Running Life’s Race With A Limp – Page 13 – Jerry Lout ⚬ Writer ⚬ Speaker ⚬ Mobilizer

November 17, 2017

Megabites

“Safari Ants!”

We shot from either side of the bed – sheets, pillows, blanket flying – flailing through mosquito netting like flies exiting a flimsy spider web.

All was pitch black in the thatch roof hut. My wife and I had been asleep less than three hours when the miniature flesh-eating troops attacked. “Ouch!, Ah! Oh!! Ouch, Ahh!!”

“Where’s the torch, Jerry!?”

“I’m feeling for it down here. Keep moving about. Don’t stop moving!” I blindly surveyed the floor with my hands.

“Ah!”

The flashlight’s narrow beam cut through dark. We kept in motion, hopping about, reaching for our garments.

“Shake your stuff out before putting it on.”

“Right”. I danced into my jeans.

Unlatching the door, we scurried outside and up the incline to the entrance of our host’s main house. Answering our tap-tap at the metal door, our Mennonite friends ushered us in. “Sorry guys, some visitors chased us out. Otherwise the new guest hut is perfect!”

“Sharon,” Ann raced her fingers every direction through her hair “They’re up here, biting my head”. Sharon Stutzman sprang to action under the light of a kerosene lamp. Relief came.

The aggressive, flesh-eating creatures – called by some, safari ants, by others army ants or fire ants – showed up at the start of every rainy season. Moving about as if commanded by army generals, they advance to places where meat is found – human, animal, insect, reptile. They are not choosy.

Will and Florence Burnham, an older English couple, served with us at Bukuria. Will chuckled during one of our visits over tea, recalling his bullet-speed moves a year or so earlier when he shed a pair of trousers along some grassy trail.

“Lucky the grass was high, letting me keep some dignity. . . and, you know”, he added in a rich Liverpool accent, “when they bite, they hang on for dear life. They won’t drop away with a simple brush-off. Aye, you must pick them off, one-by-one!”

Experiments led me over time to an effective means of blocking the invaders. Pouring a light trail of paraffin (kerosene) along the outside base of the mission house usually held them at bay.

We learned of one clever family who would simply vacate their place a couple days – lodging with friends a distance away as the ants took over their home. Always on the march for more cuisine, Safari Ants don’t linger after a good house-scouring.

Roaches – rats – centipedes – scorpions. . . beware.

November 20, 2017

World of Spirits

Spirits. Good. Evil.

What is this thing, this world of spirits? How real is the unseen world? Do invisible personalities carry influence, power with people – sometimes over them?

I pondered the questions off-and-on. Growing up in the Pentecostal tradition, I had heard things about the spirit-world referenced plenty of times. Demon-oppression – Spiritual warfare – Deliverance ministry, and the like. My understanding was limited but the idea seemed reasonably simple.

Those good, powerfully strong beings of the angel variety represented God’s good presence at work in the world. By contrast, dark, evil, destructive forces issued from the kingdom of Satan, God’s biggest adversary. These dark beings were real and to be taken as seriously as angels. Teachers of scripture and the bible itself had shined light on the subject. That, though God himself is supreme, having no rival, no equal, much of humanity suffers in some measure under the deceiver, the accuser. This view, with plenty of Bible to commend, had informed much of my belief on the issue of spirit beings.

For me, it was also personal. I had sometimes sensed a a thing that felt like a dark, eerie presence. Not often but enough to trouble me, leaving me unsettled and sometimes fearful.

Living now in deep Africa, I discovered something I had long heard. The world at large – outside North American, European and other Western cultures – needed no persuading whether the spirit world existed. They required no convincing if spirit beings might play a role in living, breathing human beings.

First-hand encounters with witchcraft jarred me out of any guesswork about the matter.

I was enjoying lunch at the home of a missionary friend – another Jerry – in Southwestern Kenya. Jerry taught in a vocational school. The tribal people of the region had generations-long histories featuring spirit powers they knew to be evil. Placing curses on people was as common in some areas as the presence of moisture was common to a rainy season. Divination, witchcraft and the like, saw powerful spirit influences, fueled by fear.

A youth on a bicycle sped toward the house where we were. He came from the school’s direction a mile away.

“Mr. Jerry, Mr. Jerry!”

My friend set his tea cup down and moved outside.

After a brief visit with the boy, my host called up, “A student at the school is in trouble. Want to come with me?”

We set off on the ragged road – hardly more than a foot path. Less than five minutes the car jostled to a stop.

A tall, robust-looking youth sat on an outcropping of rock – one common to the area, rising about four feet out of the ground. In every way the student looked like, from a distance, a fine specimen of health. Except, that is, for his demeanor. And the trembling hands. His eyes shifted repeatedly away from direct contact. They seemed dark, fearful. He held his head as in a vice – sandwiched in a tight grip between the palms of his two large hands.

Missionary Jerry gently questioned the boy and one or two friends. He summarized the problem as best he could. The boy suffered an overpowering head-throb. It pulsed with searing pain. Indeed, he looked tortured.

But the pain’s source was not biological. Not really.

November 23, 2017

A Day of Thanksgiving

“Somebody from his home village sent it to him. Someone with a grudge. The envelope with that stuff inside came hand-delivered yesterday and he’s been like this since.”

I thought of the things that led up to this moment. ‘Curse updates’ don’t often happen in Oklahoma. But this thing seems really serious.

My friend, Jerry, had summoned the unusual parcel. We noticed the opened envelope bulged a bit. In it was a strange assortment – random, spooky things not fit for having around.

“Elements of a curse. It’s what this is. Whoever sent it to Omondi wasn’t playing games. They planned real physical and mental harm for him. Even death. Take a look at these bone fragments, the ashes mixed in, these bits of rock.”

We eyed the elements warily. Something became clear in those moments. The recipient of this “gift”, the young vocational student, knew he had been cursed. His fear was real. Omondi knew he could die at the hand of a power behind these items. Invisible but real, a terribly dark force – too strong to withstand.

Jerry and I stood silently, each in our own thoughts. Both of us anxious. Each of us sensed the other was praying, groping for guidance. How do you contend with this kind of thing? In another setting one could shrug it off as a game of foolish superstition. But we sensed this to be a full-on display of an evil presence, dispatched somehow to render harm. What could we do?

A thought had begun stirring in me. Pushing past a temptation to just ignore it, I turned to my friend.

“Jerry, would you mind if we try something?” He waited for me to go on. “Can someone bring matches? I think we need to urge this young man to resist, that he fight this thing in the power of Christ.”

Only partly-sure of my instinct, I continued. My confidence grew.

“I believe he needs to break this curse and we can be there, through it with him. We can pray. But I do think he needs to set these things on fire and destroy them. It will be his statement of God’s claim on his life. If he’s willing to, that is.” Jerry nodded.

As I had been speaking the words I knew I was out of my depth. I felt I may be trembling on the inside as much as Omondi was on the outside.

Matches were brought. We moved to an enclosure and sat on the floor, Jerry and I at either side of him.

After sharing Scripture with Omondi, affirming the goodness and the truth of Jesus and the power of his name, we asked him if he agreed with Jesus’ words. “Do you believe that God has power above all?”. He nodded slightly and we pressed ahead, inviting him to offer himself fully to Jesus Christ. Slowly, deliberately he voiced a prayer of surrender to God. My friend, Jerry and I, never let up calling on the Lord from our hearts. After a moment I looked into the young man’s eyes.

“Good. OK, now Omondi, do you renounce all witchcraft, any kind of it? Do you reject all spirit forces that oppose the Lord Jesus? Can you say that you do?” In a weak response he whispered yes. When asked one more time, he came back with an assertive “Yes”.

“OK”. I raised the envelope with its contents before him. Some apprehension seemed to play at his eyes. But his fear had lessened and my friend and I sensed Omondi was choosing freedom. We kept praying, “Help him, Lord Jesus. Be near.”

“Alright now, let’s light the match.”

At first his hand trembled with such intensity that I took his hand in mine and we gripped the match together. Thankful for his clear resolve to continue, we struck the match and lit the envelope and contents, Jerry and I voicing thanksgivings to Jesus the whole time. And a beautiful thing followed.

Witnessing the flame take over the elements, we felt a release of joy. The three of us came to our feet. Jerry and I called out in joy and conviction, praising the name of our Lord. Fear had left. Had left us all. Omondi’s head pain went away. Deliverance had come.

Afterwards, as we prepared to leave, the name of a pastor I knew from Omondi’s home area came to my mind. I sent a message to him. The two connected in coming days.

At the end of the day we were at peace. Wow.

The power of Christ had prevailed over raw evil. And two young – less-than-fearless – missionaries had been invited to take part. No wonder it’s called Good News.

We had witnessed the display on this day the authority of Christ’s name. A power greater than witchcraft, greater than fear and even death. The power of love.

It was a day of thanksgiving.

November 29, 2017

Hidden Limp

What about my demons?

Joining up with Jesus in chasing out the devil, invoking his name, watching a man set free from fear, maybe even death. This is living!

An other-worldly thrill comes on the heels of such triumph. But then, as with many of life’s highs, a larger reality finds a way of settling in. Troubling questions may follow.

What of my own demons?

I had met Christ dramatically in my youth. His presence flooding over and through me, wave on wave, at my Yes to a simple invitation voiced by a real estate agent – “Would you like more of Jesus?”

God had kept me from the prison of an iron lung, had brought my useless, polio-smitten legs to life.

His relentless Spirit had, later on, chased after me and my rebellious teen heart. Such love at work had melted me to brokenness and restored me to my family.

And, wonder of wonders, he brought to me my most prized treasure, an inside/outside beauty from the Big Sky state of Montana. It had been Ann who waited with Jerry’s wife for us two men to complete our deliverance ministry assignment with a traumatized African youth.

And even a call to Christian service. Overseas, no less.

Yet.

My secret held on. And its attending darkness.

The night Lawrence violated me in my pre-puberty childhood had set the stage for compounded issues fueled by shame. Through wrongful, impure ways I had gotten exposed to sexuality. This set in motion desires I knew to be wrong.. Repeated cycles of guilt-inducing thoughts and behaviors naturally followed. Behaviors I knew to be wrong but which plagued me regardless how I tried to resist. And try I did.

So, while on the one hand my life was marked by blessings nearly too good to be true, I struggled deeply with periodic bouts of distress over crippling addictions.

Crippled. A missionary with a limp.

December 6, 2017

Prevailing Mercy

Struggles and questionings aside, the call to serve helped anchor me. I believed the Lord had work for me to do and I pressed ahead, knowing he loved me, that he was after my best, regardless. Even as I wrestled with a sense of unworthiness and the feeling at times I was a junky heap of damaged goods, the assurance of his care sustained me. I knew who deserved credit. Not me, that was for certain.

So where some useful cause might arise – sponsoring a student, leading a class, encouraging a co-laborer (of my own culture or another) – I felt at home there. The discordant clamorings of unhealthy desire quieted for me most in such times. Times I poured out my energies, my prayers for others.

The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise*. The ancient passage consoled me again and again through my bitter-sweet years. Laying my wounded heart before him was all I knew to do. Turning myself over to his mercy, repeatedly, sincerely. All that the Father gives me shall come to me; and he that comes to me I will in no wise cast out*. Rehearsing such verses before him tethered me. His Mercy remained a constant. Ever meeting me in my places of brokenness, never condemning while never at the same time ‘giving me a pass’.

Regret – shame – contrition – repentance – thanksgiving. The cycles continued, ending every time at the door of mercy. Mercy from one nearer than a brother. Jesus. Friend of sinners.

My theme verse may well have read something like the following.

“I obviously need help! I realize that I don’t have what it takes. I can will it, but I can’t do it. I decide to do good, but I don’t really do it; I decide not to do bad, but then I do it anyway. . . It happens so regularly that it’s predictable. The moment I decide to do good, sin is there to trip me up. . .” (Romans 7, the Message)

Notions of dodging responsibility, passing the buck, excusing my wrongs held no attraction. I knew what disobedience felt like, knew wrong-doing, wrong-thinking, wrong-fantasizing when it entered the neighborhood. Like a drug-detecting dog, my conscience picked up transgression’s scent. The buck stopped with me.

Those times in Christian culture were such that few religious communities – wherever found – seemed able to walk with their people through the mine fields of sexual brokenness. There were likely more caregivers available than we knew. That was the part of the problem. They weren’t known.

Occasionally through my overseas years a handful of struggling men would surface, gravitating together for encouragement and prayer. I linked up with such a group for a season. The effort was commendable as far as it went. Yet, although we did not intend to purposefully avoid certain topics – like sexual purity – we did. Each of us lived in Africa where wild game abounded, yet we always managed to ignore the elephant always in the room.

A day would eventually come when Missions agencies, church councils and team leaders would, in compassion, open doors that had been long shut to needful conversation. To counsel, to pray with the broken and their spouses. During the times we were in, however, many in Christian service simply did the best they could to forge ahead. Pretty much in silence, managing demons. Some, myself included, muddled along for years. The Holy Spirit graciously watched over our wounded, transgressing, saved-yet-fractured souls. We mercifully made it through without falling as casualties. We brought with us some scars, no question, yet still moving forward. Limping with rays of hope, our marriage companions often our greatest source of strength.

For other men, their suffering goes on undisclosed, unaddressed, even today. Their pain real, their wounds deep, shame binds them and replays a false narrative in their mind. . . there is no place to turn.

May these gain help. Through the Friend. Through His children, his wounded healers.

Like those I would one day find.

December 19, 2017December 19, 2017

Redeeming Pain

The mission doctor drew his penlight back from my little girl’s ear and sent me a sympathetic look.

His voice betrayed a strong Dutch accent, “The infection is bad.”

The young doc had recently been assigned to Ombo clinic, a Catholic mission outpost in Migori village. I had brought our three-year-old Julie in this morning, hoping to remedy her nonstop earache. Julie had sat astride my dirt bike’s gas tank the twenty mile ride in. Was it wise exposing her head – especially her ears – to the breeze out there? A little late to ponder that, I thought.

The physician reached for a sharp-pointed instrument I had no interest seeing.

“I need to pierce the ear drum and you will want to hold her firm.”

What followed was one of the necessary and least welcome assignments presented parents of young children all down through the ages. How to explain the act of heaping pain on top of pain – at the hands of the white-coated man whose job was to bring pain’s relief – and at the hands of daddy, nearest thing to hero in the room?

Why daddy? Why do you help this man hurt me? My daughter’s distressed eyes silently begged the answer more strongly than her voice ever could.

I swallowed hard, the fear inside me rising from the insecurity of my youthful fatherhood. I’ve never gotten schooled in this thing going on here. I hoped my voice – it’s ok, sweetheart, it’ll be okay soon – offered some kind of comfort, assurance that all would be well. Indeed, my greater struggle came from within rather than from the physical act of imprisoning my princess in this smothering hold.

Mercifully, the sharp pierce of the surgeon’s device came and went quickly. Julie’s sudden cry cut through the lab facility, echoing harshly in the uncarpeted, brick-walled room. The whimpers soon trailed off and she grew calmer. I rocked her slowly back and forth. The infectious throbbing went away, the pounding pain gone. Her tense body relaxed. She quieted.

Years afterward, the visit to Ombo Clinic prompted me to reflect.

Of God’s most-recognized titles, ‘Father’ must rank the highest.

Thank you Lord that, when I least understand you or your actions, your care and wisdom and presence get me past my confusion and pain. Eventually.

Every time.

January 9, 2018February 13, 2018

Staring Down the Elements

Had I known that my dirt bike could well have landed at the bottom of a river before day’s end, I might have stayed in bed.

Rains had been falling off and on for several days around Suna Mission, punctuated from time to time with pummeling downpours. My piki-piki slipped and slithered beneath me for miles along the muddy roadway, finally bringing me to a bridge. Submerged beneath a torrent of waters.

It was the bridge I had planned to cross on the road taking me to Lake Victoria’s shoreline ten miles further on. I was slated to preach the Sunday service in a fishing village.

Great volumes of murky brown raced along – a steady, turbulent surge – passing both under and above the concrete bridge. Slowing the bike to a halt I let my feet find the muddy road surface. I sat some moments just taking in the scene. A young Luo man approached as I dismounted.

Smiling cheerily, he wasted no time offering me a proposition once the customary greetings were out of the way.

“Would you like to go over to the other side?” He hardly took a breath before adding, “I can get you there. . .” The youth quickly surveyed the Suzuki and waved an open palm toward it before concluding, “and you’re piki-piki, too!”

Shy of any strong conviction to leap at his offer, I questioned what he had in mind.

“Come. Just come.”

I clambered behind him up a muddy hill, a rise from which we could now take in more of the river upstream. I wasn’t quite ready for the view.

There at the water’s edge lay a home-built canoe – long and narrow. It had been wrestled to shore and held in place by it’s two captains. First into the into the canoe was lifted a hefty bag of maize, probably a good 70 pounds worth. What most caught my eye, though, was an animal being drawn, much against its will, down the steep bank to the water, and the canoe.

“Kuja! Kuja! (Come! Come!)”, shouted the man leveraging the donkey’s makeshift harness, as his comrade energetically shoved from the animal’s backside. The poor creature’s resistance proved futile as it skidded nearer and nearer its watery destination.

The donkey’s handler passed the harness rope to the nearest boats-man who made sure the animal went into the water alongside the vessel rather than into it.

Once the craft was loaded, off they rowed, the donkey swimming nervously alongside – it’s jaw held taut by the keeper now on-board – bumping now and then against the canoe side.

Whatever was true about the action-laced drama, the mariner’s labors convinced me. To – reluctantly at least – entrust my old dirt bike to them. With one condition, however.

“Not a single scratch must be added to the bike until it’s safely across and sitting on the opposite bank.”

If this feat were met satisfactorily I would add an extra two Kenya shillings on the agreed fare. Naturally, I wasn’t so concerned about added dings on the already-scarred machine. I simply wished to make the strong point that neither the Suzuki nor myself landed at the bottom of the river.

Two additional canoes – freed of goods they’d just delivered to the far bank – made their way to our shore. The boats found me struggling some to keep my balance on the steep, sloshy terrain.

Twenty minutes later and a good way further downstream, both my piki-piki and me alighted intact on the opposite shore. Balancing in the canoe carrying me across, I had snapped a picture of the bike, it’s 250 cc frame held perfectly upright the whole distance in the second boat by two strapping Luo youth. The photo appeared later in our newsletter update with a caption beneath advising,

“Watch and Pray”.

January 11, 2018February 13, 2018

Fifty ~ Golden

Make your fiftieth anniversary memorable.

We needed little help meeting that assignment. Our terrific B&B of choice lacked sufficient heating reserves to counter the bitter cold pounding its harsh winds against our room’s exterior wall.

The host responded promptly to our Midnight SOS, and transferred us to a cozier room. A while later the breakfast table found us – if a bit bleary-eyed – happily at our post.

With the aid of Facebook I succeeded surprising my bride with a little ballad I’d earlier composed. The lyrics here offer an unabridged version. Honoring my Forever-love, Ann Barnes Lout. . . I understand better now why they call it Golden.

~December 30, 1967~

I saw you then I see you now

I see you now, your movements slower

See you now, a bit more seasoned

And we smile to one another

As we chuckle at the reason. . . you were younger then, a little younger then

You look my way and there’s a senior

A little shuffle in his movements

You see his hair has gotten thinner

And you doubt there’ll be improvements. . . I was younger then, a little younger then

I saw you in your bridal garment

Saw you taking steps toward me

Couldn’t keep my eyes from watchin

You’re the only one I could see

And we met there at the altar and we pledged our lives together

our affection our devotion, all the way until forever

Our love was brand new then, brand new then

I saw you when our love first flowered

In those days that we ran faster

Laughing, runnin ‘long beside me

Chasing dreams we dreamed to master

We were children then, a lot like children then

I see us move toward a sunrise’

where an east horizon beckons’

See us trek across an ocean

where we hope to find a welcome

And the years they go on movin

with our numbers yet increasin’

as our family keeps a growin’

into yet another season

Seasoned now, yes we’re seasoned now

I see you radiant and lovely

More attractive now than ever

See you sharing gems of counsel,

younger women come to treasure

You look my way and there’s a senior,

a little shuffle in his movement

You see his hair has gotten thinner

and you doubt there’ll be improvement

I see you out there in the garden

See you touch a pretty flower

And I ponder how this woman

grows more lovely by the hour

And we met there at the altar and we pledged our lives together

our affection and devotion, all the way until forever

We would hold to one other, our devotion not forsaking

As we sealed our marriage union in these vows that we were making

I saw you then, I see you now

I loved you then, I love you now . . . I love you now

January 30, 2018September 9, 2018

Don’t Wait Up

“You will sleep at my house tonight.” The stranger pointed to a thatched dwelling in the distance. His words came more as factual statement than invitation.

The high school boy had emerged as I sat straddling my motorbike atop the gravel road not far from Africa’s largest lake. Daylight had faded. My bike’s head-lamp struggled to project its beam outward through an increasing mist. Well, I’m not awash in a downpour. Not yet.

I had brought the pikipiki to a stop once the drizzle began. It was clear I was in for a long, perhaps soaking, ride the remaining fifty miles home. The bike had been through a lot since leaving Nyabisawa Mission early this morning. Bouncing and slipping, zigzagging ruts carved from cattle tracks and rivulets of earlier rains.

The boy’s first greeting had framed a question, “Hello, sir. My name is Joseph. Where are you going?”

“Hello Joseph. I’m Jerry. Taking the long way to Nyabisawa. Going home.”

“But sir,” his voice growing solemn, “you do not want to travel this way at night-time. The next village ahead is Rodi. Bad people are there these days. When you pass through they will throw stones at you. It is not a safe place to pass.”

Reaching forward to wipe gathering moisture from the head lamp, I pondered the revelation. The schoolboy turned and with the wave of a hand indicated a gathered trio of grass-roofed huts not far off the road. Night was descending and in equatorial Africa the shift from light to dark occurs in a heartbeat.

“You will sleep at my house tonight.”

Once the pikipiki was secured inside the largest hut, I followed my young host to my impromptu sleeping quarters. It felt like I had stepped onto the center of an open National Geographic magazine. . . Africa bush-country – Circular hut. Thatch roof. Floor of hardened earth smooth and clean-swept. . .

“I will stay out here in this room”, Joseph announced. I glanced about as we passed through. With the exception of a sisal mat rolled up at the far wall, the room was bare.

“The house is my mother’s. She is the second wife of my father. She is not here tonight.”

We passed through an opening into the hut’s only other room. It was small, the area barely allowing for a single, narrow cot. The light of his kerosene lantern revealed the cot’s neatly-tucked bedding, a navy blue blanket. A mosquito net, much like a larger one in my own bedroom back at the mission, draped the bed – hanging suspended from a roof support. The net appeared adequate to keep any malaria-laden pests at a distance.

This small side-room and mosquito-shielded bed normally served the high-schooler as his own sleeping space. Nothing I said could persuade him to give me the other room and the floor mat. This was the African way with guests.

I wonder how Ann’s doing? Wish I had a way of being in touch.

The big 9 p.m. meal in the main hut with my engaging young host and family ensured the deep, restful sleep that came afterward.

Stirred awake by a string of rooster crows, I emerged from the mosquito netting, bundled it in place above the bed in a loose knot, and joined Joseph for bread and sweet hot tea that smelled slightly of charcoal embers. I thanked all the family, pulled on my helmet and was on my way. The last image I took in was through my rear-view mirror. Joseph – white-toothed smile gleaming from his ebony Luo face – waving a vigorous farewell.

I passed through Rodi without incident, no rowdy mischief-makers, no stones to dodge.

Quite a weekend. Traversing a swollen river, my bike and me, aboard makeshift canoes. Preaching and fellowshipping at a Lake Victoria village. Hosted and dined overnight in a home rivalling the finest of Kenya’s tourist hotels.

It was the weekend marking my wife’s resolve going forward. . .

If my husband is out in remote places and doesn’t make it back when expected. If I don’t hear from him. I will not worry. I’ll pray and trust he’s fine. This is Africa.

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?