Well, as I promised, I will now divulge the story of my first romantic encounter here in Nigeria. I was in the care center at Gyero, which is a little village about 40 minutes outside of Jos, spending time with the boys and learning how to play the drum when a couple 15 passenger vans pull up and out pour a stream of folks, and they get the boys to start unloading sacks of food. As it turned out, the army was making a large donation of food to Gyero, and they had sent their army chaplains as emissaries with the gift. So while these good folks were being addressed by one of the uncles of the center, one of their number wandered away to where I was merrily booming away on my little drum and engaged me in conversation. He introduced himself as the pastor of a village church not too far away and complimented me on my musical ability and asked me where I was from and what I was doing in Nigeria and how long I was going to be staying here and how often did I come to this orphans’ home? He then politely enquired if my husband was also working in Nigeria, to which I told him I was not married. This was not really the first time that Nigerians assumed that I must already be married or even have children stashed away somewhere, so I was hardly surprised by this. Then he asked me why I was not married, if it was because I felt called not to be, and I told him (fool that I am) that I didn’t feel especially called to singleness, but that I would wait for God’s timing to bring circumstances together. He assured me that this was a wonderfully wise course of action and asked me what kind of person I was going to marry, like perhaps, I don’t know, a pastor? To which I had to shrug and say that I didn’t have anyone particular in mind. “Oh yes, you are staying open to the will of God, that is good, God bless you, hallelujah. Do you have a phone number here in Nigeria?” To which I replied, scrambling for plausibility in the face of my shock, that I didn’t have a phone number I could give out, and that the only way people from home could contact me was through the SIM office line. “That is very good, I should very much like to have that number.” To which I think I nodded and smiled and looked distracted, because he then went on to ask me how long I had been a Christian and when I told him since I was ten years old, he (with many praise God’s and hallelujah’s) gave me quite a sermonette about how we had to press on in our faith and keep maturing and the importance of prayer (praise the Lord!) and the importance of spiritual warfare and are you filled with the Holy Spirit? then you must speak and pray in tongues because the Spirit will intercede for us with groans the words cannot express, hallelujah! And he quoted a great deal of Scripture to me and concluded by asking me how old was I? (Praise the Lord) and he hoped that we would meet again. And then someone came to tell him that Reverend wanted everyone to come together and so he excused himself and that was that.
I have to say that I found the whole experience rather amusing. Apparently many of the young Nigerian gentlemen are very interested in romantic relationships with Western expats solely for the reason of getting out of Nigeria, so this experience is hardly uncommon, but when you’ve been warned and counseled about it so much it’s kind of like going to a gypsy fortune teller and having your fortune told and then actually seeing it come to fruition. At such times, one can hardly respond with anything besides the chortling disbelief of “Oh my gosh, it’s really happening.” So there you go, it really happened.
Sunday, September 30, 2007
Thursday, September 27, 2007
Literacy Under the Mango Tree
Latest news from the supporter e-mail scene...but I should have some new stuff up soon!
Dear worthy and inestimable supporters and beloved folk of all descriptions,
There is much to love about the African style of life. Nobody gets bent out of shape when you're not quite ready to go, because odds are wherever you're going isn't starting on time anyway. People enjoy the value of a good chat and recognize that a conversation, even with someone you never meet again, will last forever. And, even when you think you've got a lot on your plate, the pace of life remains slow and easy.
This is one of the things that I have appreciated most about Africa as a training ground for future ministry. How tempting it is to fill each hour of each day with appointments, errands, and even the busyness of recreation! But the pace of life here simply does not allow for it, every day cannot be filled, every moment cannot be scheduled and there are many hours, in which you look back on each week, in which no one really expected you to do anything in particular. And if that makes you feel insufficient or less than worthwhile, that is something that must be dealt with, rather than shoved aside with more doing. I wish I could ship boatloads of American pastors over here so that they could be forced to realize that you cannot serve others every minute of the day, not least of all because at times those others are napping, and there is nothing you can do but wait for them to wake up! So even though at times I have been frustrated that I'm just not doing enough ministry to justify my time here, I have felt so blessed by the grace of slowness, of rest, and of peace.
All of that, understand, was to qualify my next statement that I've been getting more and more on my plate lately as ministry starts to fall into a more predictable schedule. Now you can see that I say that as a relative statement, compared to my first couple of weeks here. But I think that I am finally beginning to find my niche in Jos. About three afternoons a week, I am down in Transition House, opening up the library. The most amazing thing I've discovered since beginning this is the kinds of books that the boys are interested in: when I open the doors, every one runs in and most go for either a dictionary or an encyclopedia!!! This is something I am going to have to ask some questions about, because I know for a fact that most of the boys are not at a high enough reading level to slog through an encyclopedia, and our set is not particularly well-illustrated either. Maybe this is a mystery I can get to the bottom of in the coming weeks.
I never really realized how passionate I was about literacy until I started doing this work. It is one thing to think about it in abstract terms, but to sit in this room with some really stellar books and see these boys stuck reading the simplest picture books just because no one has been able to spend the time to help them really breaks my heart. There is so much more for them to discover than the pictures in the big book of Reptiles! Having said that, it is an incredibly difficult task because reading level does not correspond with age here at all, so each boy is very much learning at their own pace and beginning in different places and I am in no way trained to do this kind of work, so mostly what it involves for me is sitting down with each individual boy and working through, page by painstaking page, a simple story book, trying to demonstrate things like "sounding it out" and compound words and the like. Part of the problem is that I don't think they've learned any kind of phonetics and are simply going on a word recognition basis. Anyway, it is slow work, but I really enjoy it.
I just have to say that this is the first time since graduating college that I've been doing something that I could see myself doing, if not for the rest of my life, for a very long time. Not that I necessarily having to be teaching ex-street kids in Nigeria to read for the rest of my life (start breathing again, Mom), but I so appreciate doing something that is meaningful to me, that meets my passions, and that I really feel is making a difference in the world. (This is so much better than temping!!!) I don't know how much I'll be able to do in the rest of my time, but I feel confident that by the time I leave, some of these boys will be better readers than when I got here, and that's something that they'll have for the rest of their lives. How cool is that!
In other news, in exploring other activities and opportunities to bless the kids, I was given a great gift to empower my ministry, a mighty tool by which all Nigeria might be saved. None other than the illustrious…duh da duh dum! flannel graph!!!! Now, those of you who grew up with these may be less than enthused, but words can scarcely express my excitement over finding this treasure. Though somewhat out of vogue in the States, everyone assures me that, because of the lack of televisions and the like here, flannel graphs are still a big deal for the kids. This particular flannel graph is extra special because I think it was made sometime back in the 1950's, so all of the illustrations look like they sprang from the pages of Fun with Dick and Jane. Furthermore, initially I was missing a few critical pieces, like all of my biblical felt men and women, but the set did include lots of "modern" looking people, so for awhile I thought I was going to have to put on, say, the story of Noah and cast this extremely Aryan man in his Sunday suit in the title role. How's that for enculturation? And that's not all, in addition to the 'graph itself, I was also given an explanatory book entitled…wait for it…Through the Bible in Felt. I love my work!
On that cheery note, I should probably toss out a few prayer requests, other than the one you've probably already made note of for my sanity. I have had my first touch of sickness this week, nothing that was even serious enough to keep me from work, but healing would be appreciated. Also, I think I've already mentioned this in previous e-mails, but it is really difficult to be here for the amount of time that I am when everyone else is staying for at least two years, especially as I begin to near the halfway point of my time here (eeeeeee!!!!). Please pray that I would have a long-term mindset, no matter how much calendar time I actually have, and that God would be able to use me to make a big impact in a short amount of time.
Yours with joy,
Shannon
Dear worthy and inestimable supporters and beloved folk of all descriptions,
There is much to love about the African style of life. Nobody gets bent out of shape when you're not quite ready to go, because odds are wherever you're going isn't starting on time anyway. People enjoy the value of a good chat and recognize that a conversation, even with someone you never meet again, will last forever. And, even when you think you've got a lot on your plate, the pace of life remains slow and easy.
This is one of the things that I have appreciated most about Africa as a training ground for future ministry. How tempting it is to fill each hour of each day with appointments, errands, and even the busyness of recreation! But the pace of life here simply does not allow for it, every day cannot be filled, every moment cannot be scheduled and there are many hours, in which you look back on each week, in which no one really expected you to do anything in particular. And if that makes you feel insufficient or less than worthwhile, that is something that must be dealt with, rather than shoved aside with more doing. I wish I could ship boatloads of American pastors over here so that they could be forced to realize that you cannot serve others every minute of the day, not least of all because at times those others are napping, and there is nothing you can do but wait for them to wake up! So even though at times I have been frustrated that I'm just not doing enough ministry to justify my time here, I have felt so blessed by the grace of slowness, of rest, and of peace.
All of that, understand, was to qualify my next statement that I've been getting more and more on my plate lately as ministry starts to fall into a more predictable schedule. Now you can see that I say that as a relative statement, compared to my first couple of weeks here. But I think that I am finally beginning to find my niche in Jos. About three afternoons a week, I am down in Transition House, opening up the library. The most amazing thing I've discovered since beginning this is the kinds of books that the boys are interested in: when I open the doors, every one runs in and most go for either a dictionary or an encyclopedia!!! This is something I am going to have to ask some questions about, because I know for a fact that most of the boys are not at a high enough reading level to slog through an encyclopedia, and our set is not particularly well-illustrated either. Maybe this is a mystery I can get to the bottom of in the coming weeks.
I never really realized how passionate I was about literacy until I started doing this work. It is one thing to think about it in abstract terms, but to sit in this room with some really stellar books and see these boys stuck reading the simplest picture books just because no one has been able to spend the time to help them really breaks my heart. There is so much more for them to discover than the pictures in the big book of Reptiles! Having said that, it is an incredibly difficult task because reading level does not correspond with age here at all, so each boy is very much learning at their own pace and beginning in different places and I am in no way trained to do this kind of work, so mostly what it involves for me is sitting down with each individual boy and working through, page by painstaking page, a simple story book, trying to demonstrate things like "sounding it out" and compound words and the like. Part of the problem is that I don't think they've learned any kind of phonetics and are simply going on a word recognition basis. Anyway, it is slow work, but I really enjoy it.
I just have to say that this is the first time since graduating college that I've been doing something that I could see myself doing, if not for the rest of my life, for a very long time. Not that I necessarily having to be teaching ex-street kids in Nigeria to read for the rest of my life (start breathing again, Mom), but I so appreciate doing something that is meaningful to me, that meets my passions, and that I really feel is making a difference in the world. (This is so much better than temping!!!) I don't know how much I'll be able to do in the rest of my time, but I feel confident that by the time I leave, some of these boys will be better readers than when I got here, and that's something that they'll have for the rest of their lives. How cool is that!
In other news, in exploring other activities and opportunities to bless the kids, I was given a great gift to empower my ministry, a mighty tool by which all Nigeria might be saved. None other than the illustrious…duh da duh dum! flannel graph!!!! Now, those of you who grew up with these may be less than enthused, but words can scarcely express my excitement over finding this treasure. Though somewhat out of vogue in the States, everyone assures me that, because of the lack of televisions and the like here, flannel graphs are still a big deal for the kids. This particular flannel graph is extra special because I think it was made sometime back in the 1950's, so all of the illustrations look like they sprang from the pages of Fun with Dick and Jane. Furthermore, initially I was missing a few critical pieces, like all of my biblical felt men and women, but the set did include lots of "modern" looking people, so for awhile I thought I was going to have to put on, say, the story of Noah and cast this extremely Aryan man in his Sunday suit in the title role. How's that for enculturation? And that's not all, in addition to the 'graph itself, I was also given an explanatory book entitled…wait for it…Through the Bible in Felt. I love my work!
On that cheery note, I should probably toss out a few prayer requests, other than the one you've probably already made note of for my sanity. I have had my first touch of sickness this week, nothing that was even serious enough to keep me from work, but healing would be appreciated. Also, I think I've already mentioned this in previous e-mails, but it is really difficult to be here for the amount of time that I am when everyone else is staying for at least two years, especially as I begin to near the halfway point of my time here (eeeeeee!!!!). Please pray that I would have a long-term mindset, no matter how much calendar time I actually have, and that God would be able to use me to make a big impact in a short amount of time.
Yours with joy,
Shannon
Friday, September 21, 2007
Epic
So, I think when many people think of traveling to Africa, they picture bugs. Giant blood sucking mosquitoes, brilliantly colored spiders, and huge roaches. Fortunately, living in an urban apartment, there have been, for the most part less bugs here even than in our dear old Ortlip House. But last night, I noticed in the gap between the carpet and the wall a large, black thing. I left it alone for a while, feeling like I might be better off not knowing what it was, but when I saw the twitching of antennas, I knew it was a roach. This, in itself, was no great problem. We have had many a roach in our house in Texas, tho none quite this big, but tho a bit uneasy, I felt like I could leave him alone and he would gradually either find his way out or expire quietly somewhere. So, I went to sleep, leaving him in his quiet gap in peace, woke up the next morning to no very apparent sign of roachiness, and went about my day. But tonight, after I got home after our Friday Feast, there he was again, not so much lying quietly in the gap as buzzing about the room in a rather distracting manner. I am okay with stationary roaches, but when they become that mobile, I start to get a little more resentful. Then he did some complicated aerial maneuvers in the corner, landed on the floor about four feet away and started crawling toward me and hid under the little table directly to me right. Well, that was the last straw, this act of aggression clearly ending our former peaceful accord. There was nothing to do but go for the spray. There is a bottle of some kind of chlorine syrup under my sink that I am supposed to use for disinfecting vegetables, but chlorine really sounded like a ghastly way to die and I didn’t know how to administer it without getting too close or bleaching my lovely bright blue and yellow carpet. Fortunately, there right next to my chlorine goo was my trusty can of Baygon, which had a picture on it of what could have been my roach’s twin brother, so I figured that I had the right stuff. I read the directions on how to harness the can’s “Instant Killing Power” and fired away underneath the little cabinet. For a few moments, silence, then suddenly, I heard certain bumping and tapping sounds as the roach struggled beneath the cabinet. Then, in a last ditch effort to take me out with him, he lunged from underneath the cabinet towards me, antenna wiggling, fangs and claws bared, driving for my jugular. With another blast of killing spray and a mighty cry, I drove him under the couch. He began to writhe and struggle, and cried out threats of everlasting vengeance, but now the death throes were upon him. In mercy, I shot him a couple more times to speed his demise. He didn’t stand a chance against the Baygon, but I shall be sure to inform his survivors that he died well, no bribe attempts or blubbering. [I am so freaking Wild at Heart]
But, I have to say, it was something of a Pyrrhic victory, as now my apartment holds a somewhat lingering aroma of rancid cornbread that will be hard, I think, to ignore.
(Yes, that was for you, Thryn. You better read this now.)
But, I have to say, it was something of a Pyrrhic victory, as now my apartment holds a somewhat lingering aroma of rancid cornbread that will be hard, I think, to ignore.
(Yes, that was for you, Thryn. You better read this now.)
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
Living and Learning
Another reprint of a support e-mail...hey, what do you want from me, I'm here to minister!
So, I ponder over my empty pasta bowl, what are the latest thoughts from Nigeria? So many things have happened since last I wrote, but I’ll try to limit myself to the highlights. Cultural interactions continue to exhaust me, and at times I wonder why I was ever so foolish as to sign up to stay for only two months. What can possibly be learned in so short a time? Certainly not bargaining like a born Nigerian, at least when you are as poorly suited for it as I am. Assertive, street-wise, persistent and LOUD? That’s not me. And though it may seem like a small thing, virtually everything is bought in the market and not only is bargaining the only culturally appropriate way to shop, it’s also necessary to avoid getting ripped off and burning through your per diem without acquiring the essentials of life, like food. Right now in my larders I have the aforementioned pasta, some cabbage, carrots, onion and potatoes, tomato paste, some peanut butter and jelly and…that’s about it. Anyone who knows me at all will know that my inner foodie is desperate to transform these ‘umble beginnings into magnificent meals, but so far, no dice. I must also have felt in need of some particularly severe penance tonight, since I have just spent the better part of the past hour looking at my favorite food blogs. Man alive, I think I’d have been better off walking to Canterbury on my knees! But it is a very good and refreshing discipline to eat somewhat like a Nigerian, and it won’t do any harm to keep it up for two months.
Well, as far as actual ministry is concerned, this week has been fairly packed. This week I have visited a number of the different ministries SIM is involved with here in Nigeria. For those of you who were concerned that there might not be an established group waiting for me when I got here, we could not have been more wrong! Right now there are about 5 different branches of SIM ministries operating in Nigeria, with each branch consisting of up to 4 different specializations. The entire network is made up of about 60 foreign missionaries and over 200 Nigerians!
The whole process of this week is supposed to be helping me decide which ministry of my branch, City Ministries, I would like to focus on, but I feel pulled in many different directions, both emotionally and vocationally. This week I visited the boys’ homes at Gidan Bege and the CARE center, Transition House. These houses have essentially the same purpose, to care for orphaned or unwanted boys and give them a home, education, and Christian discipleship. The only difference is that Gidan Bege is the first step for street boys, whereas they don’t go to Transition House until they’ve been at Gidan Bege for about six months.
Sometimes at the houses I feel as though I’ve shed an old identity and become this new person, “Auntie Shannon,” (auntie being an African title of respect) who is surprisingly good at volleyball and always ready to offer a silly face or snap a photo and be tackled by 10 boys who all want to see their picture. With the boys at G.B. especially, language can be a barrier, but all that they boys really want is someone to listen to them, kick a ball around, or just hold their hand. And I have to say, getting a smile from one of those boys makes you feel like this was the reason God let you keep breathing today.
You might be wondering why I keep referring to the boys of City Ministries. Well, most of the kids living on the street in Jos are boys, though there are some girls at another CARE center, Gyero, where I’ll visit later this week. Some of the boys end up on the street because their parents have died, but in other cases only the father has died and when the mother remarries her new husband will drive the children away. Others are driven away by abusive parents. In other cases, boys are suspected of having joined a “secret society” (Nigerian blanket term for occult groups) whose first requirements of initiation are often to injure or kill a member of one’s own family. A family who suspects a boy of having joined a secret society will usually try to kill him before he can hurt the family. Sometimes what these boys have been through before coming to this ministry is scarcely believable.
I had another very humbling experience today with our trip with other Nigerian Christians and medical missionaries to Blind Town, one of the poorest areas of the city. It is so called because in African Muslim society, the blind and deformed are no longer accepted and are forced to live apart from the community. So this shanty town was filled with the blind, the crippled, lepers, and other very poor families. I am still processing and feel that I scarcely have words to describe this experience. To put anything down on paper seems glib. And yet my first impression was that the whole place seemed absolutely surreal. I kept trying to force into my mind that these people aren’t just playing house in these patched together boxes of corrugated tin. This is where they live. The children get their only playthings from these garbage piles. They walk among these shards of broken glass with only skimpy sandals or with bare feet. And yet the women can laugh and chatter with each other as they wait in line to see the doctor. The children love to imitate everything you do and chorus through their English repertoire, “Hello,” “Thank you,” and “Bye-bye” to catch your attention. What can I say? This is their lives, and it is a privilege to be welcomed into it, even for one afternoon.
Well, thanks for sticking with me through this marathon update. Please pray for Nigerian Muslims through this month of Ramadan, and especially for SIM outreaches to Blind Town and the Muslim women’s ministry at Gidan Bege. Pray also for God’s guidance for me as I try to discern what exactly to do with my time here. And as always, if you’d like to opt out of receiving these novellas, just drop me a line!
Blessings, grace, and peace, dear friends,
Shannon
So, I ponder over my empty pasta bowl, what are the latest thoughts from Nigeria? So many things have happened since last I wrote, but I’ll try to limit myself to the highlights. Cultural interactions continue to exhaust me, and at times I wonder why I was ever so foolish as to sign up to stay for only two months. What can possibly be learned in so short a time? Certainly not bargaining like a born Nigerian, at least when you are as poorly suited for it as I am. Assertive, street-wise, persistent and LOUD? That’s not me. And though it may seem like a small thing, virtually everything is bought in the market and not only is bargaining the only culturally appropriate way to shop, it’s also necessary to avoid getting ripped off and burning through your per diem without acquiring the essentials of life, like food. Right now in my larders I have the aforementioned pasta, some cabbage, carrots, onion and potatoes, tomato paste, some peanut butter and jelly and…that’s about it. Anyone who knows me at all will know that my inner foodie is desperate to transform these ‘umble beginnings into magnificent meals, but so far, no dice. I must also have felt in need of some particularly severe penance tonight, since I have just spent the better part of the past hour looking at my favorite food blogs. Man alive, I think I’d have been better off walking to Canterbury on my knees! But it is a very good and refreshing discipline to eat somewhat like a Nigerian, and it won’t do any harm to keep it up for two months.
Well, as far as actual ministry is concerned, this week has been fairly packed. This week I have visited a number of the different ministries SIM is involved with here in Nigeria. For those of you who were concerned that there might not be an established group waiting for me when I got here, we could not have been more wrong! Right now there are about 5 different branches of SIM ministries operating in Nigeria, with each branch consisting of up to 4 different specializations. The entire network is made up of about 60 foreign missionaries and over 200 Nigerians!
The whole process of this week is supposed to be helping me decide which ministry of my branch, City Ministries, I would like to focus on, but I feel pulled in many different directions, both emotionally and vocationally. This week I visited the boys’ homes at Gidan Bege and the CARE center, Transition House. These houses have essentially the same purpose, to care for orphaned or unwanted boys and give them a home, education, and Christian discipleship. The only difference is that Gidan Bege is the first step for street boys, whereas they don’t go to Transition House until they’ve been at Gidan Bege for about six months.
Sometimes at the houses I feel as though I’ve shed an old identity and become this new person, “Auntie Shannon,” (auntie being an African title of respect) who is surprisingly good at volleyball and always ready to offer a silly face or snap a photo and be tackled by 10 boys who all want to see their picture. With the boys at G.B. especially, language can be a barrier, but all that they boys really want is someone to listen to them, kick a ball around, or just hold their hand. And I have to say, getting a smile from one of those boys makes you feel like this was the reason God let you keep breathing today.
You might be wondering why I keep referring to the boys of City Ministries. Well, most of the kids living on the street in Jos are boys, though there are some girls at another CARE center, Gyero, where I’ll visit later this week. Some of the boys end up on the street because their parents have died, but in other cases only the father has died and when the mother remarries her new husband will drive the children away. Others are driven away by abusive parents. In other cases, boys are suspected of having joined a “secret society” (Nigerian blanket term for occult groups) whose first requirements of initiation are often to injure or kill a member of one’s own family. A family who suspects a boy of having joined a secret society will usually try to kill him before he can hurt the family. Sometimes what these boys have been through before coming to this ministry is scarcely believable.
I had another very humbling experience today with our trip with other Nigerian Christians and medical missionaries to Blind Town, one of the poorest areas of the city. It is so called because in African Muslim society, the blind and deformed are no longer accepted and are forced to live apart from the community. So this shanty town was filled with the blind, the crippled, lepers, and other very poor families. I am still processing and feel that I scarcely have words to describe this experience. To put anything down on paper seems glib. And yet my first impression was that the whole place seemed absolutely surreal. I kept trying to force into my mind that these people aren’t just playing house in these patched together boxes of corrugated tin. This is where they live. The children get their only playthings from these garbage piles. They walk among these shards of broken glass with only skimpy sandals or with bare feet. And yet the women can laugh and chatter with each other as they wait in line to see the doctor. The children love to imitate everything you do and chorus through their English repertoire, “Hello,” “Thank you,” and “Bye-bye” to catch your attention. What can I say? This is their lives, and it is a privilege to be welcomed into it, even for one afternoon.
Well, thanks for sticking with me through this marathon update. Please pray for Nigerian Muslims through this month of Ramadan, and especially for SIM outreaches to Blind Town and the Muslim women’s ministry at Gidan Bege. Pray also for God’s guidance for me as I try to discern what exactly to do with my time here. And as always, if you’d like to opt out of receiving these novellas, just drop me a line!
Blessings, grace, and peace, dear friends,
Shannon
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
Big Fish
*Warning: The contents of this post are not for those of faint heart, those nursing, pregnant, or who may become pregnant. If you have kidney or liver problems, talk to your doctor before reading this post.*
So, two funny stories “off the record” from Nigeria, those I am not sure the general audience would be terribly interested in hearing. First story: I was over in the compound across the street the other night, having dinner with another missionary and some friends. Night fell and as there was no NEPA (Nigerian for electricity) that evening, we made our way back across the compound with a flashlight, held out in front by my gallant companion. We were walking across a basketball court, wide and level and to all appearances completely free from debris, when I had the very good fortune to stub my toe, hard, on a rock in my path that was a little bit larger than a brick. “Ouch,” I said, or some such thing, for my companion stopped and came back to check. I assured her that I was fine, having only clumsily stubbed my toe, and onward we went. But by the time we were at the gate of our friends’ compound, I could already feel a suspicious wetness growing in my shoe. We made our way back up to our flats in our compound, and my friend came back up to my flat to see if there were any battery run lights for me to use (there weren’t). I came in and immediately went to check out my foot with my flashlight, which I had foolishly left in my flat. Sure enough, the top half of my poor sandal was soaked with blood and my toe looked somewhat worse for wear. My friend noticed and kindly offered me the use of a bandaid, and then off she went for the evening. So there I was at 10:00 on a pitch black night, bleeding into the bathtub and trying to clean off my toe with a little cup of purified water, since I wasn’t really sure what the water here would do to it, and doing all this by the light of my little flashlight. (The toe is, by the by, more or less fine, as when I finally got a look at it, it was just a small cut on the end of my big toe that caused all the trouble).
Second story, happened only today at lunchtime. Now, the thing that you have to understand about this story is that NEPA goes off fairly frequently here, usually only for 15 minutes to an hour, but sometimes as long as a day or so. And when it does, there is no power in my fridge. So, today, having no NEPA and little food in the house, I decide to use the goodly can of tuna fish that had already been purchased for me upon my arrival to make myself a tasty tuna melt sandwich. (Yes, we can get cheese here, but it is rather costly). So I open up my wee can of tuna and what a sight did assault my eyes. This was the strangest tuna I had ever seen. First of all it was packed in oil, but it was so, so dark, like a grey-pink-black combination that looked fairly vile. I wondered what might be in the can besides just tuna, but poked around and managed to spoon out a few spoonfuls that looked okay. Then, the mayonnaise. Now, I know that mayo is a rather common ingredient in tuna salad, but I have never been that big of a fan so I am not sure what possessed me to try to put it in in the first place. But I opened up the jar, which still had its plastic ring, mind you, but had been in my fridge for a full day while there was no NEPA. And yet, mysteriously, there was a thin layer on the top that looked and smelled suspicious. So I spooned out that top layer and threw it away and proceeded with the making of my sandwich, adding lots and lots of garlic powder to the mix in the hope that I might taste nothing else. I cut the bread and added some thin little slices of cheese. Into the frying pan it went, where it shortly became even more of a fiasco because I had cut the bread too thin, so it started to fall apart and stick to the pan and very soon, I had a mangled mess of dark tuna and crumbling bread on my plate. This whole time I had been cooking, I had been growing more and more anxious as I looked upon what I very soon planned to force upon my digestive tract. But I was desperately trying some very positive self-talk to psych myself up to eat this hideous sandwich, and failing miserably. A first bite: Fishy, very, very fishy, with a little bit of raunchy mayo flavor and soggy bread thrown in. No, I said to myself, this is delicious. This is the best tuna fish sandwich I have ever tasted. More bites. More anguish. More positivity. I was strongly reminded of the hideous can of coleslaw that Jer tried to force himself to eat in good old Eire, and felt strongly tempted to go lie on the couch or perhaps pack the beast up for some hungrier day. No, I thought, if you can’t eat it now, think how much worse it will be cold.
Another bite, and another. Halfway through the sandwich. I stall when I find something of a foreign nature (i.e.—not native to the fish, or perhaps too native?). This is the final straw. My eating stalls, waves of nausea pass over me. I feel a strong urge to vomit. Shannon girl, I tell myself firmly, it’s less than two dollars worth of fish. It’s not worth it. The sandwich, however, cannot be altogether abandoned, my Scotch-Irish sensibilities keep screaming. So, the fish is duly scraped away, trying to retain as much of the precious cheese as is possible. The last bites are successfully down, my frugality is satisfied, but now I have to come face to face with the full horror of what I have done. Surely, surely, I said, I am gripped by the throes of death. No one could eat such foulsomeness and yet live. Is this to be my tragic, untimely end? Woe to me, to have sailed across seven seas and battled giants and ogres only to be brought down on the shores darkest Afrika by a foul fish! Panic and emptiness. Panic and emptiness.
To make matter worse, not only is my mind still reeling with the thought of the black death inside that can that I actually freely chose to put inside my body, then I have to contend with the heavy weight of guilt that comes of actually having disposed of the filthy creature, rather than eating it. Mayhaps it would not have been so bad if not so many things had been going rotten of late. There was the couple of tablespoons of mayo earlier that day, but not only that, there was the half a melon that turned to translucent goo in the fridge while the NEPA was gone, as well as the leftovers of the salad that I had for lunch that wept strange juices in its sad Styrofoam container and had to be pitched. Wicked, wicked girl to waste such food! It should have been eaten, rot and all! It’s not like I have much food to begin with, without pitching half of it into the garbage. I was very angry that I was so weak, then, as to not be able to stomach the corpulent tuna. Who dares to go to Africa when they are too sissified to eat a tuna fish sandwich? I made many dire threats to myself about being sent home to eat chocolate bon bons on couches of indolence and slowly be crushed by the guilty weight of inaction. But I writhed in my very marrow to think of eating it, and so, alas, I lost the day. Kai! I suck at this game.
So, two funny stories “off the record” from Nigeria, those I am not sure the general audience would be terribly interested in hearing. First story: I was over in the compound across the street the other night, having dinner with another missionary and some friends. Night fell and as there was no NEPA (Nigerian for electricity) that evening, we made our way back across the compound with a flashlight, held out in front by my gallant companion. We were walking across a basketball court, wide and level and to all appearances completely free from debris, when I had the very good fortune to stub my toe, hard, on a rock in my path that was a little bit larger than a brick. “Ouch,” I said, or some such thing, for my companion stopped and came back to check. I assured her that I was fine, having only clumsily stubbed my toe, and onward we went. But by the time we were at the gate of our friends’ compound, I could already feel a suspicious wetness growing in my shoe. We made our way back up to our flats in our compound, and my friend came back up to my flat to see if there were any battery run lights for me to use (there weren’t). I came in and immediately went to check out my foot with my flashlight, which I had foolishly left in my flat. Sure enough, the top half of my poor sandal was soaked with blood and my toe looked somewhat worse for wear. My friend noticed and kindly offered me the use of a bandaid, and then off she went for the evening. So there I was at 10:00 on a pitch black night, bleeding into the bathtub and trying to clean off my toe with a little cup of purified water, since I wasn’t really sure what the water here would do to it, and doing all this by the light of my little flashlight. (The toe is, by the by, more or less fine, as when I finally got a look at it, it was just a small cut on the end of my big toe that caused all the trouble).
Second story, happened only today at lunchtime. Now, the thing that you have to understand about this story is that NEPA goes off fairly frequently here, usually only for 15 minutes to an hour, but sometimes as long as a day or so. And when it does, there is no power in my fridge. So, today, having no NEPA and little food in the house, I decide to use the goodly can of tuna fish that had already been purchased for me upon my arrival to make myself a tasty tuna melt sandwich. (Yes, we can get cheese here, but it is rather costly). So I open up my wee can of tuna and what a sight did assault my eyes. This was the strangest tuna I had ever seen. First of all it was packed in oil, but it was so, so dark, like a grey-pink-black combination that looked fairly vile. I wondered what might be in the can besides just tuna, but poked around and managed to spoon out a few spoonfuls that looked okay. Then, the mayonnaise. Now, I know that mayo is a rather common ingredient in tuna salad, but I have never been that big of a fan so I am not sure what possessed me to try to put it in in the first place. But I opened up the jar, which still had its plastic ring, mind you, but had been in my fridge for a full day while there was no NEPA. And yet, mysteriously, there was a thin layer on the top that looked and smelled suspicious. So I spooned out that top layer and threw it away and proceeded with the making of my sandwich, adding lots and lots of garlic powder to the mix in the hope that I might taste nothing else. I cut the bread and added some thin little slices of cheese. Into the frying pan it went, where it shortly became even more of a fiasco because I had cut the bread too thin, so it started to fall apart and stick to the pan and very soon, I had a mangled mess of dark tuna and crumbling bread on my plate. This whole time I had been cooking, I had been growing more and more anxious as I looked upon what I very soon planned to force upon my digestive tract. But I was desperately trying some very positive self-talk to psych myself up to eat this hideous sandwich, and failing miserably. A first bite: Fishy, very, very fishy, with a little bit of raunchy mayo flavor and soggy bread thrown in. No, I said to myself, this is delicious. This is the best tuna fish sandwich I have ever tasted. More bites. More anguish. More positivity. I was strongly reminded of the hideous can of coleslaw that Jer tried to force himself to eat in good old Eire, and felt strongly tempted to go lie on the couch or perhaps pack the beast up for some hungrier day. No, I thought, if you can’t eat it now, think how much worse it will be cold.
Another bite, and another. Halfway through the sandwich. I stall when I find something of a foreign nature (i.e.—not native to the fish, or perhaps too native?). This is the final straw. My eating stalls, waves of nausea pass over me. I feel a strong urge to vomit. Shannon girl, I tell myself firmly, it’s less than two dollars worth of fish. It’s not worth it. The sandwich, however, cannot be altogether abandoned, my Scotch-Irish sensibilities keep screaming. So, the fish is duly scraped away, trying to retain as much of the precious cheese as is possible. The last bites are successfully down, my frugality is satisfied, but now I have to come face to face with the full horror of what I have done. Surely, surely, I said, I am gripped by the throes of death. No one could eat such foulsomeness and yet live. Is this to be my tragic, untimely end? Woe to me, to have sailed across seven seas and battled giants and ogres only to be brought down on the shores darkest Afrika by a foul fish! Panic and emptiness. Panic and emptiness.
To make matter worse, not only is my mind still reeling with the thought of the black death inside that can that I actually freely chose to put inside my body, then I have to contend with the heavy weight of guilt that comes of actually having disposed of the filthy creature, rather than eating it. Mayhaps it would not have been so bad if not so many things had been going rotten of late. There was the couple of tablespoons of mayo earlier that day, but not only that, there was the half a melon that turned to translucent goo in the fridge while the NEPA was gone, as well as the leftovers of the salad that I had for lunch that wept strange juices in its sad Styrofoam container and had to be pitched. Wicked, wicked girl to waste such food! It should have been eaten, rot and all! It’s not like I have much food to begin with, without pitching half of it into the garbage. I was very angry that I was so weak, then, as to not be able to stomach the corpulent tuna. Who dares to go to Africa when they are too sissified to eat a tuna fish sandwich? I made many dire threats to myself about being sent home to eat chocolate bon bons on couches of indolence and slowly be crushed by the guilty weight of inaction. But I writhed in my very marrow to think of eating it, and so, alas, I lost the day. Kai! I suck at this game.
Friday, September 14, 2007
First Things
Sorry for the repeat to those of you who are also on the e-mail list, as this is basically a reprint of my first e-mail. To those who may not be on the list and would like to be, just drop me an e-mail and include your address. Peace!
My dear, dear friends,
This morning, I was awakened at 4:00 by the combined effects of jet lag and the Muslim call to prayer that was sounding across the little city of Jos. I lay in bed and listened as the quiet of the street was gradually filled with the rumble of traffic, the chatter of voices, the calls of vendors and always, always the honking of the cars that is apparently a necessity for anyone to drive anywhere without crashing.
It is my first full day in the city of Jos, tho I have been away from home for about a week, first in Charlotte for orientation with SIM, and then spending a full three days travelling to finally make it to the Challenge Apartments in the compound where I am staying. The travelling was a bit of an ordeal that I feel fortunate to have survived, but I made it at last and am savoring my first encounters with Nigeria and its people.
It is so beautiful here and I loved my extended ride from Abuja, where my plane landed, all the way up to Jos. Everywhere people are hiking along the side of the road or trying to hitch rides, women are laying out corn to try on the concrete and my very kind driver, Audu, is doing his best to dodge the potholes in the road. I feel very fortunate to be here at this time of year because rainy season is just ending, so everything is beautiful and green, but the dry season will not start until the end of November, after I am gone. The weather right now is gorgeous. The past two days have been sunny and beautiful and the high elevation keeps us nice and cool. I am already discovering that so many of the bad things I was told about Nigeria were no more than stereotypes and I hope this trip will be the beginning of a lifetime love affair with this place.
I think the most stressful things so far have been the constant feeling of sensory overload and being overwhelmed by the differences in doing life here. It's like waking up one morning and suddenly everything that is part of your daily routine is so much more difficult. Making tea, grocery shopping, and even crossing the street are challenging, so I suppose it is little surprise that I feel overwhelmed. Furthermore, everything is new, and because I am so curious I often feel like I am trying to take in everything at once. Unfortunately, "everything" usually turns out to be quite a bit! I am trying to tell myself that adjustment will come in time and to accept it as part of the experience, but it is not always easy to be patient.
The other thing that can be a burden at times is a nagging sense of inadequacy I have developed since landing. It is hard not to feel like a lesser missionary because I will only be here for two months, or to feel like there is nothing that I could accomplish in such a short space of time. In addition, I seem to be consistently trying to sidestep a mountain of "can'ts," like: I can't be bold enough to use the language, I can't relate to people, I can't adjust to life here, I can't be effective in ministry. I want to have a spirit of humility, but also one of boldness, to be willing to be daring in trying what might seem difficult and to be optimistic about my time here. Please pray especially that I will be bold in forming the relationships that are SO important here in Nigeria.
But, on the positive side, everyone I have met here at the mission so far has been great, so friendly and welcoming and excited for me and my time here. And the long-termers seem really close too, so I have high hopes for developing good relationships.
Phew, and to think I wanted this to be a "short" update to let everyone know that I had safely arrived! Please keep in mind that if you think these updates will add to your already overflowing inbox, just drop me a line to opt out. And if you know someone who would be interested in hearing about what I'm doing, feel free to pass it along.
Until next time,
Grace and Peace,
S.
My dear, dear friends,
This morning, I was awakened at 4:00 by the combined effects of jet lag and the Muslim call to prayer that was sounding across the little city of Jos. I lay in bed and listened as the quiet of the street was gradually filled with the rumble of traffic, the chatter of voices, the calls of vendors and always, always the honking of the cars that is apparently a necessity for anyone to drive anywhere without crashing.
It is my first full day in the city of Jos, tho I have been away from home for about a week, first in Charlotte for orientation with SIM, and then spending a full three days travelling to finally make it to the Challenge Apartments in the compound where I am staying. The travelling was a bit of an ordeal that I feel fortunate to have survived, but I made it at last and am savoring my first encounters with Nigeria and its people.
It is so beautiful here and I loved my extended ride from Abuja, where my plane landed, all the way up to Jos. Everywhere people are hiking along the side of the road or trying to hitch rides, women are laying out corn to try on the concrete and my very kind driver, Audu, is doing his best to dodge the potholes in the road. I feel very fortunate to be here at this time of year because rainy season is just ending, so everything is beautiful and green, but the dry season will not start until the end of November, after I am gone. The weather right now is gorgeous. The past two days have been sunny and beautiful and the high elevation keeps us nice and cool. I am already discovering that so many of the bad things I was told about Nigeria were no more than stereotypes and I hope this trip will be the beginning of a lifetime love affair with this place.
I think the most stressful things so far have been the constant feeling of sensory overload and being overwhelmed by the differences in doing life here. It's like waking up one morning and suddenly everything that is part of your daily routine is so much more difficult. Making tea, grocery shopping, and even crossing the street are challenging, so I suppose it is little surprise that I feel overwhelmed. Furthermore, everything is new, and because I am so curious I often feel like I am trying to take in everything at once. Unfortunately, "everything" usually turns out to be quite a bit! I am trying to tell myself that adjustment will come in time and to accept it as part of the experience, but it is not always easy to be patient.
The other thing that can be a burden at times is a nagging sense of inadequacy I have developed since landing. It is hard not to feel like a lesser missionary because I will only be here for two months, or to feel like there is nothing that I could accomplish in such a short space of time. In addition, I seem to be consistently trying to sidestep a mountain of "can'ts," like: I can't be bold enough to use the language, I can't relate to people, I can't adjust to life here, I can't be effective in ministry. I want to have a spirit of humility, but also one of boldness, to be willing to be daring in trying what might seem difficult and to be optimistic about my time here. Please pray especially that I will be bold in forming the relationships that are SO important here in Nigeria.
But, on the positive side, everyone I have met here at the mission so far has been great, so friendly and welcoming and excited for me and my time here. And the long-termers seem really close too, so I have high hopes for developing good relationships.
Phew, and to think I wanted this to be a "short" update to let everyone know that I had safely arrived! Please keep in mind that if you think these updates will add to your already overflowing inbox, just drop me a line to opt out. And if you know someone who would be interested in hearing about what I'm doing, feel free to pass it along.
Until next time,
Grace and Peace,
S.
Sunday, September 9, 2007
This is my letter to the world...
Dear world,
I am going to Africa. If anyone needs to find me, e-mail. And, if you pray, please pray like thunder for the next couple of days. I want to be in one piece when I get there. If I get there. I'll get there. It'll be fine. It'll be fine. Just fine. Fine.
S.
I am going to Africa. If anyone needs to find me, e-mail. And, if you pray, please pray like thunder for the next couple of days. I want to be in one piece when I get there. If I get there. I'll get there. It'll be fine. It'll be fine. Just fine. Fine.
S.
Friday, September 7, 2007
Wee Shannon's Stirring Idealism
The sunset tonight was absolutely unreal. It’s like if I had a dream, a decision to make of what a sunset should absolutely, Platonically look like, and there it was, appearing in the sky. A perfect, rosy mountain of Zion, with brilliant, apocalyptic rays shooting out from behind. And the zealous red heat of the sky god himself, showing the back side of his glory. I only saw it for a few seconds because the sun was already so low and the sky is always transitory. I had no camera to capture it with, and I’m so thankful. God forbid I should try to steal that sunset’s soul. I also found this flower with an intoxicating aroma, it was bright yellow and made up of these brassy little trumpets and I felt like we had met somewhere before. The campus of SIM has this row of rose bushes right along the side of the main building that I deeply covet. They remind me of the roses that grew in our neighborhood in Australia and of the ones that grew outside our dear old house in California. And I got spider webs in my hair, walking down by the creek. I continue to try to be fully alive to the world, wherever I find myself. And I do think it pisses God off when you walk by the color purple and don’t see it.
Today was a very full day, full of orienting type speeches and head-spinning information and too much to take in. It was a good day, though, and I ended it by walking out to where there were, inexplicably except perhaps by glacier or very expensive landscaping, these big boulders at the edge of this little copse. And I climbed up on one of the boulders and I read the Princess Bride for awhile, because of course you have the Princess Bride with you if you’re going to Nigeria for two months, and then I lay back on the boulder for a goodly long while under the oaken tree and I watched the sky through the leaves. I had this sense, finally, that I was exactly where I was supposed to be, doing exactly what I was supposed to be doing, laying on a boulder, watching the sky and breathing quietly. And I felt absolutely no fear.
Today I also learned that it is harder to climb boulders when you’re wearing a skirt. At least modestly; that’s what makes it hard.
It has been good for me to be here right now. It is good to be in a place where people do not think you are crazy for wanting to go to a “third world” country and deal with “primitive” living conditions because you want to do good in the world. They are, in fact, crazier than you are, because they want to do it for years at a time. I didn’t realize how illegitimate what I wanted to do seemed to be in the eyes of everybody until I came to a place where it was the norm. Where, in fact, I am not radical, but just a short-termer, a person of lesser commitment than many. This is good in my life, I need to go to more places where I am the least radical person. That would be very refreshing, but it mean that I would have to spend a lot of time in places that are a little bit strange and scary.
I have many, many more thoughts resulting from today’s reflection, but tonight I will give only one more. Not that it is getting late, it is tragically only about 10:30. But through some bizarre combination of Jet Lag Lite and not getting enough sleep last night through being silly, I am already very tired. So: the thing that I have already discovered about this particular group of people is that they seem to share a passionate belief that the world is very screwed up and very dark, and the only way things are going to improve is through people hearing the gospel.
At first pass, this seems almost incendiary. What, the people are starving and sick and the governments are corrupt, and you say give them Jesus and everything will get better? You jerks! But, perhaps even more curiously, I find myself in agreement with this strange belief. I guess it all depends on what you mean when you say “give them Jesus.” I guess if the goal were to simple present the ABC’s of salvation and get people to say their majick evangelical Jesus prayer and win their ticket to heaven and then pack up and go home, white man, this would be an extremely incendiary thing to say. I do believe I would start throwing things around the room, and I would not be at all comfortable with going to the mini-mart with such folk, let alone all the way to Africa.
But I think, I hope, I believe that they mean much more than what I have outlined above when they talk about bringing “the gospel.” I will share with you what I comprehend in this term, and we can all hope and pray that they have the same sorts of things in mind. The gospel isn’t just the gospel as we have so often presented it: accept some legal fiction that you’ve paid for all the bad stuff you’ve done because somebody else paid for it and then wait till swing-low-sweet-chariot to hit paydirt. (I suppose I should not be so flippant about atonement. It has been way over emphasized, but it’s not like atonement isn’t important. I think I can denigrate it because I don’t think I quite understand or appreciate atonement. Someday I will and then I will repent of such flippant speeches.) When I talk about sharing the gospel, I mean drawing people into the kingdom of God. It is a curious place, this kingdom, and it is the place we are called to try and be building as Christians. It is a kingdom in which everyone is striving to behave and think and believe and want and love in the same way as the king as much as they possibly can. And that ought to change things, not just in the ways that people talk and think, but in the way they live. Husbands who follow the king will not go to the cities and be unfaithful, contract AIDS and come home and spread it to their wives. Governments who follow the king will not act in corrupt and violent ways. They will not persecute minority people groups and with hold food from their people. In the kingdom, children will not grow up not knowing their parents and feeling worthless. Young people who follow the king will not rebel and refuse to follow the traditional ways of their elders and drift into lives of dissipation, drugs, and alcohol. Genocide and chasms of class difference will no longer exist. People will not be put in prison because of their political views or killed because of their religion.
This is, obviously, extremely simplistic, and I don’t really think that this kind of utopian achievement will happen this side of the apocalypse. Working towards the kingdom is complicated and difficult and frustrating for pretty much every one involved. But that doesn’t mean that it isn’t worth the pursuit. Africa needs to be moving closer to what I have described, and not much else seems to be helping this battered continent to get there. Someone made the very observant point that money is obviously not the answer because a number of nations have been pouring money into Africa for at least a couple of decades and problems do not seem to have improved greatly. And let me say this, if I did not believe that this scenario was not the eventual outworking of the message of Jesus, that the purpose of the gospel was not holistic life change, that Jesus was not the wisest person who ever lived and taught a way of life that was simply for the sake of moral purity, not for the fulfillment and restoration of everything that a human was meant to be, body, mind, and spirit, then I would be looking for something else to follow.
Instead I’m spending two months serving the gospel in Nigeria. You do the math.
Oh, and if you think I’m full of crap, you can always check back here in two months to see if my resolves and outlook have been shattered. I expect they will have been. Several times. But they have this way of coming back together...
Today was a very full day, full of orienting type speeches and head-spinning information and too much to take in. It was a good day, though, and I ended it by walking out to where there were, inexplicably except perhaps by glacier or very expensive landscaping, these big boulders at the edge of this little copse. And I climbed up on one of the boulders and I read the Princess Bride for awhile, because of course you have the Princess Bride with you if you’re going to Nigeria for two months, and then I lay back on the boulder for a goodly long while under the oaken tree and I watched the sky through the leaves. I had this sense, finally, that I was exactly where I was supposed to be, doing exactly what I was supposed to be doing, laying on a boulder, watching the sky and breathing quietly. And I felt absolutely no fear.
Today I also learned that it is harder to climb boulders when you’re wearing a skirt. At least modestly; that’s what makes it hard.
It has been good for me to be here right now. It is good to be in a place where people do not think you are crazy for wanting to go to a “third world” country and deal with “primitive” living conditions because you want to do good in the world. They are, in fact, crazier than you are, because they want to do it for years at a time. I didn’t realize how illegitimate what I wanted to do seemed to be in the eyes of everybody until I came to a place where it was the norm. Where, in fact, I am not radical, but just a short-termer, a person of lesser commitment than many. This is good in my life, I need to go to more places where I am the least radical person. That would be very refreshing, but it mean that I would have to spend a lot of time in places that are a little bit strange and scary.
I have many, many more thoughts resulting from today’s reflection, but tonight I will give only one more. Not that it is getting late, it is tragically only about 10:30. But through some bizarre combination of Jet Lag Lite and not getting enough sleep last night through being silly, I am already very tired. So: the thing that I have already discovered about this particular group of people is that they seem to share a passionate belief that the world is very screwed up and very dark, and the only way things are going to improve is through people hearing the gospel.
At first pass, this seems almost incendiary. What, the people are starving and sick and the governments are corrupt, and you say give them Jesus and everything will get better? You jerks! But, perhaps even more curiously, I find myself in agreement with this strange belief. I guess it all depends on what you mean when you say “give them Jesus.” I guess if the goal were to simple present the ABC’s of salvation and get people to say their majick evangelical Jesus prayer and win their ticket to heaven and then pack up and go home, white man, this would be an extremely incendiary thing to say. I do believe I would start throwing things around the room, and I would not be at all comfortable with going to the mini-mart with such folk, let alone all the way to Africa.
But I think, I hope, I believe that they mean much more than what I have outlined above when they talk about bringing “the gospel.” I will share with you what I comprehend in this term, and we can all hope and pray that they have the same sorts of things in mind. The gospel isn’t just the gospel as we have so often presented it: accept some legal fiction that you’ve paid for all the bad stuff you’ve done because somebody else paid for it and then wait till swing-low-sweet-chariot to hit paydirt. (I suppose I should not be so flippant about atonement. It has been way over emphasized, but it’s not like atonement isn’t important. I think I can denigrate it because I don’t think I quite understand or appreciate atonement. Someday I will and then I will repent of such flippant speeches.) When I talk about sharing the gospel, I mean drawing people into the kingdom of God. It is a curious place, this kingdom, and it is the place we are called to try and be building as Christians. It is a kingdom in which everyone is striving to behave and think and believe and want and love in the same way as the king as much as they possibly can. And that ought to change things, not just in the ways that people talk and think, but in the way they live. Husbands who follow the king will not go to the cities and be unfaithful, contract AIDS and come home and spread it to their wives. Governments who follow the king will not act in corrupt and violent ways. They will not persecute minority people groups and with hold food from their people. In the kingdom, children will not grow up not knowing their parents and feeling worthless. Young people who follow the king will not rebel and refuse to follow the traditional ways of their elders and drift into lives of dissipation, drugs, and alcohol. Genocide and chasms of class difference will no longer exist. People will not be put in prison because of their political views or killed because of their religion.
This is, obviously, extremely simplistic, and I don’t really think that this kind of utopian achievement will happen this side of the apocalypse. Working towards the kingdom is complicated and difficult and frustrating for pretty much every one involved. But that doesn’t mean that it isn’t worth the pursuit. Africa needs to be moving closer to what I have described, and not much else seems to be helping this battered continent to get there. Someone made the very observant point that money is obviously not the answer because a number of nations have been pouring money into Africa for at least a couple of decades and problems do not seem to have improved greatly. And let me say this, if I did not believe that this scenario was not the eventual outworking of the message of Jesus, that the purpose of the gospel was not holistic life change, that Jesus was not the wisest person who ever lived and taught a way of life that was simply for the sake of moral purity, not for the fulfillment and restoration of everything that a human was meant to be, body, mind, and spirit, then I would be looking for something else to follow.
Instead I’m spending two months serving the gospel in Nigeria. You do the math.
Oh, and if you think I’m full of crap, you can always check back here in two months to see if my resolves and outlook have been shattered. I expect they will have been. Several times. But they have this way of coming back together...
Thursday, September 6, 2007
Arrived!...Well, sort of.
I'm here!!! No, no, not here in Nigeria, here in Charlotte. What? You didn't think they were just going to toss me out into the wilds of Africa without even a word of advice, did you? No, no, I am here until the 10th being oriented. Actually, from the sound of it, I'll just be oriented for one day, and then have 2 days to hang out, and then leave for Africa. Which means that it would be a truly superb thing if I could get my wireless connection to work. I suppose that I ought to be grateful that I can get any kind of internet at all, but it is so maddening to know that the wireless network is there, right there, at my veritable fingertips, and my stupid *%#$ computer won't connect to it! It would also be a lot less frustrating if this didn't happen to my stupid computer every time I try to set up a new wireless network that it would feel this incredible need to freak out and drag the entire computer down with it. Ugh. Jeff, why are you not perpetually on call? Probably because other people do not exist for the service of me.
So, today was overall a good day. This morning, although I am a seasoned flyer, I did have another first, parking at a park-n'-ride-type-leave-your-car-and-come-get-when-you-get-back-I-can't-remember-the-name type place. That, however, was basically uneventful. Actually the whole flying experience was pretty uneventful, which in itself is an event nowadays. Then I made it Charlotte and got picked up and headed over to the SIM campus, which is in fact a campus, which is larger than I was expecting. Then I no sooner dropped off my luggage than it was time for my first meeting, which was like more of a devotional time than a meeting, thinking about missions and why missions and what God's purposes for missions might be. Then we went out to dinner at this great Ethiopian restaurant where we got this flat bread stuff that we got to use to eat with our fingers. And we had beef and lamb and chicken and it was cool because the SIM people know the owners and so after the meal the owner's wife came out and chatted with us and we talked about religious persecution in Eritrea and that was cool too. So that was day one and I guess just as much as I wanted to tell you about my day, I also wanted to let everyone know that you can still more or less get ahold of me and that this will not be the last time you hear from me. In fact, I may still be able to continue posting while in Africa, which would be sweet. And also, if you had expected a personal type letter from me for a reasonable reason, there is yet time for me to write it before I head off. If you did expect one, you might want to drop me a line and let me know, because you might not be one of the people I have in mind.
And now, as my batteries are running out (both physically and technologically) and my eyes are doing fuzzy things and rolling around in my head, so I need to go to bed. O yes, I do.
Yours gratefully,
S.
So, today was overall a good day. This morning, although I am a seasoned flyer, I did have another first, parking at a park-n'-ride-type-leave-your-car-and-come-get-when-you-get-back-I-can't-remember-the-name type place. That, however, was basically uneventful. Actually the whole flying experience was pretty uneventful, which in itself is an event nowadays. Then I made it Charlotte and got picked up and headed over to the SIM campus, which is in fact a campus, which is larger than I was expecting. Then I no sooner dropped off my luggage than it was time for my first meeting, which was like more of a devotional time than a meeting, thinking about missions and why missions and what God's purposes for missions might be. Then we went out to dinner at this great Ethiopian restaurant where we got this flat bread stuff that we got to use to eat with our fingers. And we had beef and lamb and chicken and it was cool because the SIM people know the owners and so after the meal the owner's wife came out and chatted with us and we talked about religious persecution in Eritrea and that was cool too. So that was day one and I guess just as much as I wanted to tell you about my day, I also wanted to let everyone know that you can still more or less get ahold of me and that this will not be the last time you hear from me. In fact, I may still be able to continue posting while in Africa, which would be sweet. And also, if you had expected a personal type letter from me for a reasonable reason, there is yet time for me to write it before I head off. If you did expect one, you might want to drop me a line and let me know, because you might not be one of the people I have in mind.
And now, as my batteries are running out (both physically and technologically) and my eyes are doing fuzzy things and rolling around in my head, so I need to go to bed. O yes, I do.
Yours gratefully,
S.
Tuesday, September 4, 2007
Waffles tomorrow?
Now I am ready for Africa. It didn't take much to get me to the zen state of perfect preparedness. I was at a used bookstore today and I bought four new books to take with me. I am excited. If nothing else good happens, I will have good thing to read. They are as follows:
Rabbit, Run: John Updike
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings: Maya Angelou
Watership Down: Richard Adams
Cat's Cradle: Kurt Vonnegut (this one was for you, Hope)
Seriously, I can't shake the feeling that there are many, many things left for me to do, but I don't think there actually are any. I seem to have everything I need. Right about now, I would really like to just go. Stop all this waiting around and just go.
Speaking of going, I really can't write anymore tonight because I have to go all the way out to where my car's parked on the street to get my book and read the last chapter of Harry Potter book...and I'm not even sure if I can make that.
S.
Rabbit, Run: John Updike
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings: Maya Angelou
Watership Down: Richard Adams
Cat's Cradle: Kurt Vonnegut (this one was for you, Hope)
Seriously, I can't shake the feeling that there are many, many things left for me to do, but I don't think there actually are any. I seem to have everything I need. Right about now, I would really like to just go. Stop all this waiting around and just go.
Speaking of going, I really can't write anymore tonight because I have to go all the way out to where my car's parked on the street to get my book and read the last chapter of Harry Potter book...and I'm not even sure if I can make that.
S.
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