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July 11, 2018

Foreboding

Considering the severe hardships missionaries have encountered through the centuries, our valley of 1984 could seem trite by comparison. For us it was raw pain.

What just happened?

The question had us reeling as my wife and I made our way back from Dallas to our temporary residence in East Texas – Carthage, where our family was part way through our stateside furlough.

Ann and I had served in East Africa 12 years up to this point. We had just been broadsided by news that we may be ‘disinvited’ to return to our post. The past six years had been among the richest of our lives to date. Amy, our cheery third-born, had been added to our family a year ago. Her siblings, Julie and Scott, were content as ever – growing friendships, learning, thriving. The Extension Training I had brought to the region and was overseeing had expanded and, by every account, was cherished by those it served.

“You need to fly to Nairobi, Jerry. I think it’s necessary for you to clear the air with what’s going on with you and the Kenyan leadership.”

The senior-most American leader in the Africa work, sitting opposite us now, offered his opinion in a near mater-of-fact voice. Yet, his manner conveyed an ominous urgency. “You need to meet with the Council face-to-face to get this resolved.”

We left the Dallas restaurant having barely touched our salads, both of us bewildered. After a few silent miles, Ann spoke. “What was that about. . . Get what resolved, Jerry?” Ann’s words echoed my own upside-down ponderings. What is happening. . . what?

As the Dallas bombshell news began seeping its way into our souls, Ann and I were reminded of a hint of something just a few days earlier. A co-worker and friend had phoned us from Kenya, feeling compelled to connect. He shared of some fuzzy word going around that Missionary Lout was possibly in trouble. But no details accompanied the reports. All he’d heard were guesses, conjectures. No one was defining what seemed to be afoot.

St. John of the Cross – a Christian mystic of long ago – spoke once of ‘the dark night of the soul’. The dark had started descending. Soon I would board a plane to cross the world, not knowing why.

July 18, 2018

The Unknowing

“God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience,

but shouts in our pain: it is His megaphone to

rouse a deaf world.” – C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain

***

What awaits me down there, really?

A few minutes earlier, as the great aircraft began its descent to Nairobi’s mile-high runway, I had drawn the Navy-blue passenger blanket away from my head and shoulders. The covering had served to conceal a stubborn trickle of tears that had persisted these past minutes.

Inside I knew I had not come to this place entirely on my own. . . knew that God had journeyed together with Ann and me from the outset along this sudden bewildering trail, a pathway ending who knew where? Still, I could not recall in my lifetime bearing such a sense of ‘aloneness’. I sat in a cloister of fellow passengers gazing out the plane’s window onto a land beneath of fifteen million inhabitants. It didn’t matter. Alone is alone regardless the surroundings.

Lord, I do need your presence. Be near me these coming days.

My tired mind went over again the sequence of events these past weeks.

So what is the missing piece, where is the accusation, what is the scandal. . . Is there one? Why would I be disinvited to serve in this land, among this people we’ve grown to care so deeply about?

The grand ball of sun had for an hour been inching its way above the Indian Ocean 200 miles eastward, its revealing light stretching inland, drenching the Nairobi Game Park that lay near the capital city’s airport at the city’s edge. I well knew that giraffe, zebra, antelope and the occasional pride of lion had long wakened to the sun’s encroaching blaze, their animal senses already on high alert. Knew this even as I detected my own protective instincts rising.

Certainly, as with all long-term residents coming from an outside culture, I had made my share of goofs, mis-pronouncing language, klutzy embarrassments that locals regularly let slide. In the end though, search for it as I might, no complaint of my violating any cultural, moral or religious code came to my mind.

Thuh-THUMP. The plane touched down and her sturdy tires soon moved us toward the mobile stairways for our exit.

I was “home”, where I had first landed a dozen years ago. But this was different. . . the first time in my overseas travels without my dear wife. She and our children, thousands of miles distance, would await word of my safe arrival. I felt the sense of aloneness threaten me again. Mercifully, a flight attendant’s voice sounded in a microphone.

“Please take care leaving, ladies and gentlemen, that you remember your carry-on items. And mind the steps as you move down to the tarmac.”

Stepping outside and onto the stairway platform, carry-on in hand, I paused a moment and drank in the Africa air. Then, trailing a chatty group of tourists toward the tarmac below I stole a further look across the Kenya landscape.

How much longer will this be our home?

August 7, 2018

Shepherd Paths

“When you get out there and when things get hard – really hard – remember this. . .”

The words hung there above the table between us.

Veteran Missionary Johansson had leaned forward in his chair, apparently for emphasis. It was early 1972 near Rochester, New York, a few days before Ann and I would fly to Africa, embarking on the adventure of our lives. I probably wasn’t ready for his three-word punchline.

“Remember”, “when things get really hard, Love your wife.”

Now, here I stood, a dozen years later, poised to open a conference room door in Nairobi and face the distressing thing awaiting me, whatever it was.

“Remember. Love your wife.”

Before we entered our own trial, I had heard of married couples so undone by hardships and testings, that the best they could muster at the end of a day was to silently weep themselves to sleep in each other’s arms. Ann and I had entered such a level of “broken”.

Yet, a curious thing had also been happening. In the tunnel of conflicted voices and questionings, I sensed a quiet invitation. To the Psalms – the ancient song book at the Bible’s very center. The readings became my home, my refuge. I blubbered its lyrics, reviewed its whimperings and its railings, poured over it from my soul. And comfort came out of hiding to find me.

We drew from the psalms together, Ann and me. Even now, with seas and continents between.

I entered the room where the Kenyan leaders awaited. Senior overseers offered handshakes. Courtesy marked their faces – a measure of warmth it seemed to me, blended with a measure of awkwardness. Are these men feeling “left out” of something like I do?

The meeting commenced.

Two hours later the visit was over and I left almost as puzzled as before. But, in an odd way, I was comforted now. And greatly relieved. A question had surfaced among the men. Some voiced it several times.

“Why is our brother here? Why the cost, the long flights?”

Closing comments wrapped up the time.

“Brother Jerry,” the senior spokesman’s words came quiet, sincere. “Whatever difficulties there may have been in your service with us, there is nothing we see that should call for you to make this big and costly trip. We really do not understand, actually. Please give our greetings to your wife. We look forward to receiving you back to the work when your time in America is done.”

Before I reached the airport for my return flight home, a signed letter from the Council was passed to me. Offering well-wishes and words of “sorry” for undue pain brought our way. The message kindly addressed Ann by name – affirming again the African leadership’s readiness that we carry continue forward in the work.

The big aircraft started its lumbered movement toward an outbound runway. “Ladies and gentlemen, we are preparing for take-off. Please see that your carry-on items are secured safely. . .”

Drawing my seat belt about me I took in a slow breath. Lord, you surely have things for us to learn. Don’t let your counsel be lost to us.

Soon a treasured piece of literature lay open before me, precious phrases strung together I could easily recite from young childhood.

“He leads me in paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.” From the Psalms.

August 11, 2018

Uncommon Hero

“When the simba came at me I brought up my shield but then he knocked me back.” The young African opened his palm, extending it my way. I surveyed the seasoned lion-claw scar running near his thumb and forefinger. “My brothers then speared him.”

My chat was with a tall lean Maasai named Gaddiel, recounting his lion-hunting venture – an initiation rite demanded to get labeled a warrior. His voice was calm, undramatic, as if he were recounting details of a routine walk to the local market.

Gaddiel Nkarrabali had become a warmly-regarded Christian pastor among his nomadic, cattle-tending kin. His gospel work came about largely because of Eva.

Eva, a single missionary mother – her two kids schooling at Rift Valley Academy – had come to Kenya in the 60s, settling down eventually in a dusty remote outpost called Mashuru. Her first house, put up in less than two days, was a home-made tin structure covering just 209 square feet. Once erected, she and a local co-worker lady settled down for the night. In her memoir, In The Shadow of Kilimanjaro, Eva describes her next-morning surprise.

“All around the (parked) car were large pad tracks where a lion had inspected it. Well, what you don’t see doesn’t hurt you. It excited us but we weren’t really troubled. We knew what country we were in so went on fixing our little house.”

Along the way the gutsy pioneer missionary came across a young tribal warrior. Gaddiel.

“I had asked some young Morani (warriors) if any would like to go for more schooling.” The school in Eva’s thinking was Kaimosi Bible School off to the north and west. None of the youth were Christ followers.

“Up went a hand and one said, “Nanu” (I wish to). His name was Gaddiel, the chief of his manyatta.”

Years later the cattle-herder turned Christian shepherd, recounted his first days at the Bible school.

“I saw many miracles that God showed me. One night I prayed so much asking Jesus that I wanted to see his face. That very night there came a man in my dream in a great light. I woke up shaking. A song came into my heart. I am sure Jesus was doing something to (in) me. . .”

Eva Butler’s “Welcome kiddos!” greeting on our first airport arrival to Africa gave my wife and I no hint we were encountering face to face an authentic hero in frontier missions.

August 17, 2018

Aidini

“I go to the Coast to mock him. And to beat him when he shows the lie.”

The big man was strong, menacing. Anyone having experience with Alexander Aidini knew his threat was not small talk.

“He is no man of God, this foreigner!” the angry African went on. “He comes to our land a trickster. Come, we shall beat him together, all of us. We go to Mombasa!”

The object of Aidini’s contempt was an American preacher. T. L. Osborn had come with his evangelistic team from Oklahoma to Kenya’s coastal city on the Indian Ocean, “to preach the gospel, to proclaim Jesus Christ in power. . . to heal and deliver and bring salvation.” He labeled the open-air meetings “crusades”.

Osborn’s preaching campaigns had been many and were known to draw thousands, with large numbers of sick and suffering among them. Aidini was sure all was a hoax to exploit the masses. He would show it up for what it was.

Among the half dozen toughs accompanying Aidini was a man whose mother was blind.

“Bring your mother with us, bring Mama Zaila. When the white man makes prayer for healing in the meeting, we will put her there. When her eyes remain dark and she is not well this will show the lie. And there we will move, we will break the mzungu just there!” Three days travel brought them to their destination.

Leaving their Land Rover beneath a gnarled tree next to a kiosk, the group entered the stream of tribal people making their way by foot toward the blaring loudspeaker. Mombasa’s port-city-atmosphere with its salty aroma was heavy, humid.

“Take care, Mama Zaila, do not rush. Hold tight to my arm.” The woman clung to her son’s forearm, her useless eyes staring into blackness.

Africa is a vast place with pockets of equally dense populations swarming across sprawling cities. Still, the crowd flooding Mombasa’s big outdoor field, was bigger than any the Congolese visitors had known. It was clear the name Osborn evoked interest.

The band of half-dozen strangers from a thousand miles westward pushed their way deeper into the crowd, their goal the big wooden stage where the mzungu preacher and his wife, Daisy sat. At either side of the American couple were invited local dignitaries along with a number of Africa church and mission heads.

Poised at last before the stage, the Congolese gang – their sightless companion in tow – awaited their moment. For Aidini it could not come soon enough.

August 23, 2018

Undone

Preacher Osborn’s voice rang strong, echoing across the mass of gathered humanity. On the deceitfulness of sin, its destructive fruit in a life. Then of the power of forgiveness, of the cross of Jesus, of hope in him.

The evangelist paused, then turned to a different emphasis.

“Do we have anyone troubled in their body tonight?”

As the air hung quiet above the throng, heads began nodding. Calls of “Ndiyo” sounded from the Mombasa crowd.

“If you are lame, cannot move about well or cannot see through your eyes. . . if your body has stopped working in some way. And if you believe Jesus came to free you, to heal you both soul and body, this is your time to believe him. Do we believe Jesus?”

A ringing chorus rose, “Yes!”

“Well, now we’re going to pray. Remember it is Jesus who heals. I cannot heal anyone. Jesus. He is the deliverer. As the book of Hebrews tells us, ‘Jesus is the same yesterday and today and forever!’ Tell me now, is he the same for your life? Can you trust his love, trust his power? (pause) Believe him! He wants you well.”

The evangelistic with the soft Oklahoma drawl held firmly to his mic. His voice was passionate, marked with sincerity. “Now, let me pray with you. The resurrected Jesus is here. And he will heal. . . will deliver in these moments just now.”

L. Osborn prayed and the words came simple, clear, strong, with evident conviction. Not a lengthy prayer.

“Now friends, if anyone brought a deaf friend here today, you check with that friend. Look them in the face. Ask them, can you hear?”

As the minister went on with prayer, brief words of guidance and of referencing the Bible, a shout erupted a few feet from where he stood, “Ayeee! Ayeee!”

The shouting voice was Zaila’s. She had willed her eyes open the moment the preacher had called out a phrase, “In Jesus’ name, be healed!” A momentary lull had followed, then. . .

“Ayeee, Ayeee, Ayeee!!”

Wide-eyed with vision, Zaila’s shout of triumph startled Alexander Aidini who stood inches away facing her. Her outburst continued. “I see! I see! . . . I see your face, Mzee Aidini! I see you, I see!!”

The hardened Aidini had tasted little personal fear over the years. If fear was found near him, it was usually him bringing it to others. Fear had not come his way. But now.

Alexander’s inner self trembled. The big man quaked, coming undone in the presence of a force unlike anything he had known.

A shouting, crying Zaila went on, caught up in astonished delight. “Mzee! Mzee Aidini! Nakuona (I am seeing you)! Mzee, hii ni Yesu! – It is Jesus. Jesus!”

At last, Aidini, overcome by conviction, drew himself together. He found his voice.

“I want to get saved. Tell me. How do I get saved?”

September 6, 2018

Tarzan Country

When noting the kinds of things God often does through ordinary people, Philosopher Dallas Willard was fond of citing the term “divine conspiracy”. Such deeds – often a little mind-boggling – are probably not as rare as many of us assume.

“This is what the kingdom of God is like. A man scatters seed on the ground. Night and day, whether he sleeps or gets up, the seed sprouts and grows, though he does not know how.” – Jesus (Mark 4:26-27)

***

The term Belgian Congo would never have crossed my mind as a child separate from images of Tarzan trapezing lofty vines, crying his trademark jungle yodel. Nor would I have seen myself ever addressing a crowd in that place deep in the heart of Africa.

Especially at one particular place.

Moving to the pulpit of the capital city’s downtown church I was greeted by the pastor, a man I’d been told was a former anti-Christian militant.

Alexander Aidini.

The throng of Congolese worshippers acknowledged me, their out-of-country guest, with happy shouts of welcome as my friend, Ben Dodzweit, introduced me in their native Lingala.

Pastor Aidini’s journey from gospel foe to disciple-of-Jesus was by now thirty years in the making and the accounts of his pilgrimage had left me nothing less than awed.

Not long after his dramatic conversion in Mombasa, Aidini answered a call to Christian service. Art Dodzweit, Ben’s uncle, had taken the rough-around-the-edges disciple into his mentoring care. Following a stint in Uganda, Aidini returned to his Congo home and its capital, Kinshasa. In time forces opposed to colonial rule overthrew the Congo and assigned it the name Zaire.

Along the way, Aidini’s fiery devotion to Jesus grew. And unusual things followed.

September 8, 2018September 7, 2018

A New Name

A police officer’s wife had fallen ill. Aidini was summoned to pray over her. He did but with no results.

“Bring your witchcraft charms and symbols”, the preacher challenged the woman. “Burn them in Jesus’ name! Turn from these dark things and get God’s freedom.” She agreed. With the sorcery items destroyed, more prayer followed. The woman recovered.

Claiming a preaching spot near a traffic round-about the evangelist showed up at 4 p.m. each day.

Little seemed to come of the meetings until one day Mary, a deranged woman passing by naked, came in earshot of his preaching. Aidini directed his words to her, rebuking evil spirits tormenting the woman. A calm came over her. Ladies came forward with garments and covered her.

Brought to freedom from that day, the joyful woman testified often at Aidini’s round-about gathering. Many people of the neighborhood long aware of her miserable past came to listen. New believers were added.

***

“I will play you my machine!”, he shouted, hoisting an old typewriter over his head.

This second possessed person – a bare-bottomed man named Ronald – happened by Evangelist Aidini’s location. Again, evil spirits were called out. His vigorous testimony spoke of wandering the city streets tormented, ever parading the beat-up typewriter, and of finally getting freed here at the roadway intersection. Week by week the crowd swelled, eventually numbering hundreds.

With the help of sympathetic followers the preacher rented the Congo Bar Sunday mornings for meetings. But area prostitutes began losing business as more people converted and a municipal governor was summoned to confront Aidini.

“You must stop your meetings in the bar.”

The preacher turned to the official. His reply came with a boldness the onlookers had grown accustomed to.

“In three days you, sir, will no longer be governor”.

Shortly afterward the official’s servant accidently spilled boiling water on him. Badly injured, he was forced to vacate his post.

As the work expanded, funds came available through a visiting Swissman stirred by things he had witnessed. Soon afterward the gathered band of believers took ownership of the longstanding beer joint.

As a tribute to the transforming nature of the gospel, the place was renamed – The Congo Bar Church.

September 11, 2018September 18, 2018

Deja Vu

Delivering a sermon at Congo Bar Church in 1986 came about through a yearning. Not a hunger to preach in a large city gathering but a stirring in my wife and me. That we were to launch from Kenya, enter another African nation, and serve there. The question was – given the continent is home to more than fifty countries – which one?

“In their hearts humans plan their course,
but the Lord establishes their steps.” – Proverbs 16:9

***

From a disarming “so you’re the man with the black heart” greeting by the silver-haired gent in San Antonio, Ann and I had grown fond of Carlton Spencer in the years following. That early connection had factored in to our maiden assignment to East Africa. Now finding ourselves at another missions crossroads, his remarks carried a hint of déjà vu.

Elim President Spencer stood relaxed before a company of missionaries at our annual general meeting outside Nairobi.

“Several of you have served in this beautiful land for some years. I sense the Lord’s nudge that some are perhaps to set yourselves praying about other regions, other fields on the continent. Places little-served by kingdom laborers – some more challenging to live in than here.”

Both of us, my Ann and I, felt a stir. Following conversations and times in prayer the conviction grew that we were to venture toward a new field.

“Well, we know the mission serves regions westward from here,” I mused. “And to the south as well.”

And so it happened I flew the fifteen hundred miles to Kinshasa, and found myself days later before a crowd in a renovated bar.

Aidini’s ministry had dramatically multiplied the past three decades and church congregations now numbered more than 3,000 across Zaire’s enormous landscape. The leadership-training workforce certainly needed more people.

After two weeks poising as best I could the spiritual antenna of my heart, I boarded a Nairobi flight home with no new sense of clarity. None.

Not discounting Zaire just yet, we turned our attention to Kenya’s big neighbor to the south – land of famed explorer-missionary, Dr. David Livingstone. This time I wouldn’t go alone. We crossed into Tanzania at Namanga border.

What a surprise lay ahead.

September 15, 2018September 14, 2018

A Word In Season

“I keep returning to it, hon. This verse.” Ann leafed through her Bible to its grand, beloved “hymnal”, the Book of Psalms.

“ ‘I will lead you in the path that you should go, I will guide you with my eye’, Psalm 32:8”. For a while now the words keep coming back to mind.”

Days later, passing through Namanga Village with minimal drama as Africa border crossings go, I slid again into the Peugeot driver’s seat. Passing our fresh-stamped U.S. passports across to Ann, I engaged the clutch and nudged the gear lever forward. Turning to my bride of nearly twenty years, I grinned, “Well, here’s a first for me, sweetheart. I’ve never driven Tanzania’s roads.”

Tonight we would lodge at the home of friends whose surname brought a smile, given their missionary vocation. The Angels.

Granger and Beverly’s Arusha home sat a short distance from Tengeru Village and the church they pioneered and now co-led with Tanzanian Pastor Charles Nkya.

As we breezed along the scenic, well-paved highway, taking in the ever-enlarging image of fourteen-thousand-foot Mount Meru ahead, I silently reviewed bits of a sermon that had been forming. I was to preach tomorrow’s Sunday service.

Sharing scripture and illustrations, encouragements and challenges next morning I wrapped up the sermon inviting Tengeru believers to further yield their lives to God’s guidance and care. As sermons go I was pleased, thankful for his presence and aware nothing noteworthy seemed afoot. At least to my knowledge. The service dismissed. A number of folks lingered.

And up walked Zubida, a lady Elder in the church.

Zubida, small but poised – an instructor in the local college of agriculture – carried herself with quiet grace. Back when she had first opened her life to Christ, converting from Islam, her Muslim husband angrily threw her and her infant from the home. He kept the older children with him and forbade Mama Zubida to visit them. Through the deep pain, she pressed ahead in love and zeal for her Savior, keenly devoted through the years in the companionship of fellow believers and the strength found in Scripture.

Zubida’s Bible now lay open in one hand as she approached Pastor Angel. Pointing to a passage, she began.

“Pastor, this verse. . . I feel God has this scripture for our guests from Kenya. Can you share it with them?”

Granger responded with a smile, “No, Zubida. He seems to have given this to you. You share it with the Louts.”

Moving our direction humbly – her finger still planted on a Bible page – Mama Zubida rallied her voice.

“Brother and Sister, I feel that God has something in this verse for you. It came to me during the preaching today.”

I noted the reference and read the Swahili words.

I turned to Ann with a chuckle and asked pointedly, “Does this resonate in any way?”

Her face lit up as she took in the English translation,

“I will lead you in the path that you should go. I will guide you with my eye”