Dumpster Dive

Wherever you go, there you are.

The adage packs a punch.

When a person relocates (whether across town or time zones) he encounters a lot of “New”. Things about the place are simply different. New.  The person himself, however – the relocated individual – has for the most part typically changed only a little, if at all. A hairstyle might alter, a wardrobe get tweaked, but the actual person at the core stays the same. We don’t get to don a sudden new-and-improved set of character traits in the way we might spring for an upgrade in workout sweats.

I had long ago ventured from Okmulgee County for employment in Cody, Wyoming. Afterward, accompanied by my young bride, I took up residence in far-off Africa. Decades later here I was, having landed on the campus of a local university. Still, the fact remained. In each instance I had brought “myself with me”. Jerry Lout – my cultural and character baggage (healthy and otherwise) moving about day by day in shoe leather.

But the tidewaters were about to change.

The routine Sunday morning found Ann and me at our usual place of worship. We had moved to a new church and had come to sense that we were home.

Stepping to the pulpit, Pastor Roger began his sermon. Minutes in, a delicate story of self-disclosure unfolded. This I had not expected, nor would have envisioned being shared within a Sunday morning sanctuary venue. Vulnerably but sensitively conveyed, the earthy account set a spark of hope flickering within me. For myself, a good serving of hope seemed overdue.

“Back when I was a teenaged kid in my hometown”, Roger began, “a buddy and I one day decided to go dumpster-diving. We came upon a Playboy magazine”.

The audience leaned in.

©2024 Jerry Lout

Just Do It

As a foreigner in a region where locals had rarely sighted a light-skinned person , I was learning the feeling of different.

During one season of discouragement, when my best efforts to connect with the Kuria seemed frail, I knelt on the concrete floor of a back room in our house. The prayer was brief, sincere, and seems as clear today as that morning I voiced it.

 “God, please help these people know that I love them.”

In the silence an inner voice interrupted my pleadings.  While it was kind, it was also direct, firm.

“Love them. You just love them.”

Just that. Simple and sparse, like a mail-order kit arriving without instructions.

How do I do this?

Years afterward a definition of Love crossed my path.

To will the good of another. I have yet to hear a phrase that, for me, better reflects the term.

I found myself in subsequent times revisiting the Bukuria scene. Going to my knees in blue jeans and t-shirt back then at that location fifteen hours’ drive from where Stanley met Livingstone under a Mango tree. I ponder again the response to my prayer on that day. Just love them

Gauging love, measuring its impact, seems not always easy.

***

“Mwalimu”.

Pastor Mwangi calling to me (‘Teacher’) lifted his textbook as in a gesture of devotion.

“Before you came with the teachings – before bringing us these Bible courses. . .” The pastor’s voice went low.

“. . back then, when on Saturdays I would prepare a sermon for my people on Sunday, I only knew to follow a certain way. I did not know another way.

“I would pray, close my eyes and open my Bible – letting it fall open where it would.  Then, feeling the page, I let my finger go to a place there. Opening my eyes I looked at the place. The words there became my sermon scripture for Sunday.”

“It was all I knew”, he repeated. “I did not know another way.”

Pastor Mwangi concluded as if offering up a sacrament as well as a confession.

“Now I know the good way. Thank you for bringing this Bible School, this T.E.E. I feed my people now and they are helped.”

Mounting my motorcycle that afternoon, I turned toward home, warmed by a gratifying thought.

Thank you, Lord for your word, and for this means of sharing it here.

He (God) was willing the good of a tribal people hungry for truth and for him.  And was letting me have a part – growing me in a small measure to care as he cares.

Just loving them. Together.

©2017 Jerry Lout

Prized Care

The mission pastor once asked my wife to preach for an upcoming Sunday service. But only once.

William Moseti, a man of little schooling, yet displaying qualities people admire in a leader. Kindness, humility, wisdom, a warm-hearted chuckle behind a ready smile. Pastor Moseti had assigned our firstborn child a nickname.

Two-year-old Julie, abounding in energy, woke up each morning with a zest for life. In her often-excited moments, she could get loud and, to Pastor William, the label, “Duka-la-kelele” (the noise store) fit perfectly. Some weeks went by.

“Mama Julie”, Pastor William greeted Ann as they crossed paths on the mission station, “you must give the sermon this Sunday at the church.”

Most of us remember times when we wished we had thought of the just-right response to a remark.

“Sure, Pastor”, Ann smiled. “I’ll be glad to. . . but only if you will watch Duka-la-kelele for me while I speak.” When service time came, William happily took up his preaching spot at the mission pulpit.

Tending to the cares of little ones under their charge, young mothers across the globe rival the world’s strongest endurance athletes. In addition to making do with rationed bathing water during dry seasons while attending to cloth-diapered babies, Ann rushed to the aid of each child wherever a crisis, big or small, broke out.

  • When toddler Scott got suddenly run over by a motorcycle steered by a Biker-wannabe. . . her teenaged boyfriend the self-appointed driving coach.
  • When five-year-old Amy careened to the gravelly playground face-first from a towering sliding board’s highest perch, leaving her poor face battered and momentarily rearranged.
  • Through a long night vigil at Julie’s bedside during an especially painful ear infection.

Our family’s bouts with everything from food poisoning to parasites to malaria – and any number of other afflictions – were regularly met with Ann’s prompt, skilled, and prayerful action. A pithy verse from a book of poetry beckons a response we gratefully offer,

“Honor her for all that her hands have done,
let her works bring her praise at the city gate.”   

                                                                                                             Proverbs 31.31                                                                                                                                                                                       

©2018 Jerry Lout