October 2017 – Jerry Lout ⚬ Writer ⚬ Speaker ⚬ Mobilizer

October 3, 2017

BOOM in the Night

“Bwana, Kuja! Ona nyoka kubwa sana!”

The African voices clamored – yelling attention to the white men of Bukuria station. “Sirs, Come see! Very big snake!”

Art Dodzweit leapt from his chair. Reaching for his rifle and a fist full of shells he shouted. “Bud, come! Seems a cobra or python has paid us a visit.”

In the mid 1940s, friends Bud Sickler and Arthur Dodzweit had boarded ships to Kenya from the U.S. The agency had commissioned them and their new brides – identical twins, Fay and May – to preach, serve where they might, and start churches. Early on an administrator had greeted them.

“That hill over there, just in the distance. Its the place we’ve approved land for your mission. Shall we have a look?” The Englishman of Britain’s Crown Colony showed the Yankee newcomers the plot of land. Then left them to the work.

Kuria country was covered with trees, underbrush, and occasional patches of grazing land, rugged and wild. Narrow creeks and rivers crisscrossed hilly terrain. These waterways flooded their banks most rainy seasons. Crop planting hardly got a mention among the traditional nomad cattle-tenders – the Wakuria.

Among predator-creatures native to the area were large, slithering pythons, camouflaged in the region’s undergrowth.

They moved about mostly at night, stalking small and, at times, larger game – their big, round eyes and nimble forked tongue, keenly detecting prey. On the night of the snake alert the sky was black. The men tramped the direction shown to them.

Art stopped. Movement in the tall grass by his feet sent shivers along his back. The snake lay nearby, no question. A young Kenyan bearing a flashlight, lowered it. They spotted the signs. Blotches of tan interrupted by cream-tinted borders and black outer lines glided forward. Art held the gun stock in a tight grip. A python for sure.

“Bud! Bud!” Art’s nervous voice cut into the night. “I’m gonna shoot, Bud.” He squeezed the trigger. The kick of the rifle threw him back a step.

That moment the python’s fore-end, several yards out to the left, instantly rose upward from the blast’s impact, the high caliber bullet tearing into its midsection.

Bud stood meters away, silent in the dark. A nearby African, gripping a flashlight, caught the image of the huge snake’s head, suddenly meeting eyeball-to-eyeball with Bud Sickler – perhaps two inches before his nose.

Bud’s throat took in a sudden suck of air. His backward fall came instant and sure. The tall, red-haired young man lay flat in the grass, out cold from the shock of the encounter.

We never learned how the two friends, when they finally retired for the night, managed to sleep.

What we would learn now that we had landed at Bukuria. The Python family hadn’t gone away. They were still in the neighborhood.

October 5, 2017October 5, 2017

A Matter of Taste

I never grew a warm place in my heart for serpents. Never acquired the taste.

“Good morning, Bwana.” The man labored up the slope, evidently with merchandise.

Not that snakes were uncommon on the farm where I grew up. Water Moccasins (Cottonmouths) and a few non-poisonous varieties often found their way to our pastures and watering ponds. A pleasant summer past-time of mine, in fact, was picking off the occasional slithering intruder, using my dad’s .22 rifle. But there was a difference between then and now, this place and that place. The snakes on the Oklahoma farm tended to be shorter. . . by ten feet or more.

The Kuria tribesman was calling to me as he pushed his aging bicycle up our grassy driveway inside the mission compound. The bike’s rear tire seemed low, probably due to the load – whatever it was – concealed in a well-worn burlap bag atop the bicycle’s carrier rack.

I greeted the stranger and soon learned he was a near neighbor – his family occupying two thatch-roofed huts. A boma (homemade corral) sandwiched between.

I eyed the bag with increased curiosity. It was anchored down by strips of discarded inner tube.

The African’s smile stayed happily in place under his floppy brown hat.

“We Kuria find that missionaries like the skins. The white people coming before you – they pay us for what we bring.”

My new-discovered neighbor began unfastening the rubber strips. Heaving the coarse bag to the ground he untied a thin strand of fresh tree bark used to bind the sack. Slowly he drew out the contents.

A few minutes of back and forth discussion followed.

Pocketing the shillings I handed him – roughly a dollar’s worth – he turned his bicycle and rode off.

I stared at the python spread lengthwise before me, its patchwork pattern and sheer size a thing of wonder.

How do they skin these things?

My mind rehearsed the Kuria man’s account.

He had wakened in the night to the screams of one of his goats. It was being seized and encircled by the great serpent. Two gashes in the snake’s body revealed where the rescuer’s spear struck. More drama followed until the snake finally lay dead (I never learned the final state of the goat).

Shortly after the skirmish the man walked his bicycle onto our property.

Once I skinned the snake I spread it full-length on the longest, flattest board I could find. With small nails I secured it, the inside stretched open to the sunny sky. I powdered it generously with table salt. It can dry there and hopefully cure.

Reaching to my tool box I found a measuring tape. Nose to tail the reptile stretched 17 feet.

Mid-afternoon I was startled by a sudden cry from my wife outside – not of terror but of alarm. She was racing toward our first-born. “No, Julie! No, No, don’t touch!”

Our 30 month old daughter had by this age been introduced to the tangy flavor of salt. Spotting the seasoning sprinkled atop a curious thing on a length of wood, she had begun taking in direct samples on her happily extended tongue. Interrupted, thankfully, before acquiring a taste.

October 10, 2017

Urgent Care

Klak. Klak. Klak. Klak.

The sound of an archery bow thumping a bedroom window deep into the night is one not easily forgotten.

Our watchman’s smokey voice joined the klacking sound outside, pronouncing my surname as best he could, “Bwana Lauti, Bwana Lauti.”

At Nyamahanga’s second or third call I stirred. The bedside clock read 1:30 a.m.

“Bwana Lauti. . . Mama karibu kuzaa.”

The cement-plaster floor of our room felt cool to my bare feet. Flashlight in hand, I was soon exiting the room, “Honey, another ambulance run. A Mama has gone into labor.”

“Ok,” a sleepy voice murmured back. “Be careful.” it was a role-reversal of sorts – Ann, normally the late-night riser when a baby needed changing or fed.

A few minutes passed. I whispered a prayer as the father-to-be who had raised the alert, took his place in the passenger seat. We were off to fetch the missus, then get her to Kehancha.

Such “ambulance runs” had evolved as part of a naturally-assumed job description for any bush missionary. The assumption, we agreed, made sense, as mission personnel were among the scant number of people owning a motorized vehicle.

The race against time came pantingly close some nights over my three-plus years of free, on-call ambulance service. But I somehow outpaced the labor contractions with every midnight jaunt. The same was mostly true for Canadian friend Phil Harman of Suna Mission some distance away. Except one night. A good part of the next morning found him vigorously doing a scrub-down of floorboard and rear seat in his newly-christened VW Bug Delivery Room. Mother and newborn had fared just fine.

Over time we grew to wonder what next medical crisis could visit the compound. It was during such a period a young man appeared at our back entrance. Night had fallen. He stood bleeding profusely, leaning into the support of another man. The machete attack had found its mark.

Jesus help us.

October 13, 2017October 13, 2017

In The Name Of A Friend

The young pastor strained under the weight of the bleeding man he supported. “He is my brother.”

He labored to keep the wounded man upright. The machete blade had gone deep.

“How did it happen?”, I asked, as my nurse-wife entered from a side room and approached to lend aid.

“My brother has a friend. The friend sent my brother to collect money owed him by another man.”

I took in the unfolding story as we all helped the wounded brother out of his coat, it’s back soaked through in red.

“The man owing money was drinking beer and got angry when my brother told him why he came. My brother decided to leave and come back another time. But the man had taken up a panga (machete). When my brother turned to go out, it was then he was slashed, before he could reach to the outside.”

Ann had brought out a sizable roll of gauze. By now his shirt had been removed and, with strips of old sheets and tape, she bound his bare torso. The panga had opened a V-trench some eight inches long – vertically, between spine and shoulder blade. She wrapped the material about his torso several times, in hopes it might slow the blood, buying us time to get him to the clinic where they could sew him up.

The government-sponsored clinic, a thinly-equipped medical outpost established to serve the Wakuria clans, sat at the edge of the village nearest us, five miles to the north.

Life was hard for the tribal people, often heartbreaking. It was a rare home that had not lost at least one child to malaria.

And there were the skirmishes.

With cultures of the region given to decades-old feuds – mostly to do with livestock – violence could erupt in a heartbeat. Kuria country lay bordering other cattle-tending families – the Maasai, the Luo, the Kipsigis. Bands of spear-wielding parties of either tribe, trekking by foot in their stated quest to take back rustled livestock, had become a common image.

I grew to slow the bug down on our dusty road and roll gently past the occasional vigilante parties. We couldn’t guess when a band might come into view on the twenty mile drive to our mail box (we checked for letters once, sometimes twice, weekly). Though as a missionary family we did not feel directly threatened, our verbal charge to the back seat passengers came with regularity, “Roll your windows up, kids.”

The task at hand just now was to get a terribly wounded young Kuria to a place for treatment.

I hope the doctor is in.

October 17, 2017

Survival

“Sir. . Sir, Hello. . . Hello! Can you come sir? Hello. . .”

Waking a doctor from a drink-induced sleep called for persistence.

We had transported the machete-attack victim the five miles to the government clinic, only to learn an aged, slow-moving male nurse was the only person on duty.

“The doctor for this work”, he said, eyeing the wide blood mark streaking our patient’s back, “is away. You might find him at his house.”

Leaving our patient, I drove another five miles of bad road, where I came to the darkened home of the physician. “Hello. . .Hello. . .”

Thirty minutes later, the groggy doc held a kerosene lantern (electricity had not reached the village) examining the naked wound. Thankfully, Ann’s gauze-and-sheet wrap had held and not too much blood had seeped through.

The wounded man went by Mwita. He sat upright on the cot’s edge as three pair of eyes, beside the doctor’s – Mwita’s brother’s, the male nurse’s and my own – gazed at the deep slash. I had never seen such a wound.

No surgical mask was donned by any of us. There were none in supply. And, I assumed, maybe never had been.

A brief exchange between the bush-surgeon and myself left me surprised. And troubled. The nurse had stepped to another room and was now rolling in a metal cart into view. A steel pan sat and, in it were utensils. Suturing material, I guessed.

My tone was respectful, sincere.

“Sir,” (it seemed doubtful by now the man I had wakened for the upcoming procedure was a doctor in a full, professional sense) “could I ask. . . how are the instruments sterilized?”

Lifting a sizable curved needle offered by the old nurse, the gentleman held it before the lantern for a better look. With a wave of an elbow he declared knowingly, “Oh, you understand, off there in the big cities where many people live, there are, many more germs. Many more.

“But out here in the rural places, we have fewer people. And so – less problems with infection”. The man’s silence as he squinted one-eyed, finding the needle’s opening and beginning the thread, suggested my question had been sensibly answered. This is the way it is. No discussion.

I cringed at my next discovery.

“He will be given anesthetic, right?”, I ventured.

“No, we are out of it.”

Perhaps – looking back – my biggest surprise of the evening was my lack of queasiness.

Witnessing a needle in the firm grip of someone, the needle piercing the muscular surface, tugging a string of black thread in its trail – again and again – left me at the edge of nausea.

Next morning I readied myself to visit the clinic when word of the wounded man reached me via Africa’s reliable grapevine.

“You’re sure?”, I asked a second time.

“Yes, Bwana, he walked home this morning.”

My thoughts retraced the sequence.

Treks to our place last night (who knows what distance?) – losing blood the whole way. Endures several bumpy miles of ‘ambulance ride’. Without meds to blunt the pain, the flesh of his back takes into itself a suturing needle of questionable hygiene time and again, drawing the parted muscle and sinew close. . .

I’m now feeling queasy.

And, early the following morning, walks home – more than five miles – unaided.

While missionaries are probably not widely known for referencing Charles Darwin, I found myself at different times suddenly recalling a phrase, “survival of the fittest”.

This was such a time.

October 22, 2017

TEE Time

“Now, Jerry”, My friend’s voice hinted at mischief as we started across the church parking lot, “tell me about tee-hee-hee.”

To know Van Gill was to treasure the sound of a rolling chuckle. And take in a pair of grinning eyes, coaxing response to his merriment.

Everything about the Texan pastor was large. Large frame, large mind (among the keenest), large humor. All of these reflecting a thing largest of all – his overflowing, over-spacious heart.

Van was a man of the Book. Indeed, it was his love of Scripture that, in part at least, stirred him to offer the teasing invitation. . . tee-hee-hee.

By the time of this our family’s visit from Africa, I was co-authoring a study book on the Gospel of John, a curriculum piece for Theological Education by Extension, widely labeled T – E – E.

Writer’s workshops, led by Fred and Grace Holland of the Association of Evangelicals of Africa and Madagascar, trained missionaries and nationals in Bible school text development.

After my training I had partnered with Evangelist Josephat Rungu of Western Kenya. Together, we teamed with South Africa counterparts and, Teachings in John was born. Published in Nairobi, the T.E.E. training series – featuring topics from Old Testament Survey to Bringing People to Jesus – spanned denominations and cultures across the continent.

From Latin America to Africa and beyond, T.E.E. had begun empowering the church, equipping spiritual shepherds in the care of their flocks. Especially the many pastors and elders who were unsuited, for various reasons, to traditional schooling in far-away, culturally-detached settings.

When our extension Bible school met weekly under a big tree at mid-day, we engaged a means to dodge the harsh rays. “That’s it, bring your chair again this direction, keep moving ahead of the sun.”

Week after week, month after month, young and old apprentices to Jesus engaged each other in such settings, some indoors, some out. They would sip hot tea, an open hand would fervently wave to emphasize a point. Laughter erupted now and then. The minds of these servants of God were those waking more and more to fresh discovery of truth. They grappled with ancient scripture and sought ways to apply it well. In their own lives, their households, and to the broader community of faith. Transformed lives by Jesus and the Holy Spirit, their aim.

Through our beloved Africa years, perhaps nothing – apart from watching my three children grow – brought me greater pleasure, more sheer joy.

Tee-hee-hee. Not bad.

October 25, 2017

Removing Stones

“See this stone in the path? Now this one too, here in the picture on the same trail. . .”

I sat with half a dozen men, some a decade or more older than me. The hut we gathered in each week was roofed with long grass. The floor consisted of smooth, hardened dirt. A semicircle of dark benches carried our weight and were worn smooth, long sense having yielded up their last dangling splinter. It was Thursday and one of this week’s T.E.E. lessons focused on a visit Jesus had with a woman at a water well.

Mature, practical, sincere, the upcountry pastors and elders took in the illustration on the workbook’s open page. The image struck a chord. Two stumbling-stones, one representing male pride, the other, tribalism. The students had read the lesson’s introduction:

Here a woman of a different tribe met Jesus. Sometimes we let the division of tribes hinder God’s work. Male pride also hinders. These things are like big rocks in the pathway that make people stumble. In order to give the good news to the woman, Jesus overcame these two problems.

I reviewed the scene with the men.

“See the person Jesus found at the well. She not only was a woman. She also spoke with an accent. We know this because she was of a different tribe, another people.”

I look in the face of each man in our semi-circle.

“Can one of you describe this picture for us. Can you help the rest of us see what good thing Jesus wanted bring to the woman and what Jesus did to overcome two big problems so she could be helped.”

A pastor nodded. He launched in, reviewing the narrative, raising the matter of how women are often looked down upon, mistreated. The room was quiet. The pastor then spoke of hard issues related to tribalism, the challenges to go beyond it, as Jesus did.

“Can we trust the Lord is among us today? To help us to change?”

Heads nod. Confession is voiced by two or three. We pray.

Then go our ways, trusting him, friend of sinners, to lead.

October 27, 2017August 17, 2022

Just Do It

As a foreigner in a region where locals had rarely sighted a light-skinned person , I was learning the feeling of different.

During one season of discouragement, when my best efforts to connect with the Kuria seemed frail, I knelt on the concrete floor of a back room in our house. The prayer was brief, sincere, and seems as clear today as that morning I voiced it.

“God, please help these people know that I love them.”

In the silence an inner voice interrupted my pleadings. While it was kind, it was also direct, firm.

“Love them. You just love them.”

Just that. Simple and sparse, like a mail-order kit arriving without instructions.

How do I do this?

Years afterward a definition of Love crossed my path.

To will the good of another. I have yet to hear a phrase that, for me, better reflects the term.

I found myself in subsequent times revisiting the Bukuria scene. Going to my knees in blue jeans and t-shirt back then at that location fifteen hours’ drive from where Stanley met Livingstone under a Mango tree. I ponder again the response to my prayer on that day. Just love them

Gauging love, measuring its impact, seems not always easy.

***

“Mwalimu”.

Pastor Mwangi calling to me (‘Teacher’) lifted his textbook as in a gesture of devotion.

“Before you came with the teachings – before bringing us these Bible courses. . .” The pastor’s voice went low.

“. . back then, when on Saturdays I would prepare a sermon for my people on Sunday, I only knew to follow a certain way. I did not know another way.

“I would pray, close my eyes and open my Bible – letting it fall open where it would. Then, feeling the page, I let my finger go to a place there. Opening my eyes I looked at the place. The words there became my sermon scripture for Sunday.”

“It was all I knew”, he repeated. “I did not know another way.”

Pastor Mwangi concluded as if offering up a sacrament as well as a confession.

“Now I know the good way. Thank you for bringing this Bible School, this T.E.E. I feed my people now and they are helped.”

Mounting my motorcycle that afternoon, I turned toward home, warmed by a gratifying thought.

Thank you, Lord for your word, and for this means of sharing it here.

He (God) was willing the good of a tribal people hungry for truth and for him. And was letting me have a part – growing me in a small measure to care as he cares.

Just loving them. Together.

October 30, 2017October 30, 2017

Small Steps

Kristi Yamaguchi – not your average Yankee name. But America’s Olympian gold medalist in figure skating nailed it for people of all cultures with her take on ‘small steps’.

I learned to put 100 percent into what I’m doing. I learned about setting goals for myself, knowing where I want to be and taking small steps toward those goals. I learned about adversity and how to get past it.

Kristi packs six insights into this mini-paragraph. Spot them?

I find thoughts like these serve as little appetizers. For myself. Of hope, of vision. They seem something like echoes – God-thoughts.

I’ll never cut dance rhythms across a skating rink – smiling now at an amusing image.

But giving 100 percent toward something of worth, setting some goals, knowing where I’d like to be or what I’d like to become, spotting adversity and getting beyond it. Something about such things feels inviting. It stirs something in me, doesn’t it you? God-thoughts within our grasp. Worthy dreams to realize – moving there, a small step at a time.

So I run with purpose in every step. I am not just shadowboxing 1 Corinthians 9:26