Tag: Africa

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Baptist Bug

I took a seat.

My underside had barely warmed the church bench when the pastor’s appeal grabbed my attention.

Oh, my, I wondered. Are we coming to another offering?

“Folks, I feel the Lord wants us to get in on this missionary adventure with Brother Jerry and Sister Ann.” David paused just a moment.

“The Louts will need a car once they’re in Africa. Let’s trust God and believe him to let Eastwood get them that car. What do you say?”

For a church this size with sparse revenue, the guy at the pulpit had thrown them a big challenge. I could not have guessed the surprise coming.

One by one, smiles spread across the congregation. Heads nodded. Once more, in under a week’s time, I sat befuddled while a gathering of common believers dug deep. Joyously, without constraint. Reaching for a check book, for cash, for a paper scrap to write a ‘promise offering’, our precious Eastwood Baptist friends rallied. The collection seemed over as promptly as it began and the service moved on.

Following the customary after-service mingling, Ann and I moved toward the gravel parking lot and our vehicle. The remarkable week had flown and we needed to catch our breath and snatch some time together.

“Hey guys!” David caught up with us. His face glowed. In his hand was a note, figures scribbled on it. “Maybe this will help you move around once you’re over there. It’s what came in today.”

Stunned was too tame a word. What a generous outpouring from a congregation of such humble size. I read the note aloud, “One thousand eight hundred dollars. . .” We could only shake our heads. “Wow, Thank you, Lord.”

– fast forward –

On a balmy June day in Nairobi the keys of a spanking new Volkswagen Beatle were dropped into my hands. Complete with Title.

The Kenya shillings purchase price was printed clearly on the Bill of Sale. It equaled eighteen hundred U.S. dollars.
©2017 Jerry Lout

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Coincidence

“Yes, this is Art Dodzweit, can I help you?” Thus began for Ann and me our decades-long adventure among an intriguing breed of people called missionaries.

But it really started in a Church History class.

“Students”, Reverend Jensen, portly and congenial, rolled out our assignment in steady, methodical tones. “On each of your desks you see a list of names – church denominations, Missions agencies, Bible schools. You are to select one. Write a short letter to their office, requesting a copy of their by-laws. Then, do up a brief, type-written report.” His steady monotone went on. . . “who they are, when they incorporated, something of their vision. Turn it in by end of month, please.”

Taking in the long list of names – nearly all of them new to me – I planted my forefinger on an entry mid-way down. My mini research-project was underway.

David spotted me soon after and launched into a chat about our overseas plans. The conversation shifted to missionary-sending organizations.

“You know, Brother Jerry, it was a long time ago but my father used to teach at a place called Elim Bible Institute. It’s linked to a missions agency – Elim Missionary Assemblies. I think they do a lot of work in Africa. You might like to contact them.”

“Hmm, where’s that agency located?”, I asked.

“Well, Elim is up in New York.”

“Lima, New York?”

“That’s right”. He shot a questioning look my way.

“Well, I just sent a letter to those folks asking for a copy of their by-laws.” David and I could only laugh.

Soon a New York postmarked info packet made its way to our our Texas mailbox. I turned in my assignment. Ann and I kept wondering about the short interchange with David Mulford. I turned to my wife.

“Shall we call Elim?”

“Sure, let’s call Elim.”

My first-ever phone call to upstate New York led to a suggestion from Elim’s main office. I should connect with the agency’s pioneer missionary to East Africa. He happened to be in the U.S. just now, visiting California.

When Missionary Dodzweit answered, we chatted briefly. He urged that I speak directly with Elim Missionary Assembly’s president. My second call to New York set in motion a journey we would not forget. I was put through to the president, son of Elim’s founder, Ivan Spencer.

“Yes, this is Carlton Spencer.”

“Sir, I’m calling from San Antonio, Texas. My wife and I hope to serve in Africa.”

“How interesting”.

Why interesting?, I wondered – not mindful another coincidence might be brewing.

Elim’s leader went on.

“I’ll be in your city in a few days. . . In fact, I’m set to speak at your school.”

Yes, I thought. How interesting.
©2017 Jerry Lout

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Black Heart

“SO, this is the man with the black heart!”

It was my first time receiving such a greeting – from anyone – much less a distinguished organizational head.
Wednesday chapel ended, the guest speaker had found his way from the platform to the early row of students gathering up their textbooks.

Stepping before me he had seized my shoulders and studied my face for every bit of two seconds. Before I could respond to his “black heart” salutation Carlton Spencer took me in a bear hug. He thumped my back as though he’d run into an old friend from the past. A rich shock of silver-white hair complimented his mouthful of gleaming teeth. Carlton Spencer. Instantly I liked him, this Elim Missionary Assemblies president.

Black heart. . .

Ann and I had already agreed to seek out an Africa-focused agency. While IBC did champion missions, its out-of-country vision centered on Far East lands and on Mexico – an obvious short hop from this Alamo City. Indeed, a long weekend in our third year of college had found us and fellow students dust-laden and mesmerized – immersed in Spanish-language culture – the school’s traditional Easter outreach south of the border.

We had also found the Lord refining our focus within the African continent – stirring us much toward her eastern regions – Uganda and Kenya. Elim Missionary Assemblies had pioneered there, starting in the 1930s.

Welcomed by Rev. Spencer to visit Lima, New York as missionary candidates, we detected our stride toward Africa picking up pace. My Bible College commencement had come and gone and Ann was now a certified LPN.

With a letter from David Coote recommending us to a few pastors we hoped could get behind our vision, we set out. Painfully conscious of my inexperience in fund-raising, I was both sobered and assured. Our dependency must be in one supremely wiser than ourselves.

Seated in our freshly-loaded Pontiac, Ann and I faced each other. Excited. Nervous. Joining our hands we prayed. I slid the key into the ignition.

“Lord, here we go.”
©2017 Jerry Lout

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Yankee-land

My eyebrows furrowed as we entered Pennsylvania and took in the expanse of her rolling hills, farmlands and forests. Puzzled, I wondered, Where are the sky-scrapers? Upstate New York was more bewildering.

Any Oklahoman knew that most Yankee states were blanketed throughout by asphalt and concrete. Our ever-expanding world as we motored northward from South Texas, alerted me repeatedly to my wonderful ignorance about the lay of the land. An ignorance of the kind New Yorkers employ when doubting whether Okies own automobiles.

I eased our car to a halt before an aged, multi-story brick structure perched atop a hill. The month was January and a frigid drizzle had begun descending in slow motion. Although it wasn’t yet 10 p.m. darkness had fallen several hours earlier. No one was in sight. I turned to my wife, now in the early months of her first pregnancy.
“Seems we’re here, darlin’. . . the sign out front says, Elim.”

Genesee Wesleyan Seminary, one of the first coed schools in the U.S., had opened its’ doors on this hill in 1831 and Elim’s training center now occupied some of those ornate structures from the past.

Our cold, dreary reception, climate-wise, was countered by friendly greetings of mission-agency staff next morning.
“Oklahoma? . . that’s where you’re from?” The office manager’s eyes brightened. “Then you’ll have to meet Ron and Jerry.” Noting our quizzical response, he went on. “Ron Childs is from Philly. He and his wife, Jerry are also here as missionary candidates. Jerry comes from down your way. Oklahoma.”

Another day passed before we formally met the couple who, as ourselves, felt destined for Africa. The first phrase passing through Jerry Childs’s lips betrayed her origins. This is no New Yorker, I thought to myself with a grin, registering the familiar drawl of my home state.

“Happy to meet you,” replied my wife. Then, drawn to the small bundle her new friend cradled in her arms, “What a sweet little one you have there. . . a girl?”

Jerry Childs smiled and nodded. “Thank you. Yes, a girl. Like to hold her?”

My wife drew near, her own mother-instincts already much alive.

She took up little Sarah and brought her close, little dreaming what lay ahead between the two in another time and place.
©2017 Jerry Lout

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Pluck

My plucky wife slipped the medical release document between unmarked leaves of her passport. Stamped Canandaigua, N.Y.,, her doctor’s letter had okayed this, her first-ever overseas flight. We would board for Africa May 26 – our first child (we didn’t know the gender) to be born in under two months.

***
“Where have you been?” The director’s voice carried an edge, the tone anything but casual.

A day earlier Ann and I had travelled the 5 ½ hours from upstate New York to Brooklyn. We would lodge at an inner-city Mission before passing through one of JFK Airport’s many international gates to then ascend into friendly blue skies.

The Mission sat in a more sullied neighborhood where pedestrian traffic sadly displayed prominent signs of addiction and vice. We probably should have known better than take our stroll around the block.

“We took a stroll around the block. . . maybe a couple blocks.”

“Please,” the Mission director’s eyes were pleading. “Never do that in these neighborhoods – day or night – not without at least one of our staff along.”

We nodded meek compliance.

Next day a gregarious volunteer-driver with a heavy gas-pedal-foot chimed, “Hey guys, on our way to the airport, let’s go via Coney Island.” I loaded luggage into the old van and helped Ann settle on to a bench seat partway back.

Street conditions citywide have trended downward somewhat since 2012, according to the Mayor’s Management Report.

So reads data filed by New York City’s Independent Budget Office. But based on a 1972 Coney Island van ride with an expectant missionary wife on board, the recent trending downward had not been the first. Of things hoped for in the nation’s biggest city, traversing Coney Island pot holes at head-clunking speed was not counted among them.

Nine years after Idlewild was renamed John Fitzgerald Kennedy International Airport we shuffled our way into the cavernous belly of America’s most-renowned passenger aircraft of the times. A behemoth of an aircraft, the Boeing 747, commonly tagged Jumbo Jet.

Our seat-belts fastened, we took each other’s hand and I voiced a prayer. The moment felt surreal. Here we were, really off to the great Africa continent. To serve – hopefully for years to come.

The leg to England was relaxed, given our adrenaline-charged hours leading to it. We would need relaxing, considering what lay ahead.

Changing airplanes in London we expected. Changing airports we did not.
©2017 Jerry Lout

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Embakasi

“Jerry Lout, right?”

The accent, which I would later recognize as New Zealander, came from beyond a short railing. John Maxwell’s hand, its firm grip on a paper, pressed forward past the barrier and into Nairobi airport’s arrivals section. Labeled Immigration, it was the sector where passports, visas and such are green-lighted or rejected.

The paper being handed me was important. My Work Permit, the document required for our long-term stay in Kenya. The Permit had been signed just recently, an inky stamp-print marking approval. Good for four years. Happy to meet a welcoming presence to the continent, I took the paper from our new colleague, nodding my thanks.

Our plane had touched down minutes earlier, having traversed the Mediterranean Sea north-to-south and a long air path over the Sahara Desert.

Mile-high Embakasi Airport was just a short distance beyond the Nairobi Game Park, popular tourist attraction at the east edge of Kenya’s Capital City. The town’s name, Nairobi, was formed from a Maasai phrase meaning “cool water”. Six years would pass before Embakasi’s rechristening, paying homage to this nation’s first president, Jomo Kenyatta International Airport.

“Well, this is good!”, John’s wife announced cheerily, flashing a smile. “Seems your luggage all made it with you fine.” Jenny’s two pre-school boys bustled close by. Noting Ann’s larger-than-life midsection one asked, “Mummy, will Auntie have her baby now?”

Though wearied from travel, Ann felt lifted by the young mother’s warmth, “Let’s get you where you can relax a bit, shall we?” Jenny was Nairobi born-and-raised, and as comfortably at home in Africa as any expatriate we would come to know. From the outset our households, the Maxwells and Louts, had begun a bond.

Another person drew near – a lady graying a little around the temples, but vibrant. “Welcome, Kiddos.” The American accent stirred a good feeling somewhere inside us.

If what were needed for a pair of green missionary-hopefuls landing on the continent was a matronly, plucky veteran of Africa’s bush-country, Eva Butler fit the role. Single-mom. Servant to Kenya’s more remote peoples and cultures. Being in her company, Ann and I sensed a measure of awe. Then my mood shifted and I nearly chuckled, recalling an uncommon meeting in a small college chapel not that long ago. . . “So this is the man with the black heart!”

My wife and I smiled as, in turn, we took Eva Butler’s hand – sister to the snowy-haired, twinkly-eyed Elim President. Carlton Spencer.

In a few days I would visit one of those remote regions Eva called home. And have a taste of raw fear.

©2017 Jerry Lout

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South C

Never in my life had I known a neighborhood whose name was plucked from a string of alphabet symbols.

The two cars arriving from the airport – one transporting us, the other our luggage – eased up to Maxwell’s South C home.

Their house itself sat hidden behind a stonework wall, like a shy maiden part-concealed back of a fortress of vines. And vines there were, in abundance. Bougainvillea – their rich array of petals – pinks, purples, oranges, reds garnishing much of the ‘C’ neighborhood. Ray Troyer back in San Antonio had put into my hands my first-ever 35mm camera, a second-hand Voigtlander. What beauty these flowers could show on a slide. If I can just remember Ray’s coaching how to use the thing.

“Jerry and Ann”, Jenny called out, “we’re off to Sunday morning church”. “You folks just relax. . . sleep a bit if you can. . . you’ve travelled far and long. After service we shall come collect you and we’ll go together for lunch. Good?” Weariness, having indeed caught up with us, we readily agreed. After all, this was Sunday right, a day of rest?

What would our first meal in Africa be. . . and exactly where? The question hadn’t crossed our minds. Had we given it a thought we might have assumed we would dine under a long-grass roof within a mud hut.

Entering Nairobi’s Hilton we shook our heads trying to get them around this scenario. The new and somewhat naïve American couple exited the hotel’s café an hour later having happily feasted on sandwiches and fries. ‘Chips’ Jerry, I coached myself. Fries aren’t ‘fries’ here, they’re ‘chips’.

So our first day entering Africa, a living tutorial had essentially greeted us. If formalized, an academic title might have been posted: ‘Kenya. Background and Culture 101’. This was a beautiful land of contrasts. . . rich and impoverished, tradition-steeped and cutting-edge, conflicted and united. It sobered us that we hadn’t begun to learn and it inspired us that we could start now. Here at tourism’s iconic Hilton Hotel, walking-distance from one of Africa’s largest slums – Mathare Valley.

A voice with an accent I was hearing more often called over to me. New Zealanders carried the nickname Kiwi, after the national symbol, a bird common to their Islands. “Eva needs electrical wiring put in at her Mashuru place”, offered John. “So I’ll head out there Tuesday. The job should take a couple days. . . Like to come?”

“Sure”, I piped. Getting away from the big city and out to the ‘real Africa’ would be fun, I thought. Maybe even a thrill.

Walking unarmed and alone through leopard country had not crossed my mind.

©2017 Jerry Lout

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A Morning Laugh

The key slipped easily into its slot. I was downtown Nairobi, standing before a bank of metal post office boxes. The bold figures on our assigned box – shared by others of our same mission – read 30207.  Drawing out the few pieces of mail bearing the Lout name I paused at one marked with a Louisiana address. I recognized the sender though we hadn’t been in touch since I left San Antonio more than a year ago. I turned the envelope a couple times. How about this. . . What’s Ray up to these days?

Ann and I had passed through our first Nairobi, Kenya months in a seeming blur, a lot of new happening. New friends, new apartment, new culture and new car. . .New baby.

Julie Ann Lout made her squalling entry to Nairobi Hospital July 13, 1972 – a bare six weeks after our Africa landing. Our most joyous moment since Ann and I exchanged our vows.

A few weeks later I engaged another kind of new. A new language.

We found we were short on funds to cover both an insurance payment coming due and my Swahili School entrance fee. By now the language studies were underway. The money worries burdened me.

On the post-office-visit day I had awakened about 5 o’clock. Our little studio flat came with an oddly arranged self-contained kitchen, separate from the rest, making possible an inviting private space for alone-time. Before boiling some coffee water I slid a chair near me and knelt before it. And found myself questioning.

Laugh? I’m to laugh?

My questioning was reaction to a direct, uninvited impression that entered my mind some moments after I knelt. “Laugh. . . simply give your voice to laughing. . . laugh.”  To consult my feelings seemed pointless. I felt like doing any number of things. Return to bed. Bemoan our money shortfall. Worry.

The word ‘laugh’ persisted, like a gentle command. A few moments passed.

OK, here goes.

“hahaha”. “hahaha”. “hahaha”.

The sounds coming quietly off my tongue were flat, lifeless as a corpse, ricocheting the yellow-painted walls of my small enclosure.  I realized that no smile accompanied my attempted laugh. Alright.

I’ll smile. I willed my face to the posture. By now, though, I had begun sensing that God’s Spirit was likely behind this unorthodox exercise. That something special may await.

Several seconds of emotionless chuckling directed upward stretched into a minute or so. For the most part my eyes stayed open, as the practice didn’t seem entirely like prayer anyway.

What happened next, there in my early-morning space, surprised me. And revisited my thinking later in the day when reading the Louisiana-stamped letter. The impact was profound.

©2017 Jerry Lout

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A Sound Of Drums

“Do you hear something, Hon?”

The drum-beat rhythms seemed distant and ill-defined – more like a dream than real. Indeed, for a moment I thought the sound was a dream. But it grew in strength and as we lay wide-eyed in our fully-darkened sleeping quarters, our senses were strained. Time passed slowly.

“They’re coming nearer.”

Taranganya occupied a tiny dot on the rare Kenya map that found the outpost worthy of any space at all. The village’s claim to fame included a butcher shop. Flies gathered there to hike around on suspended beef portions well before customers took their cuts home to savor them for themselves. Pressure cookers were prized items in any missionary dwelling.

Two government schools roughly book-ended the butchery, one for elementary kids, the other, high-schoolers.  Beyond these, the one evidence that Taranganya village existed was Bukuria Mission.

Bukuria. Our first upcountry home. The place an outdoor hired hand pummeled a seven-foot spitting cobra after she raised her head just yards away and shot venomous spray my direction.

Bukuria – where a tornado ripped the metal roof off our neighbor’s house to hurl it across the compound, pretzelizing it in the branches of several trees on the way out.

Bukuria was a kind of place that stirs nostalgia. Past residents recall images of smoke clouds wafting over distant Maasai plains – evidence of herdsmen purging brown grasslands before the onset of welcome March rains.

A night watchman, Nyamahanga, was a fixed security presence on the station, greeting us at our first arrival. His armor consisted of a homemade bow with a handful of arrows (razor sharp). We had heard that tribal skirmishes may flare up in the area now and then. One wouldn’t want to be caught in the cross-fire, or worse yet, become the direct target of an angry archer.

“Lord, thanks for watching over us, over this place.”

The mission station rested on the uppermost slope of a gradually-ascending hill. Its entrance-point marked the head of a sweeping curve of the narrow, unpaved road passing before it. Our new home was in a remote sector of Kenya just five miles north of Tanzania’s unpatrolled border. The massive waters of Lake Victoria glistened from her banks 40 miles to our west.

We, the newbie missionaries, had just moved more than two hundred miles to this place, having received little orientation. We had no actual history with anyone of the Kuria Tribe.

The drumming volume intensified. Chanting sounds in a local dialect unknown to us fueled our anxiety.

Had we pondered more the impact of faith since the arrival of outsiders bearing the Jesus-news three decades earlier, our jitters would have lessened.

Our night of fitful sleep finally passed and we asked the obvious question.

The midnight drum-beats and chanting voices had stirred old film images of painted warriors, pith helmets and boiling pots. But we traced our Saturday night of sleeplessness to a little band of Kuria believers. En route to a prayer meeting.

©2017 Jerry Lout

 

 

 

 

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Sensibilities

Green – Naïve – Novice – Ignorant. String them together and you had my name tag.

The rambling house that my wife, myself and our bundle of Julie settled into had been built by missionaries who pioneered the work three decades ahead of our coming. The pioneers had fashioned the dwelling from local soil – rust-tinted bricks fired in a home-built kiln.

A day or two after our Bukuria arrival, a chorus of male voices took us by surprise. Not a musical chorus but a mix of busy voices growing loud, fading back, then loud again.

Are they angry. . . enthused. . . something other. . .which? Their language was neither English nor Swahili. Kikuria, no doubt. Unsure of their disposition and ignorant of who they were, I touched the screen door. And moved to the open veranda where the dozen or so African men had assembled.

I was twenty-seven, my wife twenty-three. It was clear most of the men out-seasoned me – their skin weathered from years beneath an equatorial sun.

The group of strangers – all male – coming unannounced, still left me uneasy.

Do we invite them in? If so, what do we do next?

Are these gents all friendly to the Mission. . . We have a six-month-old girl.

Whatever else Ann and I knew, one thing was certain. We were out of our element. These were waters we’d never swum.

One of the older men – their spokesman? – moved closer. His English was broken, his accent challenging but I could make it out easily enough.

“We come to greet. We come to welcome you here to this place.”

I drew near.

“Hello”, nodding. “Hello”, smiling. “Hello”, I greeted, shaking each extended hand one by one. Though I felt more at ease and was touched by their welcoming us to Kuria-land, I was still conflicted how to respond. Only to offer repeatedly. “Thank you, Thank you, sir. Thank you . .”

I searched awkwardly for some cultural bridge to temper the situation. Answers eluded me. The visitors glanced toward one another, voiced some quiet, mysterious words. And eventually, slowly, went their way.

It was months before I learned I had made a marked impression that awkward day. By then word had got around. It took a while to redeem our name. . . “They did not even welcome us in for tea.”

The new resident-missionary – come to live and serve among the Wakuria people – successfully offended a welcoming delegation of church elders.

Like the snaking road leading past the Mission, another bend in the way lay clearly ahead – our Taranganya learning curve.

©2017 Jerry Lout