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February 6, 2018February 13, 2018

Summit Destiny

While the dance idea may suit some believers as they launch into a transforming life in Jesus, the metaphor likely won’t attract others. A mountain-climbing expedition may. The apprenticing pilgrim takes on a rigorous life if he is seriously chasing the call of Jesus: Follow me.

More rigorous than a climber striking out for, say, Africa’s highest mountain peak. Our family lived and served among the Chaga people in the foothills of the majestic mammoth.

School break had set in for our two oldest. “Shall we give Kili a try?”

What parent adopts a fairy-tale voice and launches into a children’s story (the Little Red Choo-choo Train) for a teenaged son or daughter? In a public setting, no less.

Maybe it can inspire them to go the full distance (Kilimanjaro’s 19,000-foot summit) once we set out from this base camp. As the fairy-tale unfolded, fourteen-year-old Scott lazered his attention to a hiking boot as if the world’s survival depended on his rightly adjusting a small stone beneath it. Anything to distance his association with the backpack-laden man prattling on with “I think I can, I think I can. . .” Julie, two years his senior, simply rolled her eyes.

The truth was, we were in for the most daunting test of our stamina and will we had ever faced.

Hiking miles upward to Africa’s loftiest point, with its scarce oxygen and precarious steeps, calls for all the reserves a climber can summons. Reaching Kili’s snowy rim demands three things. Vision, intention and means.

A brilliant and beloved U.S.C. professor and gospel minister, Dallas Willard, strung this trio of nouns – Vision, Intention, Means – together when coaching Christ-followers toward best practices in their quest to become like Jesus. Willard often used the word apprentice when speaking of a disciple.

“An apprentice of Jesus is learning from him how to lead their life as he would lead their life if he were they.”

My own long and incompleted walk towards transformation into Christlikeness – winding trails (often upward, at other times plateaued, even descending) – stirs added memories from the 1989 Kilimanjaro venture. Our little trio in the company of our guide.

The climb would have met with failure but for our guide.

February 11, 2018February 13, 2018

Blessing Waves

The mid-twentieth-century tsunami sweeping inland from the coastal town of Mombasa carried with it no carnage, no loss of lives. . . no water. What the wave of spiritual awakening brought was a transformed culture among Kenyans, Ugandans and Tanzanians for years to come.

“Only the power of the living Christ proclaimed in demonstration of the Holy Spirit can meet the urgent needs of humanity.”

Oklahoma-born evangelist T. L. Osborn, who is credited with the quote, launched his gospel crusade in in Kenya’s second largest city on the shores of the Indian Ocean. It was 1957.

The message of Christ was preached. Prayers for healing followed. Africans yielded to Jesus by the thousands, many of them gaining freedom from sicknesses, others from addictions and destructive lifestyles. They had met Jesus.

Once the meetings ended, the message of Christ swept inland via large numbers of newly-transformed, love-emboldened men and women.

According to one African churchman the Mombasa meetings released the fountain of a river spreading through the heart of East Africa. Hundreds of new believers were launched overnight as gospel preachers in Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda and Congo shared the message. Most did so with little or no funding, scant organizational backing. Within a few years, thousands of new churches had sprung up in bustling cities and sleepy villages. Led by men lacking somewhat in biblical literacy but not in passion.

It was into this eruption of multiplying churches the generation of missionaries preceding ours had landed. And in their wake a company of wet-behind-the-ears, twenty-somethings with a measure of Bible knowledge and less practical experience than any of us would have boasted. Two or three Bible schools had been opened by now. But the demand for foundational instruction among hundreds and hundreds of untrained spiritual shepherds remained daunting. Still, we went to work, our hearts sincere. A faithful Lord – keenly aware of our frailties – met us there.

From Lake Victoria’s Luo-land to the Ocean’s Mijikenda peoples, African preachers – their local-language Bibles in hand – shared good news. Courageously. Compassionately. Whole populations, formerly bound to witchcraft curses, incantations and the great dread of dying, came alive in the hope of the gospel.

Lyrics of a Swahili chorus gave testament to many, of their encounters with a vital Deity known as loving, forgiving, empowering. Moto imeshuka (Fire fell on me).

The wonder of Christ-centered outbreaks acknowledged as from the Holy Spirit wasn’t new to the continent. In the 1920s an African national, Simeon Nsibambi and a missionary, Joe Church, labored together in prayer as they searched Scripture and their own hearts. Both thirsted for holy and empowered living. Others joined the quest. By the coming decade, waves of sorrow over sin, confession and deliverance, and believing faith broke across Rwanda and Burundi territories, through Uganda and beyond.

Turning from their wrongs, inviting the Spirit’s infilling, vast sectors of tribal peoples – thousands of nominal Christians numbered among them, shed lifeless religions and paganism. In exchange for an emancipating redemption secured through a cross and a vacated grave.

While believers still far from perfect, grappled with issues, struggles and setbacks, Jesus undeniably marked their lives going forward. The movement grew. It’s transformative impact on religious sectors, educators and households of all descriptions flourished.

The movement bore fruit whose fragrance and flavor draw hungry seekers still. Eventually a name was assigned the phenomenon, The East Africa Revival.

Today Christ-followers from across the continent – male and female, seasoned laborers and young converts alike – press on with the proclamation of God’s love in the power of the Holy Spirit.

Africa’s enthusiastic heralders bring to mind a captivating phrase – the motto of a group of disciple-makers known as the Navigators.

To know Christ and to make Him known.

A more worthy, more glorious mission, who could conceive?

February 14, 2018February 14, 2018

Consulting The Guide

August, 1988. . .

Really? I couldn’t believe the signatures facing me from the entry roster. Him? Really?

“Hey guys, look over here. Guess who beat us up the mountain ten days ago. . . a president of the United States!” My two teens, their backpacks secured in place, sidled over.

Some twenty names, including family members, were all penned vividly in artful hand-written cursive, clearly by one person. . . a scribe representing the entourage, no doubt.

A further surprise came later in the day as I chatted up our guide.

“Joseph,” I asked, “I noticed back there that a United States President went up the mountain a few days ago.”

“Yes, that is correct.”

“That’s Interesting. Were you one of the porters or guides for the climb?”

“Yes, sir.

“Well – if I could ask – what was it like, that trip?”

“Ah”, Joseph smiled broadly. We had paused on the trail to take a swig from our canteens. “It was a very good trip”. The guide’s face brightened further. “Yes, a good trip, even though the president almost refused to succeed. He did reach there, though. Up to the mountain’s top.”

Joseph’s voice now took on a deepened tone of pride (well-placed, I afterward thought).

“You know, we carried him there.”

“Carried him? You carried the president?”

“Ah, yes. You see, once we reached to a quite high place he was very tired and lacking strength. He told the group to go on and continue. He said he would go back down the mountain for he could not continue on.” Joseph swiveled to gaze toward the summit, many kilometers far ahead and far higher.

“But we told him ‘no’. We Guides, we said to him he must reach to the top, he must get there. So two of us came to where he was. Together we lifted him. We carried him on to the top.”

Assuming the guide’s account was accurate, the past president – raised in the deep south and now well into his sixties – had found himself perched atop the roof of Africa. In good hands. Literally.

The image in my mind of mountain guides bearing their distinctive human cargo along Kilimanjaro’s steepest slopes called to mind a beloved piece of popular verse. Adorning the walls of gift shops from Disney World to Branson, Missouri – Footprints in the Sand.

My mind goes to the spiritual trek any sincere believer embarks on.

While it is true there are times we are unable to lift a trace of our own shoe leather in making headway on our march of faith, our call from him, our invitation is to walk. Not walk apart from him, to be sure. As Bob Sorge states it in The Secret of Walking With God, “God created man for the enjoyment of a walking relationship that involved companionship, dialogue, intimacy, joint decision-making, mutual delight, and shared dominion.”

And here is the rub. I am called to sonship in Christ, called to know him. Know him more and more, by walking with him.

So how? Just how does this happen in actual, realistic ways?

A visit with the one we call our guide, along with a few of his early spokesmen as their words reach to us from scripture, helped shed some light on the big question, How?

February 22, 2018February 22, 2018

The Swarm

Wheeling the car onto the dusty grounds of Kehancha Clinic with my latest patient on board I took in a distressing sight. A little girl not yet two, crying pitifully as the mother on whose lap she sat, labored in vain to console her.

These and others made up a gathering line of ill and injured awaiting their turn to be seen. The group, most strangers to one another, sat on a shallow wooden bench butted against the clinic’s outside wall. Bare spots in the building’s whitewashed veneer marked areas where chunks of plaster had at some point released their hold.

My attention kept returning to the small child, her eyes clamped as if glued shut, her face ballooned out, a tormented ball of puff.

I never learned the child’s fate, just the tale of what brought her to the clinic – a swarm of bees descending without warning from upper branches of a tree. Her older siblings, seconds earlier happily playing beneath the tree’s limbs, had fled in a panic, leaving the little one the bee’s lone target.

Killer Bees. A term suited to theatre marquees promoting the latest horror film. Some years after the distressing scene at the village clinic, a ferocious swarm nearly cost a friend of mine his life.

“Ray, what’s going on with the dogs. . . sounds like they’ve gone crazy.” The missionary couple moved to a window to see their two beloved German Shepherds taken in a wild frenzy, crying, barking. Without pausing, Ray rushed outside. Margaret watched as he raced across the big open farm yard. Then looked on in horror as she witnessed the stinging bees blanket her husband as well.

As Ray flailed at the dive-bombing attackers with one hand he worked frantically to free the dogs of their long running-leashes. “Come Princess!”

But the beautiful animal lay motionless, heavy against Ray’s hard tugging, already a casualty to the angry swarm.

The battle had only begun.

February 28, 2018

Unrelenting

Ray was nonstop shouting as he rushed back in to the sanctuary of his house, “Marge, grab cushions, a pillow! Beat me. Knock the bees off me!” Ray was a tall man, athletic with a strong competitive streak. The Africa bees had attacked his six-foot, seven-inch frame with a frenzy exceeding his best moves against his fiercest opponent on the local Squash Court.

Slamming shut the front door behind her husband, Margaret pounded a pillow against him again and again. Buzzing attackers dropped to the floor while others clung to his arms, his neck and face. The Kenya climate called for dressing extra light during one’s leisure time at home. Ray wore cut-offs and scores of bees now darkened his bared legs. Still others moved about his hair and clothing.

Ray had been carrying a yelping bundle of fur when he raced through the doorway – their third canine, small and lovable. The missionary had snatched her up on his desperate rescue dash about the yard. Water had been drawn into a tub by Margaret and the insect-covered pup was thrown into it. Bees fell away and the poor, drenched animal – though crying, whimpering – seemed likely to have been saved.

With a strange wooziness now overtaking her husband, Margaret labored to get him past a second outer doorway and into their dusty-white Peugeot station wagon.

Ray sat half-slumped in the passenger seat as the car raced along the winding driveway and onto the Nakuru highway, anxious and prayerful Margaret at the wheel. They were ten kilometers from the nearest reliable clinic and, even with her gas pedal a bare inch off the floorboard, the racecourse speed of the station wagon felt slow-motion.

At last.

Gravel flew and the Peugeot halted amid a swirl of dust.

“We’re here, Ray.” Margaret had braked the car to a hard stop not far from the clinic’s entrance.

Ray was weakening with each passing second. Deadly toxins mingled in his bloodstream and Margaret knew he was fading. Laboring to escort him toward the clinic door, she whispered,

Jesus, let there be time. Please Jesus.

March 7, 2018

Thin Places

“Stung! . . Bee stings! . . Stings! . .Stung by bees!”

The words tripped over each other, spilling from Margaret as she broke through the clinic’s entryway and called to a nurse – steadying her woozy husband as best she could. Desperation turned to near-panic when she took in the sympathetic nurse’s response – her East Africa English clear, crisp.

“I am sorry, ma’am. The doctor has gone out. He should be back soon. . .”

A moment’s pause, Margaret wheeled about. “Ray, we can’t wait. We have to get help now.”

Outside they moved only a few steps when the resident doctor rounded the clinic’s corner, meeting face-to-face with the disheveled couple. A rush of relief swept over Margaret. Taking in a short breath she gave voice to their crisis. The doctor’s action was swift, decisive. He whisked Ray back inside.

“Come, quickly, into this room.” Dr. Mwangi’s orders came clipped, strong, no less commanding than if barked by a military officer.

“We’ll get you up on this table, Mr. Ray.” A glance toward Margaret, “Let’s help him onto his back please.” Margaret aided the good physician, noting gratefully the urgency and professionalism of the man. Soon a syringe was in his palm. He held it up, eyes and hand in synchronized union. “Mr. Ray this antivenom should help once it’s in.” But Ray had gone quiet.

Margaret caught a troubled look clouding the doctor’s face on seeing his patient go unconscious.

Agonizing moments lingered, snailing by, second-on-second as Margaret gazed tensely at her husband’s still form. The syringe found its mark. Antibodies flowed. Suddenly Ray’s chest lifted. He’s taking in air.

The big man’s eyes fluttered.

***

Christian writers of long ago referred to a curious but inviting place – elusive but in their understandings a very real place – a zone, so to speak.

Where the immediate presence of the spirit world, seldom detected by mortals, could seem for some moments anyway, very close by. So nearby that hardly a distinction is made – a crossing over back and forth, an intermingling of the physical world we’re used to and the mystical or invisible world – beyond and yet at hand. The old writers spoke of it as the thin place.

“Jerry, you’ve heard of something they call an ‘out of body experience’, right?” Ray posed the question next time we met.

“Yeah,” I lifted an eyebrow.

“That was me, bro.”

He had my attention.

“Yeah, really. It happened. . . Lying there on my back before the doc’s syringe went in I sensed myself rising. Yes, I was rising. But my body was not. My body just lay there, still. I know because I saw it. Soon I was up somewhere near the room’s ceiling, man. . . looking down on the scene.

“The thing only lasted seconds, though. When the needle went in my body and the the dawa took hold I was instantly back,” Ray exclaimed, clapping his hands in a brisk pop.

“Before that though, for a few seconds I guess, I was watching all from there.” His head cocked upward.

“. . Watching the doc. . . seeing Marge. . . seeing me – my body – yeah, me. Just lying there.”

By the time my friend left the clinic for his return home, some 130 stingers had been extracted from his body.

The mission family was more than grateful. Prayers were heard.

Ray came back.

March 21, 2018March 21, 2018

Drag Race

When I look back, it wasn’t really wise or fair of me to put him at the wheel. I don’t think he was quite ready. . .

“Anybody here know how to drive?”

There is something that brings a smile to the face hearing Swahili uttered in New York City accent.

The blond-haired, high-energy young missionary raised an eyebrow when Chacha – weed-slasher in hand – stepped forward. Chacha’s grin was wide. . proud, his eyes shining.

“Ndiyo. Mimi naweza, Bwana!” (indeed I can, sir!)

The day laborer straightened his shoulders, Perhaps today I will be again at the driver seat!

“OK, Chaca. So, tell me. Who taught you to drive?”

“Ah, Bwana. . . it was Mzee Dodzi” (the German ‘Dodzweit’ spilled abbreviated off his tribal tongue). Mr. Dodzweit, a past missionary, had apparently coached the grounds-keeper at the wheel of an old mission truck. Where to sit, how to grip a steering wheel, shift gears. . .

The attentive missionary toyed with a long grass stem plucked from the soil at his feet, his eyebrow furrowed. Then he smiled.

“Well, Chaca, let’s see how we do then. This Volkswagen here has stopped working. I need it moved to Suna where another fella and I can work on it. It has to be towed. . . you know, pulled by a rope behind the gari over there”, he explained, pointing with raised chin to an aging Jeep nearby.

In a few minutes the two stepped from a windowless storage building. They squinted, their eyes suddenly confronted by the high-noon rays of an equatorial sun.

“So, here’s what we’ll do”. Paul held forth a rope, fished from a place in the shed. “We’ll tie an end of this to the Jeep. I will drive the Jeep. The other end we attach to the car. All you need to do is steer the little VW and – now and then – just touch the brake when we need to slow.” He paused a few seconds, the energetic man of the Big Apple.

Ten minutes past and the two vehicles moved away slowly, entering the murraim road out front of the mission compound – linked as by an umbilical cord fashioned of hemp. The first few kilometers passed with little concern.

Now they navigated a long, downhill stretch of road.

Abruptly everything changed.

Paul stiffened, taken by the sudden drag to his Jeep. Something was very wrong.

Swinging his head about it took a moment to grasp the image beyond the Jeep’s rear bumper. Really?!

Leaping from the Jeep the second it stopped he raced to the Volkswagen. . . His eyes hadn’t lied. The helpless Bug lay flat on its side there at the road’s edge, left-overs of churned dust wafting upward.

Rushing forward, he called, “Chacha! Chacha, are you OK?!”

Discovering an unharmed Weed-slasher-turned-roadservice-driver, he drew a long breath. “What happened? Tell me what happened, Chacha. . .”

The shaken but unscathed man crawled from the car – dusted himself. The missionary allowed space for him to gather himself. The Volkswagen escort fixed his gaze on his homemade sandals. They were common to the area, fashioned of car-tire remnants.

“Eh, ehh. . ” The gent gathered his thoughts to give answer. “Ehh, Bwana. . . truthfully. . .” His voice trailed a little and resumed. “Truthfully. . . when I saw my gari was gaining speed as we came down that long slope there, I thought – um, I thought, ehh I am moving faster than the Jeep now. . . I will go around the Jeep.

“And so. . .I tried.”

Adding, as if by afterthought,

“Nilisahau kamba (I forgot about the rope)”.

March 24, 2018March 27, 2018

Follow

For years my faith was out of sorts. Not that it lacked truth. Or strength. Or substance (though this could be a subject for another day).

My faith bobbled and wobbled from a lack of understanding how it was meant to be applied. . . or not applied. Especially where actual life formation was concerned. How I was meant to grow – tools to move me there – actual steps to Christlikeness.

A car-towing venture in Africa during the ‘60s might illustrate (a blog entry at this site labeled Drag Race, relates the drama in full).

Two men. Two cars. One of the vehicles, a Jeep, has its engine running. It’s towing the other – a disabled Volkswagen Beetle.

All went well until, navigating a long, downhill slope of dirt road, the less-seasoned Beetle driver – his car gaining speed – elected to pass the Jeep. Yes, to move in front of the lead car. . . Tow rope secure, in place.

His act was not one of the better options open to him. The driver was abruptly schooled in a basic principle. The tow rope would prove a friend as long as its use was rightly applied.

In my hopes of maturing in areas of Christlikeness I failed (like the VW pilot) to position myself rightly in relation to my leader.

It is the wise Jesus-follower who keeps the Rabbi’s sandal-prints in view. Simply moving forward as apprentice-in-training, eyeing the master, taking signals from him. Rather than the alternative – charging. . . or meandering [the speed doesn’t seem to matter] – off independently.

Actions taken in the hope of life transformation fall to two categories. Dallas Willard offers one of them as the clear choice, stating that effective life-change for the good rests on this critical approach – Training vs Trying.

Like the poor, distracted driver, I’ve spent a lot of my energy trying to keep myself aright, often inattentive to a useful point. The fellow in the lead has a better view of the landscape, holds the necessary power at his disposal, and knows just where we’re headed.

Entrusting my understanding to his recommended way – the power needed supplied in full and within easy reach – I might enter a more hopeful process. Not apart from effort, to be sure, this further journey into his likeness. But surprisingly effective, richly hopeful and actually less labor-intensive. In the Rabbi’s language – an easy yoke.

I was at last entering a means that may help me avoid the wrong use of my lifeline, sparing my ‘mobility’ being toppled sideways in the dust.

The rabbi-teacher inviting me to a better means.

“A more excellent way” – 1 Corinthians 12:31

March 28, 2018

The Door Please

“I need to what?”

“No, Jer, you need to get proactive. You must tell him. It’s what you do.”

Moving from Bukuria to Suna brought new discoveries, new challenges. Tensions. A lot of things differed between these two tribes, the Kuria and Luo. Traditions. Customs. Worldview.

Rally the courage, Jerry. . . and just do it.

Our colleagues, the Harmans, were off to Canada for a time and it fell to Ann and me to oversee Suna Mission Station in their absence. The Mission sat a stone’s throw from Tanzania, 45 kilometers east of Lake Victoria.

My disquiet was prompted by a visit to our home by a nearby pastor to discuss church affairs. . . Nothing weighty – a simple interchange to do with common matters of mission work.

By the time our second and then third visits rolled around I struggled with a dilemma. Four simple words could sum it up. . . how to part ways. I was stumped over how and when a visitor simply leaves for home once a visit is finished.

I had noted a pattern. . .

***

“Welcome, Brother Tom,” I smiled, “Come in.” We settled into a pair of living room chairs. Ann appeared, greeted the visitor, then moved toward the kitchen. Soon a kettle was whistling. Mugs of hot chai would soon rest on a serving tray before us. So far so good.

The pastor brought up a point. I introduced another. We covered one item, then a second. Cup of chai number two had arrived and gotten drained. Nothing odd here. . . the Locals like their tea.

By the time our third mug of spicy-sweet chai was drained, our discussion matters had wrapped up. The pastor’s visit was finished.

So I thought.

Tom didn’t move. Nor did I.

The pastor glanced at his watch about the time I snuck a peek at a wall clock. Snatches of small talk came and went, broken by moments of awkward silence.

Ann’s tea pot weighed considerably lighter since the first servings. Finally, in a series of awkward back-and-forths, my visitor arose. I did the same. Tom was gone.

***

“Here’s the thing, Jerry”, my Luo-savvy friend privately responded when asked about the dilemma.

“The thing is – once you’re done with business or whatever, the visit is done. It’s time.”

“Time for what?”

“Time to tell him to go home.”

My eyebrows crinkled. “Say that again, please.”

“Sure, it’s like this. In this culture, see, it’s really rude of a visitor just to get up and – like us westerners would – just head for the door. We’re used to the, ‘Gotta go now, see ya later’ thing. No, where you live now you must invite your guest to leave.”

“Hmm.”

April 4, 2018April 4, 2018

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.