I am continuing with the story of how and why I became involved with beginning the orphanage in Kisii, Kenya. Last week I spoke of my arrival for the first time in Kenya, and then told you about how God made the cancerous growth on my arm vanish in about three days.
So now I return to my journal I wrote at the time. I am at the hotel in Nairobi…
Prayers to Hitler
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The tea growing region sounds nice. Tea is grown in the same
type of mountainous climates as is coffee. I should feel right at home because
I have lived before in these types of regions. The climate is beautiful in
those places.
Today was a very quiet one for me. I took another walk
around the area of the hotel. I got lost once, but managed to find my way back.
I was looking for some kind of market, but there is apparently none within
walking distance—at least none that I could find.
I did spend some more time at the park that I mentioned
yesterday. It is an unkempt area with the grass unmowed and the benches broken,
but it is nice nonetheless. There is a wooded area with a well-worn path
through it.
I met many students on the path, all carrying books and all
who seemed to be in a bit of a hurry to get someplace. I did not speak to any
of them, but most smiled and nodded when I met them as we passed. My assumption
is that they were off to class.
In the wooded area there was a little creek banked by tall
trees and vines—and monkeys, many monkeys. I am not a great lover of monkeys
due to several disagreeable experiences with them when I was living in India.
But these seemed quite cute, at least as viewed from a distance.
I stood on the bridge and watched them play like small
children in the creek. They chased each other around through the water and up
the bank, then scurry up a tree, jump to a vine and back to the creek. Cute,
but I still don’t trust them.
Prayers to Hitler
Last night in the outside dining area at the hotel I was having a coffee when two westerners sat down at the table next to me. The tables are small and quite close to one another, so after friendly greetings, we began having light conversation.
One of the men was from Scotland, and the other was English.
Both seemed to be about my age. They were mountaineers. They had come to climb
Mount Kenya. The mountain is located more toward central part of the country,
and is Kenya’s highest peak is at 17,057 ft. It is one of Africa’s highest
mountains, second only to Kilimanjaro in Tanzania.
I am not a mountaineer in the same sense as were these men,
but I have climbed many mountain pathways in various mountain ranges. Perhaps I
should use the word “hike” instead of “climb.” The difference is my type of
ascent does not require any ropes, carabineers, crampons or ice axes. I do not
go to those extreme heights or trails of difficulty. The only gear that I
prefer to carry are a couple of water bottles and maybe a sandwich or two—also
a walking staff.
Nevertheless, despite the different intensities of our
mountain ascents, we all had been to enough similar places that we were having
a good chat about our common interest. I was even learning something about
“real” mountaineering, as they called it.
As our conversation continued, they soon asked me the reason
that I had come to Kenya. I briefly related to them about the contact I had
been having with the church out in Kisii and the plans on beginning an
orphanage there. They learned that I had previous experiences in working with
Christian pastors in various countries, and that I was also a pastor. I did not
press it or go deeply into any of it. I frankly was not interested in talking
about myself or my reasons for being in Kenya.
It was then that the Scotsman spoke up with a statement that
actually was a bit shocking to me: “Every day I say a prayer of gratitude to
Adolf Hitler,” he said bluntly in his imperturbable Scottish accent.
He then went on to explain. “Before the war, my father
planned on attending a seminary and becoming a pastor in the Presbyterian
Church. But when the war started, he enlisted in the army. By the time the war
was over, his plans had changed. He never did attend seminary and he never did
become a pastor.”
The Scotsman then concluded with this statement to tie it
all together: “Every day I say a little prayer of thanks to Hitler for
beginning the war. If he did not, I probably would have ended up being the son
of a pastor.”
He may have not meant this literally, but only spoke in such
a definitive way for impact. If so, at least in that he was successful. The
statement was a shocking one.
As he said these words to me, there was no malice in his
voice, no hint that he wanted to start an argument. But even on the face of it,
he obviously considered me a fool for expending my life in the way that I did.
At that point, I was not in the mood for a debate about
values or about what is important in life. But also in like manner, I
considered him a fool for making that statement, even if he may have not meant
it literally.
What I Did Not Say
Not wanting to start a long discussion, I did not say what
was on my mind. What was on my mind was that his words had to be the most
self-centered and egotistical statement I had ever heard.
What also came to my mind were the millions, nay, tens of
millions who died as a result of Hitler’s actions. What also came to my mind
was that this fellow, who at first was a very likeable Scotsman, turned out to
be perhaps the most self-absorbed person whom I had ever met.
What was on my mind was, “Here is a man who thought nothing
of the fact, and actually is thankful that Hitler sacrificed tens of millions
of lives so that he did not have to grow up as a pastor’s son, which apparently
in his thinking, gave him the freedom to climb mountains (as if the two were
mutually exclusive).
All of these thoughts came to me instantly. Under other
conditions, I may have entered into conversation about our completely different
views on what is important, but I frankly did not feel like it at that time.
Neither did I think that it would be beneficial at the moment. Besides that, we
could not even begin to cover the subject even if we stayed up late into the
night.
For me, these were not “I should have said” thoughts. They
were all ones that I thought of saying even at the moment, but purposefully
decided not to say.
I simply shook my head in disbelief and said something like,
“That is one of the most outlandish things that I have ever heard.”
Fortunately, at that moment the Englishman spoke up and
asked me how I was to get to Kisii.
“By automobile,” I answered him.
“Oh, that should be nice. You will be driving through the
Great Rift Valley. You may see some wildlife.”
It was shortly after that the two mountain climbers made
some statement about needing to rise very early in the morning. They should be
off to bed, they said. The men rose from the table, excused themselves, and
returned to their room.
Indeed, before I came out this morning, they had been up,
breakfasted, and were off to climb Mount Kenya.
Existential Thoughts
But the conversation has stayed with me throughout this day.
The sum of my thoughts as I considered his words can be reduced to defining the
word fool. Both the Scotsman and I thought (and probably still do think) the
other a fool, and because of the same reason.
Without trying to sound too philosophical or existential,
the reason we think each other a fool actually does center on questions of
existence. What is the purpose of our existence?
Perhaps few would put it in terms so straightforwardly as
the Scotsman, but I would say that what he expressed actually is the prevailing
philosophy of the majority of people. Most people think that if life is to have
meaning and fulfillment, then we must find that fulfillment now. We seek new adventures.
We seek excitement. We work to fill our bucket lists.
My first thought in hearing what the Scotsman had to say was
that my view was the one of “higher moral ground” (as they put it in politics).
Inwardly, I reacted self-righteously to what he said. I felt that my position
of servanthood to God and that our true rewards in living will be realized
beyond this present day was by far superior to his selfishness.
But what if he is right? What if any meaning we can find in
our existence must be realized now in these years that we have on this earth?
If one were to enter into a debate about these priorities
based solely upon what we can experience and know, it would not be an argument
that I could win. I know that I could not because men have been debating it as
long as there has been such a thing as discussions among men.
Actually the argument is older even than that. It was
essentially the reasoning that Satan first used in the Garden of Eden with Adam
and Eve. He managed to get them to question the judgment of God and convinced
them that they could instantly have complete fulfillment in the present. He
maneuvered them to the point of disbelieving the words of God.
And that is what it really comes down to—belief in the
eternal, versus disbelief in an existence after death. If there is nothing
after we die, then I would have to say that the Scotsman was wise in his
assessment of what to seek in life.
But Jesus Christ, by his words and his actions, taught us
that there is nothing in this present life that can give us complete and
lasting fulfillment. However, he taught us that if we follow his example and
his words, we will eventually gain that lasting fulfillment in another life.
“Do not work for food that perishes, but for food that
endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you.”
“Is not life more than about the food that we eat and the
clothes that we wear (in other words, seeking present fulfillment)? Seek first
the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these other things will be
added unto you.”
Our view of the meaning of our own existence really is no
more than choosing to believe Jesus or not. Our natural inclination is to not
believe him. We would rather seek fulfillment now rather than a promised
fulfillment at some future date.
So ingrained is this into our thinking that we have an
entire host of idioms warning us against believing in some distant and future
promise for which we have little physical evidence. Many of these are so
archaic in their origins that we may not even know what they mean literally,
but we still understand that they are telling us to be careful about unseen
promises.
“A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.”
Certainly my Scottish friend would have understood, “Don’t
buy a pig in a poke,” since I am told that in Scotland they still use the word
poke for a bag.
But this precisely is one of the reasons that Jesus came to
earth. When here, the miracles and healings that he performed had more than one
purpose. It was because of his compassion that he helped people, but his
miracles were also meant to be taken as an evidence as what he was telling the
people was true. They were “signs,” as he called them, to direct the people to
believe in the eternal life that he explained.
Unlike the Scotsman mountaineer, I have chosen to believe
Jesus. It is that simple. I am not against doing new and interesting things in
this life to gain a new experience, but I also realize that these things will
never give meaning to life. I have chosen to believe the words of Jesus when he
said, “I am the Way” (I believe in following his example), “I am the Truth” (I
believe in his words), and “I am the Life” (I believe in his fulfillment).
Present-day Existentialism
But the larger questions of foolishness do not involve
eternity only. They also involve present circumstances. I, for instance, have
chosen also to believe Pastor Joel without seeing any hard evidence of what he
tells me is true. Many would consider this foolish, and even now sitting in a
hotel in Kenya waiting for this man’s arrival, at times I myself still wonder
if I am on a fool’s errand.
Nevertheless, it was not actually Joel’s words that have
made me believe. It was what I think that Jesus was telling me to do.
And amazingly so, part of the reason that I have chosen to follow
what I believe Jesus has told me about coming to Kenya is based on an actual
and very personal sign that he gave to me—the healing and the vanishing of my
cancer almost before my very eyes.
Was I right? Tomorrow I shall find out, since Joel should be
here about noon to bring me to Kisii.
Journal Entry – November 18, 2017
This morning I am at the hotel and awaiting the arrival of
Pastor Joel. I am fairly certain that he will come, because since my arrival in
Kenya, I have talked with him a few times on the phone.
Nevertheless, I cannot seem to progress beyond the feeling
that this entire trip is all one big journey of folly. What man in his right
mind would go off and do such a thing as I am doing at this present moment?
If I had been seeking an adventure like the men from the
UK—then perhaps.
If some mission organization had first made a study of the
area and its needs, and then had asked me to go—perhaps also then.
But calls to adventure will not carry one far, and as my
past experiences with mission organizations has shown me, neither are they
infallible. I have had a couple of them fail me quite seriously in the
preparational groundwork that they had conducted prior to getting me involved.
As it is, I am going solely on what I believe the Lord is telling
me to do.
Vivian is supportive of me in this endeavor to Kenya, but I
think few others actually think that this is a sensible thing to do. People
want to be kind of course. They do not tell me this. Also, it is true that they
know that I am not a naïve high school or college-aged kid chasing a dream. I
do have a history of doing things in the past that first raised many eyebrows,
but in which God has shown himself always to be faithful.
It is that faithfulness of God that I am counting on right
now, since my own faith in this endeavor is found wanting.
This morning I have been thinking about the words that Moses
said to Joshua when Joshua was about to lead the legions of Israelites over the
Jordan River and into Canaan:
“The Lord himself goes before you. He will be with you. He
will never leave you nor forsake you. Do not be afraid or discouraged.”
Certainly I do not compare what I am doing with what Joshua
had been called to do. I think what must have weighed upon Joshua was the
enormous responsibility of what he was about to undertake.
But what I have in common with Joshua at this point is that
he was also at the beginning of something that was by-in-large unknown to him.
That is where I am. Both Joshua and I are setting about our tasks based upon
little more than God’s word to us.
I wonder how certain Joshua was concerning the direction of
God in what he was about to do. In reading the account in the Bible, it would
seem that Joshua had few doubts as to what God’s will was. God’s words to him
were definite and very clear.
In reading the Scripture it is as if God spoke in an audible
voice to Joshua. “The Lord spoke to Joshua son of Nun, Moses’ assistant,
saying, ‘Moses My servant is dead. Now therefore arise, you and all these
people, and cross over the Jordan into the land that I am giving to the
children of Israel.’”
But in reality, I do not know if God’s words were audible.
God also spoke to me about coming to Kenya, but if someone were standing next
to me when I received that word, they would have heard nothing. And there were
not even any actual “words.” This was not a voice inside my head.
It was more a feeling inside my heart. No… feeling is the wrong word. It was more
an impression or a perception that I had to take action.
Joshua’s doubts, if there were any, probably came from his
own sense of inadequacy and from the immensity of the campaign that he was
about to undertake.
My own doubts come from both sources. I also have doubts
concerning my adequacy for this task. I do not know Africa. I do not know
anything about running an orphanage. I do not know the culture of Kenya, much
less the people of Kisii. I have not even a foggy notion of the requirements
involved.
In addition, I still find myself questioning God’s leading
in this. I am acting based on a belief that God has spoken to me on this
matter, and I do have some confirmations, but I am still far from certain of my
actions.
But Paul has written that since we live by the Spirit, we
must also walk in step with the Spirit.
At the end of it all, I am here in Kenya. My own steps and
my own preferences did not lead me here. I am walking in what I believe are in
the steps of the Spirit of God.
I pray to God that I am correct.
In Kisii Town
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Journal
Entry – November 19, 2017 (morning)
It is Sunday. I am waking up this morning in a different
hotel, this one in the town of Kisii. Many events have occurred since my
previous post written yesterday morning in Nairobi, so I will try and catch you
up.
Pastor Joel showed up at the hotel in Nairobi yesterday in
the morning. I expected him closer to noon, but they had driven through most of
the night to reach the city earlier in the day.
I say “they” because he and the driver, plus three others
from the church came to the hotel to meet me. I again was sitting in the dining
area when they walked in. I will not deny that it was in some ways a relief to
see them. After all of my questioning and doubting over the months about their
very existence, it was good to see them physically and in bodily form. Strange
that I should feel that way.
I bought them all a little breakfast at the hotel. They had
eaten nothing all night. I am a little surprised how much food costs here in
Kenya. Compared with the Latin American countries where I did most of my work,
to have a cup of coffee and a small breakfast here for six people made more
than a small dent in my pocket.
But it was good. The men were hungry, and it gave us a
chance to begin to get to know one another. After we ate, we then all six men
piled into the midsize sedan for what I thought was to be a seven-hour ride to
Kisii.
I was comfortable—they gave me the front seat, but I can
imagine it was not the same for the four guys in the back seat. Happily
however, two of them had come to Nairobi for work, so they stayed behind. It
ended up only four of us to make the rest of the journey.
The Great Rift Valley
What the Englishman told me a couple of evenings before was
correct. Our route was to take us through Great Rift Valley. This longest
valley in the world is about 3,700 miles long, beginning in Lebanon, running
down through the Dead Sea of Israel, along the bottom of the entire length of
the Red Sea, into the curious and even bizarre region of Afar in northern
Ethiopia, down through that country and into Kenya, Tanzania, and finally
ending up in Mozambique in southeastern Africa.
As the three men from the church in Kisii and I continued on
in our sedan, we were to drive through the part of this great geological
feature of our planet that runs through Kenya.
The broad valley was very beautiful as we began the descent,
but the bottom of the valley is a wide, flat and treeless plain. It is also
almost waterless; at least it seemed so to me. But I think that making living
there is a little difficult. Many of the people that do live there I believe
are nomadic goat herders.
In places we also see many cattle, and I think that these
must be in the regions of the Maasai tribe. There are at total of forty-two
tribes in Kenya, the Maasai being one of these and the Kisii another.
The Maasai are probably the most widely known of these
tribes, since they have resisted modernization forces from the outside and have
retained their traditional ways, both in dress and in customs, more than any
other tribe. They are known also for their large cattle herds.
But the Englishman at the hotel was mistaken in his
assessment that I might see wildlife in this area—at least mostly mistaken. We
saw no lions, elephants or giraffes. The only wildlife that we saw were
baboons, of which I have a similar opinion as do I of monkeys.
I did notice however, several safari outfitter and guiding
resorts along the way. I assume these are the places most westerners go to get
their rides in Land Rovers through the area to see the lions, elephants and
giraffes.
My Arrival in Kisii
After driving for hours across this almost barren plain,
ahead in the far distance we finally saw the green hills of our destination. It
was the province of Kisii. The dry flatlands soon gave way to fields growing
with almost every type of agricultural crop, including coffee and tea. The tea
hills looked to me like well-manicured gardens, which in a sense they are.
Glad to finally be near my destination after the long
journey from home in Wisconsin, I was not the only one who was dead tired from
lack of sleep. The other men in the car had driven through the night and now
through the day.
But weariness be hanged, we went first to the church, where
the people were waiting for us. As we walked off the dirt roadway down the hill
to where the church is located, I could hear the people while we were still
quite far from the church.
I did not know that they had planned a welcoming service for
us even that day. We were about two hours later than what had been arranged the
previous morning, but no one had gone home. They remained at the church to
await our arrival, but they had not been simply waiting around looking at the
time and getting impatient. When we arrived, they were singing and had their
own worship service well underway.
As we walked into the church, everyone burst out in every
form of emotion. There were shouts of joy, there was clapping, some began to
sing, many were dancing.
There is one lady at church, quite elderly, whose expression
of high emotion is to make a very distinctive sound that is unlike any other. I
have heard this sound many times before as I have watched the news on TV. It is
the sound that the women of the Middle East make when they are learning of the
death of their loved sons in a war. The term for the sound that they make is
called ululation.
Ululation is a vocal expression that is somewhere between
the sound of singing and one of screaming. It is made by emitting a scream (of
sorts), while at the same time rapidly moving the tongue back and forth,
touching in succession both of the inner sides of the teeth.
It is a piercing sound, and if you have ever heard it, you
know exactly what I mean. If you have not heard it, then there is no way to
describe it. For the war widows and mothers of the Middle East, it was a
lamentation. For this lady as we entered the church, it was an expression of
great joy.
Someone else called out, “Our daddy has come!”
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