sets up. What he has accomplished is astounding. One man making a difference. He is away from home about 36 weeks a year with his wife’s encouragement. (Sounds suspicious to me. Yet he says they have a great marriage, having raised 5 boys now adults. He now has the first girl in the line for several generations – a granddaughter 5 months old in Detroit.)
When speaking in a public hall in a city near Calcutta the police came in to arrest him, since it is against India law for foreigners to proselytize. He stood up to the officer, who was drunk, and the Lord gave him the right words so he was not charged. A church started there and is going to this day. Another time he was in prison for 9 months in India. In yet another location he was brought to the police station where the charge man took his passport and visa and was adamant about prosecuting him. But almost miraculously the man had a sudden change of heart and said, “It’s OK, you can preach here. But I am assigning an officer to protect you because there is a mob growing that wants to kill you!” Another time in Nigeria he got word of some who wanted to harm him. The brothers, not having a basket or a wall to lower him over (see Acts 9:23-25), smuggled him to safety. Dave now has work ongoing in Malawi, Rwanda, Brazil, India, Nigeria and I forget where else.
Dave is so self-deprecating and humble. I had no idea for four days that I was sleeping every night next to a giant for God.
Dave told me that when he was pastoring, missionaries coming to his church would say we appreciate your funds but we really ask your prayers. “O sure,” he would think, “that’s good PR.” But when he got out on the battlefield he realized that while funds are a blessing, the prayers are a matter of life and death.
So it is that each of us, stumbling as we do, add a little to the kingdom work as we strive to be faithful to the small tasks assigned to us. I am little more humble than when I left Haverhill last week. I am certain I have a long way to go on that score.
"He promised never to leave me alone."
You can take that two ways. Both apply to me today.
Wednesday, November 01, 2006
Slap Me Down and Pick Me Up
Slap Me Down and Pick Me Up
I don’t know which to share first. Since I am not known for humility (except among those whom I can fool, not my family, for sure) I will do the upbeat first and then the downbeat.
Pick Me Up!
For whatever cause, when I come to place like New Theological College here in north India, I feel a pickup. A cynic would say, “Sure – anybody would. You get your room cleaned, your meals to order by a chef, and people who copy your syllabus and deliver it to your classroom, others who prepare tea twice a day (one good legacy left by the British Raj), with no telephone to bug you. You get to go to a clean desk and use a computer with tech people ready to troubleshoot for you, and people who smile every time you look at them.”
But that’s not it, really.
Did you see the old movie about missionary Eric Liddell called Chariots of Fire? He was an Olympic champion runner from England—the one who would not compete on Sunday because it was the Lord’s Day. (I really wish I had that kind of courage. But I don’t. I know I would have found some way to rationalize to save embarrassment. I have the philosopher’s gift: find a plausible reason for anything!) Eric was conflicted about his commitment to running and his call to serve the Lord. Explaining to his sister his passion for track he said this memorable line: “When I run I feel the pleasure of God.”
When I am in a place like this using my gifts in a small way (but not insignificant) I feel the pleasure of God. There is a deep satisfaction there. It’s beyond happiness. It’s a kind of spiritual joy hard to describe. As I walked to the Guest House under the moon the other night, this moment of elevation picked me up. I knew, despite all the expense and hassle of flying half way around the world, that this was where I was supposed to be. Making a difference, no matter how small, is such a satisfaction. I was telling my students yesterday that on those days when I want to get away from everything and do something just for me—to pamper myself a bit (they tell me I deserve it)—I usually feel pretty good. But not great. But at the end of a day where I went out of the way to make difference for good in someone’s life—be it doing a chore or taking someone to the store or fixing loose bolt—I feel great. That’s why we were put on earth—to help each other in joy and in times of sorrow.
So that’s the “Pick Me Up!”
Now for the “Slap Me Down.”
I look at the students here and I am chastised. I listen to their stories. Many have little help when they are ill—medicines are too expensive, even here in India where everything is halk price to me. Fees are always a challenge. Some face rejection by their families. Yet they work at their tools for ministry. They yield to God’s call to a life that for many is one of hardship and risk of bodily harm, even death. They know what it is to walk by faith. This cuts my soul.
I have so much more than they. I have more stuff. I have opportunities that my education and my wealth afford me. I can shield myself, protect myself. I can play it safe. I hardly know what sacrifice means when I look at these followers of Jesus, let alone Jesus himself. These students rise at 5 a.m. for a voluntary prayer service of their own making. They gather after supper at 7 p.m. and ask for Dave Walker or some other visiting minister to talk to them about Christ and the Gospel. The limit of my devotion is to pray for a while in shadows of the dawn from the warmth of my bed.
I know that asceticism and fanaticism are over the top. I learned that studying church history. But I’m coming clean. I do not know much about following God with true passion. It’s in my head—I truly do grasp it. I can teach it preach it. But true religion is emptying myself and my treasure in the real world.
So I am “slapped down.” It’s something I need to pay attention to. I know I am thought to be a generous, caring, and giving person. But that’s in the eyes of men. Before God I have along way to go. And I need to go on my knees. I fear that American followers of the Way (such as myself) know next to nothing about walking the talk. We give a lot. But there is small sacrifice in it.
I always tell my students that there are no U-Hauls on hearses. But am I really living in the light of this old Gospel-song truth: “This world is not my home, I’m just a-passing through, and I cain’t feel at home in this world anymore.”
Will Somebody help me? There’s nothing wrong with enjoying life—sure thing. But is the danger to my soul that I will not spend enough time enjoying the good life? Yeah, right!
Slap me down: then you can pick me up.
I don’t know which to share first. Since I am not known for humility (except among those whom I can fool, not my family, for sure) I will do the upbeat first and then the downbeat.
Pick Me Up!
For whatever cause, when I come to place like New Theological College here in north India, I feel a pickup. A cynic would say, “Sure – anybody would. You get your room cleaned, your meals to order by a chef, and people who copy your syllabus and deliver it to your classroom, others who prepare tea twice a day (one good legacy left by the British Raj), with no telephone to bug you. You get to go to a clean desk and use a computer with tech people ready to troubleshoot for you, and people who smile every time you look at them.”
But that’s not it, really.
Did you see the old movie about missionary Eric Liddell called Chariots of Fire? He was an Olympic champion runner from England—the one who would not compete on Sunday because it was the Lord’s Day. (I really wish I had that kind of courage. But I don’t. I know I would have found some way to rationalize to save embarrassment. I have the philosopher’s gift: find a plausible reason for anything!) Eric was conflicted about his commitment to running and his call to serve the Lord. Explaining to his sister his passion for track he said this memorable line: “When I run I feel the pleasure of God.”
When I am in a place like this using my gifts in a small way (but not insignificant) I feel the pleasure of God. There is a deep satisfaction there. It’s beyond happiness. It’s a kind of spiritual joy hard to describe. As I walked to the Guest House under the moon the other night, this moment of elevation picked me up. I knew, despite all the expense and hassle of flying half way around the world, that this was where I was supposed to be. Making a difference, no matter how small, is such a satisfaction. I was telling my students yesterday that on those days when I want to get away from everything and do something just for me—to pamper myself a bit (they tell me I deserve it)—I usually feel pretty good. But not great. But at the end of a day where I went out of the way to make difference for good in someone’s life—be it doing a chore or taking someone to the store or fixing loose bolt—I feel great. That’s why we were put on earth—to help each other in joy and in times of sorrow.
So that’s the “Pick Me Up!”
Now for the “Slap Me Down.”
I look at the students here and I am chastised. I listen to their stories. Many have little help when they are ill—medicines are too expensive, even here in India where everything is halk price to me. Fees are always a challenge. Some face rejection by their families. Yet they work at their tools for ministry. They yield to God’s call to a life that for many is one of hardship and risk of bodily harm, even death. They know what it is to walk by faith. This cuts my soul.
I have so much more than they. I have more stuff. I have opportunities that my education and my wealth afford me. I can shield myself, protect myself. I can play it safe. I hardly know what sacrifice means when I look at these followers of Jesus, let alone Jesus himself. These students rise at 5 a.m. for a voluntary prayer service of their own making. They gather after supper at 7 p.m. and ask for Dave Walker or some other visiting minister to talk to them about Christ and the Gospel. The limit of my devotion is to pray for a while in shadows of the dawn from the warmth of my bed.
I know that asceticism and fanaticism are over the top. I learned that studying church history. But I’m coming clean. I do not know much about following God with true passion. It’s in my head—I truly do grasp it. I can teach it preach it. But true religion is emptying myself and my treasure in the real world.
So I am “slapped down.” It’s something I need to pay attention to. I know I am thought to be a generous, caring, and giving person. But that’s in the eyes of men. Before God I have along way to go. And I need to go on my knees. I fear that American followers of the Way (such as myself) know next to nothing about walking the talk. We give a lot. But there is small sacrifice in it.
I always tell my students that there are no U-Hauls on hearses. But am I really living in the light of this old Gospel-song truth: “This world is not my home, I’m just a-passing through, and I cain’t feel at home in this world anymore.”
Will Somebody help me? There’s nothing wrong with enjoying life—sure thing. But is the danger to my soul that I will not spend enough time enjoying the good life? Yeah, right!
Slap me down: then you can pick me up.
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