Tag: Africa

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A Kuria Welcome

Most people the world over forgive offenses made by newcomers – especially when the error is done in ignorance.

We found the statement true, at least among the Kuria. Our failure as green missionaries to extend basic “please-enter-for-a-cup-of-tea” hospitality, drew no further mention from the slighted delegation of  elders.

”Hello, I am Reverend Joseph Muhingira.”

I drew comfort being courteously received by the local Overseer.

Muhingira welcomed us to his cement-plastered, tin-roofed home where his wife, Esther greeted us warmly one evening. Entering the grounds we noted several range cows – brought in from their day of grazing – jostling, mooing in the tight corral outside, just beyond the dining room. The holding pen was a weave of rough-hewn poles fashioned from skinny felled trees. Such trees dotted the rolling terrain of the area.

Esther and their eldest daughter, Robi, served my family up our first Kuria meal – roast chicken, a local spinach-like green called Sukumawiki, a cup of broth served in a modest tin bowl. And Ugali.

Ugali – a kind of corn-meal mush, was brought to the table hot – baked firm, molded in a half-moon-shaped metal bowl. Esther deftly inverted the bowl, planting it top-down on a round serving plate. She lifted the metal bowl, leaving the spherical hill of ugali steaming before us. The ugali had no odor. We did catch the fragrance of a kerosene flame. It shone from the single lantern perched atop a seasoned chest-of-drawers at the edge of the tight dining area.

A staticky short-wave radio, powered by D-size batteries, rested on the same furniture piece. From it there rang a distinct mix of African tones – high-pitched, electric guitar-plinking blended with smooth Swahili vocalists. Passing hole-in-the-wall cafes months before along Nairobi city streets I had wondered if more than one song had found its way from a composer’s pen. By now, I had started making peace with the style’s apparent monotony.

The lantern’s glow thrust eerie shadows jittering and waltzing in irregular moves along a wall, reflecting mother and daughter motion as they tended to the servings. We ate our fill and washed the remnants down with hot chai – cooked with sugar and milk thrown in together.

“Mungu awabariki.” Our first dining experience in Kuria-land had ended as pleasantly as it had begun.

Thanking our hosts with the Swahili “God bless you”, we stepped from the humble dwelling. Overseer Muhingira led us on the foot-path to our little VW. Light from the vivid Kenya moon played on Julie’s upturned eyes and across the soft blanket encircling her face, giving the blanket a magical look.

The evening had gone well – Muhingira, gracious, gentleman-like. Esther’s warm personality had fit naturally with her talent at food preparation.

I turned the engine and we followed the dirt track home to the mission. In the quiet and calm of the Africa night, it seemed we had moved to a peaceful wonderland.

Meeting our neighbor, Grace – learning her story – would challenge such a notion to the core.

©2017 Jerry Lout

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Survival

“Sir. . Sir, Hello. . . Hello! Can you come sir? Hello. . .”

Waking a doctor from a drink-induced sleep called for persistence.

We had transported the machete-attack victim the five miles to the government clinic, only to learn an aged, slow-moving male nurse was the only person on duty.

“The doctor for this work”, he said, eyeing the wide blood mark streaking our patient’s back, “is away. You might find him at his house.”

Leaving our patient, I drove another five miles of bad road, where I came to the darkened home of the physician. “Hello. . .Hello. . .”

Thirty minutes later, the groggy doc held a kerosene lantern (electricity had not reached the village) examining the naked wound. Thankfully, Ann’s gauze-and-sheet wrap had held and not too much blood had seeped through.

The wounded man went by Mwita. He sat upright on the cot’s edge as three pair of eyes, beside the doctor’s – Mwita’s brother’s, the male nurse’s and my own – gazed at the deep slash. I had never seen such a wound.

No surgical mask was donned by any of us. There were none in supply. And, I assumed, maybe never had been.

A brief exchange between the bush-surgeon and myself left me surprised. And troubled. The nurse had stepped to another room and was now rolling in a metal cart into view. A steel pan sat and, in it were utensils. Suturing material, I guessed.

My tone was respectful, sincere.

“Sir,” (it seemed doubtful by now the man I had wakened for the upcoming procedure was a doctor in a full, professional sense) “could I ask. . . how are the instruments sterilized?”

Lifting a sizable curved needle offered by the old nurse, the gentleman held it before the lantern for a better look. With a wave of an elbow he declared knowingly, “Oh, you understand, off there in the big cities where many people live, there are, many more germs. Many more.

“But out here in the rural places, we have fewer people. And so – less problems with infection”. The man’s silence as he squinted one-eyed, finding the needle’s opening and beginning the thread, suggested my question had been sensibly answered. This is the way it is. No discussion.

I cringed at my next discovery.

“He will be given anesthetic, right?”, I ventured.

“No, we are out of it.”

Perhaps – looking back – my biggest surprise of the evening was my lack of queasiness.

Witnessing a needle in the firm grip of someone, the needle piercing the muscular surface, tugging a string of black thread in its trail – again and again – left me at the edge of nausea.

Next morning I readied myself to visit the clinic when word of the wounded man reached me via Africa’s reliable grapevine.

“You’re sure?”, I asked a second time.

“Yes, Bwana, he walked home this morning.”

My thoughts retraced the sequence.

Treks to our place last night (who knows what distance?) – losing blood the whole way. Endures several  bumpy miles of ‘ambulance ride’. Without meds to blunt the pain, the flesh of his back takes into itself a suturing needle of questionable hygiene time and again, drawing the parted muscle and sinew close. . .

I’m now feeling queasy.

And, early the following morning, walks home – more than five miles – unaided.  

While missionaries are probably not widely known for referencing Charles Darwin, I found myself at different times suddenly recalling a phrase, “survival of the fittest”.

This was such a time.

© 2017 Jerry Lout

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TEE Time

“Now, Jerry”, My friend’s voice hinted at mischief as we started across the church parking lot, “tell me about tee-hee-hee.”

To know Van Gill was to treasure the sound of a rolling chuckle. And take in a pair of grinning eyes, coaxing response to his merriment.

Everything about the Texan pastor was large. Large frame, large mind (among the keenest), large humor. All of these reflecting a thing largest of all – his overflowing, over-spacious heart.

Van was a man of the Book. Indeed, it was his love of Scripture that, in part at least, stirred him to offer the teasing invitation. . . tee-hee-hee.

By the time of this our family’s visit from Africa, I was co-authoring a study book on the Gospel of John, a curriculum piece for Theological Education by Extension, widely labeled T – E – E.

Writer’s workshops, led by Fred and Grace Holland of the Association of Evangelicals of Africa and Madagascar, trained missionaries and nationals in Bible school text development.

After my training I had partnered with Evangelist Josephat Rungu of Western Kenya. Together, we teamed with South Africa counterparts and, Teachings in John was born. Published in Nairobi, the T.E.E. training series – featuring topics from Old Testament Survey to Bringing People to Jesus – spanned denominations and cultures across the continent.

From Latin America to Africa and beyond, T.E.E. had begun empowering the church, equipping spiritual shepherds in the care of their flocks. Especially the many pastors and elders who were unsuited, for various reasons, to traditional schooling in far-away, culturally-detached settings.

When our extension Bible school met weekly under a big tree at mid-day, we engaged a means to dodge the harsh rays. “That’s it, bring your chair again this direction, keep moving ahead of the sun.”

Week after week, month after month, young and old apprentices to Jesus engaged each other in such settings, some indoors, some out. They would sip hot tea, an open hand would fervently wave to emphasize a point. Laughter erupted now and then. The minds of these servants of God were those waking more and more to fresh discovery of truth. They grappled with ancient scripture and sought ways to apply it well. In their own lives, their households, and to the broader community of faith. Transformed lives by Jesus and the Holy Spirit, their aim.

Through our beloved Africa years, perhaps nothing – apart from watching my three children grow – brought me greater pleasure, more sheer joy.

Tee-hee-hee. Not bad.

©2017 Jerry Lout

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Mr. Buckley and Baby Scott

“And, Mommy, that’s Bohkeh and her sister, Rozi. There’s my friend Mwita with his uncle Chacha. . .HI Mwita, Hi Mzee Chacha!” Julie was leaning out the car window, waving.

It seemed our three-year-old social butterfly knew every name in the tribe. Was more than eager alerting them to her presence.

“Honey, we should get ready to leave for Nairobi. I’ve confirmed our room is still reserved at the Mennonite.” Ever the attentive planner, Ann was ready to get to the capital. Baby number two would be soon on its way and we needed a buffer period in the city to spare us a potentially hasty, six-hour delivery drive.

Of the city’s handful of guest houses, the Mennonite had become our favorite. We rolled up in our dingy-white Bug. The matron – Mrs. Hostetter, donning her small, white, circular head-piece – welcomed us. After a brief exchange, she excused herself with a smile, “Dinner is at 6:00.  Enjoy your stay.”

***

“Jerry, we’d better get going.” Ann’s voice betrayed a familiar tone of two years earlier, signaling me to grab her small, shiny-red suitcase.

“OK, babe. Here we go!”

Late in the evening a nurse moved to my wife’s bedside.

“Mr. Buckley will be by to see you and your fine little boy, Mrs. Lout.”

This was a practice we still puzzle over. That it is only a fully-certified specialist who has his professional title elevated from ‘Doctor Buckley’ up to ‘Mr Buckley’. We were learning the British world of medicine, its language and meaning.

 Mr. Buckley’s visits to Ann’s bedside were always gracious, informative, professional. In short, “spot on”.

In the Africa of the 1970’s and 80’s, post-delivery care for new mothers meant extended stays of bedrest. Several days after Scott Timothy came screaming from the womb, he and his mom left Nairobi Hospital. By then every nurse and several of the new moms had drawn him close.

We checked out and the four of us made the long drive back to our remote Kenya home. Only to return to Nairobi in three months, to the same hospital.

Ann must go under the surgeon’s knife. It was crucial.

©2017 Jerry Lout

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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.

©2017 Jerry Lout                                                                                        Image credit. AMAS-Quay Snyder, MD

 

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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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Summit Destiny

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

©2018 Jerry Lout

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Consulting The Guide

August, 1988. . .

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

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

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

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

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

“Yes, that is correct.”

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

“Yes, sir.

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

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

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

“You know, we carried him there.”

“Carried him? You carried the president?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

© 2018 Jerry Lout

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Follow

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The rabbi-teacher inviting me to a better means.

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

©2018 Jerry Lout       [Ian Espinosa  photo credit. Crossroads]

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Bovine Bargaining

“Thirty-eight”, the young man replied.

“Really, thirty-eight?”

“Yes”. My new friend’s voice was matter-of-fact. “Thirty-eight cows”.

How does an Oklahoma boy take in – not to mention, digest – rural Africa’s matrimony language?

“But, suppose the young man can’t come up with that many? What happens?”

“Oh, sometimes the girl’s father negotiates. . . you know, back and forth.”

“And, if they still can’t agree on a number that works?”

“Well, the young man goes away, with hopes the mzee will somehow lower the dowery. The girl’s father also hopes. . . that a more well-off suitor comes by.”

***

Among the many settings international workers encounter in their new culture is the world of matrimony.

What’s the delay?

I had grown a little impatient over the past half hour. It was wedding day. I had gotten volunteered to drive the bride and attendant from her family home – a simple dwelling well off the beaten path – to the church. A decked-out choral group waited there, watching for our arrival. The groom likewise waited. And waited.

“Brother Jerry, it seems the old man wants more cows or more money. . . or something. . . an added dowry, a sum not discussed earlier, to close the arrangement.”

As the fussing went on – a bridegroom rep laboring to cajole, allure, persuade the old man – I noticed a diesel-belching 2-ton lorry enter property. Twenty or so adults, mostly women in colorful dress. . . several men formally garmented. . . jostled about within, trying to stay upright as the truck half-circled to a stop.  Because of the last-minute dowry challenge the festive mood had subsided. All appeared resigned to wait things out. Apparently the tactical game playing out wasn’t so new to the tribe. They got the picture. . . Give the old man time. He likely won’t risk losing face before the clan leaders by sticking in his heels much longer. Not for adding a mere one or two more skinny cows.

My curiosity grew. How will this turn out?

©2018 Jerry Lout