Category: Running Life’s Race With A Limp

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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”.

©2018 Jerry Lout

 

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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

 

©2018 Jerry Lout  ‘I Saw you then, I See you now’   http://bit.ly/2DklGQJ

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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.

©2018 Jerry Lout

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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?

©2018 Jerry Lout

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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.

©2018 Jerry Lout

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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.

©2018 Jerry Lout

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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.

©2018 Jerry Lout

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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)”.

©2018 Jerry Lout

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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.”

© 2017 Jerry Lout

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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