Month: April 2018

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Culture Leap

It wasn’t long and an opportunity to dismiss a house guest came my way.

Another visit to our home by Pastor Tom. Again, discussing church matters.

Twenty minutes or so into our chat – the second round of our respective tea cups nearing empty – we  each knew our time to wrap up the visit had arrived.

Though I had it on good counsel my next move was called for, this would be my first time to tell a visitor to leave my house. Taking in a slow breath I rose from the chair, and smiling broadly, took a couple steps toward him, extending my hand.

“Pastor Tom. . . it’s been good seeing you.”

Before the phrase had left my lips, I caught a look in his eyes that signaled all would be well – that sending my visitor to the door was not an act of rudeness, rejection or idiocy.

Tom’s smile flashed warmly, his gleaming eyes conveying pleasure – and likely, I gathered –  relief. I felt I could almost read his thoughts: Ah, the missionary from America finally gets it!

Taking up residence in another culture, whether across town or across the globe, brings with it mystery. Hurdles. Discomfort. Yet. . . Once sincere attempts are made to adapt, occasional doors to astonishing surprises fling open.

                               ***

“Pastor Jerry, please may we welcome you and Sister Ann. Our new child has come! Meet us at our home for tea.”

Ten months earlier the South Nyanza woman had stepped forward for prayer in our little Migori church. She and her husband wanted to grow a family but were unable to conceive. Her eyes were pleading.

“Please pray.”

We bowed. Petition went heavenward in Jesus’s name. Time moved on. Months passed, and I had all but forgotten the moment.

We got to the home mid-afternoon. The new parents, overtaken with joy, brought out folding chairs to the modest courtyard, receiving us in celebration of their newborn.

We and our hosts sipped sweet chai, helping ourselves to servings of toasty, deep-fried mandazis.

Then came the introduction – their “miracle baby” – a boy. Special expressions of honor are sometimes assigned a person deemed helpful on the occasion of a child being born. A namesake.

Common surnames among the Luo people begin with the letter ‘O’.

“Thank you, Pastor Jerry, for praying that day.” The mother paused. She and her husband smiled,

“Meet Jerry Lout Okech.” 

On any marathon journey of a missionary, special moments emerge unlike any other. Humbling. Sacred. Joyous. The mid-1970’s tea visit in Luo-land marked such a time.

© 2017 Jerry Lout

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Missing Hymn

The faded blue hymn books lay beneath the baby-grand piano at the sanctuary front, heaped up in two stacks. Their pages were left unopened most of the year – melodies resting muted inside the hard-bound covers – like eager choir members, mouths duct-taped shut. The images linger with me now, as though only five years – not fifty-five – have stolen past.

During my adolescent days I mused now and then over the peculiar ritual of the song books. I’m glad they’re around, but why do they most of the time just sit there, stacked up, hardly ever touched?

“Today, let’s use the song books”. The pastor’s voice was wistful.

Thus, on a random Sunday morning twice or so a year, out the faded books would come. A pair of youngsters were beckoned and the hymnals would get passed along church rows. Shortly the piano’s intro to the tune, “In the Garden“ sounded, followed by “Rock of Ages” or “I’ll Fly Away”. A song penned by a beloved sightless composer named Fanny Crosby, often made the list.

A film of dust had collected on the topmost volumes, as a number of months had passed since the pages last saw daylight.

In those days of the 50’s I hadn’t yet surmised that the faded blue books had become a kind of  sentimental relic in our church. The stack of these aged and more formal kind of songs – hymns – remained too near the heart of older believers to see the church completely part with them. Yet, by some undefined standard, it seemed the music in the old blue books lacked a revivalist flavor – of the sort which had recently captured imaginations and vocal chords. The spiritual songs. These were freshly-composed choruses, gaining increased use among independent Pentecostals identified with something called the Latter Rain Movement.

With a musical heritage marked by informal gospel choruses, I grew fond of many of the tunes. Finding myself at times, along with others, immersed in a rich, palpable presence – God’s presence – where sustained, worshipful singing found deep-hearted expression. Such gatherings often left many worshippers reluctant to leave, well after the final dismissal prayer.

Still, as years moved on, an undefined something in the realm of lyric and melody seemed missing. Like an absent-without-leave musical expression specially-tailored to the heart of God-seekers. Then my wife and I moved to Lima, New York in our missionary-candidate season. We stepped into a chapel service at Elim Bible Institute – in the I. Q. Spencer Tabernacle, named for the institute’s founder. That was where it happened.

My soul getting highjacked by the Redemption Hymnal.

©2017 Jerry Lout

 

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Sing Oh Sing

“Good morning everyone. Let’s stand, shall we? There now, please open to. . .”

David Edward’s Welsh accent met the ear of Southerners like a tugboat whistle would a native Inlander. We took up our hymn books – Redemption Songs.

Easy to spot – nearly impossible in fact, to miss – the treasured little hardback, was drawn from clever book pouches fitted to the backside of sanctuary pews across the Tabernacle.

Hymns spanning centuries – their greater numbers sung by European worshippers rather than North American Yanks were enclosed in sturdy little, deep red hard-backs. They featured no musical notes, only hymn lyrics – some inspired this century, many earlier on – numbering near a thousand in all. Of this grand host of songs I had heard just a tiny fraction. Distinguished, endearing Professor Edwards continued.

“We want to lay aside the morning’s cares, and those of the evening to come. The Lord is here, meeting with us”, he stated with believable conviction. “Such a good and great and worthy Father.”

It was David Edwards himself who had introduced Redemption Songs to the Elim campus.

“His Spirit meets with us gathered now”, Edwards concluded. “Let’s worship him.”

The very first stanzas in a growing parade of lyrics – winsome and wise, deep and lofty – drew me in.

From O for a Thousand Tongues to O Worship the King, to Love Divine All Love Excelling. . .

Penned by past-slave-trader to fine-art composer, their enduring melodies rallied anew. The humble artists proved themselves masters of prose. And cadence. And holiness. Havergal, Spafford and Newton, Cowper, Scriven and Wesley – opening to us their seasoned wines.

Stepping afterwards from the hillside chapel in the modest New York hamlet, I sensed an inner beckoning. An invitation to drink deeply, richly, joyfully. From sacred, deeper-than-deep fountains of ancient truth. Set to music.

I somehow, in the moment, had the presence of mind to respond to the welcome, and not look back.

If a person had no access to the Bible throughout all his lifetime – but owned the collection of Charles Wesley’s Hymns alone, he would have all that is needed for salvation’s offer, the way of living fully in Christ and the eternal hope of heaven.    – Geoffrey Hawksley, Missionary. British Assembly of God

©2018 Jerry Lout

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Mind The Step

Growing in Christlikeness takes brains.

Not brilliance. Not genius. The Christian Faith isn’t privately reserved for Nobel Prize recipients in science and medicine. Indeed, any trusting, open-hearted child may drink deep of the waters of salvation.

But serious Jesus-followers setting out to grow as his disciples are not ones to check their brains at the door. To them, good sense reflected by sound thinking is essential – a no-brainer, you might say.

Unfolding the topography map (Google Earth wouldn’t debut for another decade) I was soon taken by the stunning landscape spread out before me. Even when merely displayed on landscape parchment, the vast range of Kili’s expanse – her ravines etching wrinkles across her ancient face – captivated me.

The mountain’s greens, from rich shadows to hues showcasing rain forests and highland grasses drew me in. Into dreaming. And more than that. To thinking.

How often do we give it consideration, this quality of thought. Its power and its necessity. The uniquely human capacity to consider, to surmise and decide – that is, to use our brain?

Before any venture can get underway – from the Wright brothers winged launch into North Carolina skies to the designing and building of India’s dazzling Taj Mahal to putting together the kids lunch bag for school – the mind must stir.

Surveying Kilimanjaro’s image that morning, my mind did that. It stirred. And a dream was born.

I would set out to climb this mountain. . . and do it with my kids. At the very least, I could try. But there would be a needed sequence about such a heady vision. Some mental pacings must precede the actual ones. Before the climb could ever begin, I must further engage my mind. Questions asked. Mysteries uncovered.

When is the best season of year for such thing? – Which route promises the best chance of success? – Supplies – what equipment, survival gear and food stuff do we gather If my two teens and me are to set foot on Africa’s legendary rooftop? – What will it all cost? (this was a Biggie)

Does this make any sense? Could we actually achieve it? Thoughts. These demanded logic, rationale, kinds of things I’m not so famous for. Still, the thinking part, I came to realize, was indispensable to a happy, adventurous – and completed – climb.

I got encouraged, enthused actually. The task would be daunting, but it was reachable. . . I felt certain. I had lived at the foot of this glorious giant long enough to learn some secrets, catch some glimpses of the possibilities.

Thinking had been happening a while.

So simple strategies began playing in my head – vague and ill-defined at first – of taking on this vast, snow-crowned volcano.

I peered again at Kili’s image lying there atop our dining table, the table itself crafted of timber harvested from other African slopes – Kenya’s Mount Elgon.

On and on I continued thinking. . . and on.

Trekking a mountain to her summit may be much like walking with Christ, I mused. One [sensible] step at a time.

©2018 Jerry Lout

 

 

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A Time To Laugh

“Autumn! Get those pants back up, right this minute!”

When eight pre-school children of four young missionary couples (two M.K.s per household) suddenly go quiet in their outdoor play, the concern of parents increases by degree. First, an observation by a mom whose voice barely masks a growing angst.

“Anyone notice the kids aren’t making any noise?”

From here all the earlier conversation, random banter, interchanges of whatever among the parents, trails off. Anxious thoughts roll in, We’re in Black Mamba country. . . What if they’ve wandered off down by the trees and. . .

In this instance, as it turned out, we didn’t need to worry of strayed children.

Little Autumn’s father had stepped across the living room in which we adults had all been relaxing. Peering out an elevated window, he spotted the little ones. Our children stood in a circle beneath a Frangipani tree at the house’s edge, surveying from a distance curiosities of the human anatomy.

Parents, especially the moms, sprang for the outside doors. They had, just prior to the alarming shout,  entered into a quietly reverent prayer time. So much for that. . .

In days following, the mommies and daddies regaled one another with their reactions and those of their urchins.

“Mark, did you lower your pants out there before the others?”

“No mommy”, he moaned. “I tried, but I couldn’t get them to unbutton.”

Sarah, one of the other mom’s present, shared on another occasion a special nugget of wisdom. Noting the useful role humor carries in the sometimes overburdening work of international missions.

“He who laughs lasts.”

©2018 Jerry Lout