Tag: Africa

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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

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Foreboding

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

What just happened?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

©2018 Jerry Lout

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Shepherd Paths

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

The words hung there above the table between us.

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

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

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

“Remember. Love your wife.”

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

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

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

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

The meeting commenced.

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

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

Closing comments wrapped up the time.

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

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

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

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

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

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

©2018 Jerry Lout

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Uncommon Hero

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

©2018 Jerry Lout

 

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Tarzan Country

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

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

***

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

Especially at one particular place.

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

Alexander Aidini.

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

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

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

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

©2018 Jerry Lout

 

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Past the Bougainvillea Vine

Skirting the red and orange and purple array of bougainvillea vine, the visitor stepping to Steve and Anne’s veranda catches the sing-song call of her hostess.

“Kah-reee-bu!” Anne Street’s cheery voice trills the Swahili welcome like a free-spirited vocalist in full operetta form. The scene in some form repeats multiple times each week as a parade of visitors drop in, some randomly, others by arrangement.

They’ve come for a ‘hot cuppa’ or for a listening ear or a compassionate prayer. Or all the above. And – often enough – a personal care presented by an impromptu guest carries a tangible element. . . needed bus fare to Kibosho or Boma Ng’ombe. . . school fees to cover (just this once) a high schooler about to forfeit his education because pounding hail and rain just wrecked the family’s maize harvest, their only viable revenue source.

This Moshi home takes wageni (visitor arrivals) in stride. And the sons, Benji, Peter and Philip, like their father – bright, industrious, mischievous – have exhibited the family ‘hospitality gene’ almost since their early days in nappies.

Anne, born and raised in Africa of British parents, grew up in farming country where her father helped manage estates for Kenya’s pre-independence baron, Lord Delamere. Meeting Steve in his native England during her college years ensured that her future husband’s heart would be captured – not only by her – but by ‘all things Africa’.

Year after year the Street’s mentoring of students (elementary-age and high-schoolers alike) in the knowledge of their faith, never grew wearisome. Steve had accepted a chemistry teaching spot with Moshi’s international academy. His and Anne’s after-school Bible Clubs came to life with spirited discussions. Wisdom was shared. And students cheered at the mention of an outing – “How about a view of Amboseli Game Park from Mount Kili!”

After some years, when the teaching position for Steve ran its course, the couple took a step back, weighed their motives and inner impressions. And drew a conclusion. . .  “Why not!” Launching as full-time missionaries (roles they’d arguably been filling a long while already) came naturally. Laboring alongside their beloved pastor and friend, Wilbard.

Now, decades in, the Street’s dew-drenched lawn boasts a path worn thin  by flip-flops, dress shoes and bare feet alike. Guests of African, Asian, European, American, islander origins, and elsewhere – none kept at arm’s length from Anne’s infectious “Ka-reee-bu!” welcome.

Home-away-from-home travelers have gotten lodged, prayed over, teased, affirmed. And roundly blessed when the visit is ended and they move toward the screened door and out again. Beyond the bougainvillea vine.

©2018 Jerry Lout