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Bwana Asifiwe – Praise God
I am in my second week here at St. Philip’s Theological College in Maseno, Kenya. The weather has been in the 60’s and 70’s with thunderstorms most afternoons, but they do not last long. The day begins with breakfast at 7:00 AM and then Morning Prayer in the chapel at 7:30 AM. I will then spend the morning reading or going out with others to the parishes. Tea is at 11:00 AM., lunch at 1 PM., Evening Prayer at 5:30 and dinner at 6:30. On Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays we get to eat more American food at the Hardisons, the missionaries who head up the school and hospital. There are five other Americans here besides the Hardisons and me. David and Wanda McLure are helping with the hospital and administration for about 4 months. They go home to New Hampshire next month. Bobby and Andrew are two students from Berkley who are here for a month. Davis is from San Diego and working with the Orphans' Program. It is nice to meet together to process this experience and to have more American food.
For the last couple of days I have joined a crew who have been re-registering orphans for the Saturday feeding programs and once-a-month free health clinics for orphans and their guardians. We are trying to make sure that the programs are still serving orphans and have not become general feeding programs. There is so much need, but we have collected money for an orphans’ program and need to keep it so. At the parish we meet with the Mothers Union. You can tell who is in the Mothers Union because they wear sky blue dresses and head scarves. The dresses are always clean and pressed. They are the ones running the Saturday feeding programs for orphans at 9 different congregations. They are doing great work but they are also very powerful in the parishes. You do not want to get on the wrong side of the Mothers Union. As a Mzunga, a white person (sometimes translated as a dumb white person) I am shown great deference but they know that I am clueless. Nonetheless they also know that I represent the funding source of their programs.
Yesterday, I went on some home visits to some of the very poor orphans in the feeding and hospital program of one of the parishes. We picked up two brothers, 11 and 13 years old, whose mother has died and dad is nowhere to be found. They live in a hut. Their uncle who lives near helps them out with some food but basically they are on their own. They had virtually nothing in their hut but a table, a bench and two chairs. While their clothes were in tatters they looked clean and well enough fed. It was sad but amazingly they were functioning, going to school and usually getting one meal a day. Dave, one of the missionaries working here gave some money to our translator to get them some new school uniforms. We then visited another hut down the hill. When we walked up we saw a hut with one of the walls having fallen down. I thought it was a being used as a stable. Unfortunately, we learned that it was the home of a widow and her three children. It had a thatched roof; most of the huts have tin roofs. The roof was also in desperate need of repair. While we were there it began to rain and there were not many places to stand without getting wet. It is very hard to understand the sense of community that would allow someone to live in such a situation. I am going to see what I might be able to do help her out. It sounds like that for about $200 we could have her hut rebuilt but I do not want to barge in quickly because I do not know what unanticipated consequences could come out of my trying to help. Fortunately, the weather is so mild one does not need as much of a house to survive, but she needs more than she has.
On our way back from the visits, our truck, an old Toyota Land Cruiser, called The Bruiser, got hopelessly stuck. It was a narrow tract with embankments on either side. The mud was slick because it had just rained. The back wheel slid into a culvert made from the run off and the Bruiser slid sideways into the hole. As one of missionaries said, “We have just become the afternoon’s entertainment.” We gathered quite a crowd, especially as school had just let out. They were also very helpful bringing hoes to dig us out and cutting branches to create some traction. About 90 minutes later, covered with sticky red mud we managed to jack up the beast to get some boards under the back wheel and with about 15 people pushing and pulling we got her free. When we got back to St. Philip’s we were quite the sight, to the amusement of all.
On this past Sunday I did preach at another parish. The singing was wonderful, including the Venite (Psalm 95) in Anglican Chant. The sermon came around after about two hours and ten minutes into the service. I kept my word to a short 30 minutes. One of the students translated for me. I preached on Ezekiel 36:22-32, “It is not for your sake, O House of Israel, that I act, it is for the sake of my holy name.” I think it went well. Unfortunately, they gave me the wrong lesson. The Old Testament lesson that day was from Isaiah. Nobody seemed to mind and it had been hours since they heard the Isaiah lesson.
So, all in all things are going well. As I expected, some of the romance is wearing off as I learn more about the joys as well as the struggles of the people in this part of Kenya. Please know that I think of all of you often and hold you in my prayers.
Peace,
Tom
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