Emostone

I had an emotional milestone yesterday. Certain feelings and emotions accompany major transitions in life, but I hadn’t really been hit yet by our impending transition until today. And when it hit me, I felt like I needed to invent a word to commemorate the event.

Emostone.

My emostone came as I was trying to unbury myself from a mess of chores before vacation ended and the new school term began. I was wading through emails and paperwork—some of them dealing with the responsibilities of the next few days as we start up our boarding school again and some of them dealing with the hassles of being a cross-cultural missionary in a foreign land and some of them dealing with going back to America in three months.

You see, up until today, I was entrenched in my work here. Daily living and survival and ministry were my foci. My wife and I have been planning ahead for our yearlong home assignment for a while now, but there had always been a lot of time between “it” and us. As of today, those buffers are gone. Our schedule now is work, work, work—7 days a week and about 60 hours a week—for the next 90 days…and then POOF! We’re outta here. No more time to relax in our status quo here. We’re on a countdown to drastic lifestyle change.

As I was filling out paperwork for Kenyan visas and re-entry permits today, I also was filling out registration forms for my son to play in an Under 6 soccer league in Pennsylvania in three months. And as I was making arrangements to pick up a van-full of students from the airport on Monday, I was sending emails about speaking engagements and borrowing vehicles for next year. As I was watching my son climb trees barefooted with his swarm of African friends, I was talking to my mom on the phone as she watched my 11 month old nephew crawl around plush American carpet.

My reality is now becoming blended between the now and the later, between the Third World and the West, between rural Kenya and bustling America, between the missionary on the mission field and the missionary on home assignment.

It’s a weird feeling, not being “all here.” And since I think this feeling, and other strange new ones like it, is going to be a frequent visitor inside my chest over the next term, I’m going to be watching my emostones carefully from now on.

(P.S. The picture of above is my favorite person named "Emo." Emo Philips, the comedian. I hope he hasn't copyrighted "emostone" already.)

Rafting the Nile, part 4

The morning after we rafted was another travel day. We awoke at 6 a.m. to get a shuttle to the bus stop. The bus was over an hour late which made the 11 hours of travel take even longer.

When we did finally get on the bus, our seats were taken. We showed our tickets to the conductor and most of the misplaced passengers moved. A few ladies, however, contended that they were in the right seats. There were plenty of empty seats just a few rows back, and we tried to explain that we were a group trying to sit together, but the ladies didn’t care. Rather than make a scene, two of us simply went back to the empty seats (the ladies’ seats).

The rest of the long bus ride gave me plenty of time to reflect on this little encounter and dozens of others like this during my first four years as a missionary. I think four years ago, I would have stewed and simmered the entire 11 hours about the injustice of it all. “I made reservations…Those are my seats…That lady is so selfish for splitting up our group…etc.” However, I let it go pretty quickly. A few others in our group seemed bitter about it still, but I seemed to get over it rather easily. This made me think of how entitlement and rights are so ingrained in the American mindset. We want justice. We expect fairness. We will allow no one to walk all over us.

In Africa though, rules and protocol are far more nebulous and gray. A meeting time isn’t set in stone; it’s simply a possible meeting time. A promise is a possibility. Truth is dependent on relationships and circumstances. When the 8 a.m. bus arrives at 9 a.m., everyone smirks and shrugs and is grateful that it arrived at all. When someone steals your seat, you’re simply glad that there is a seat left for you somewhere on the bus.

If this is aggravating you even while you read it, chances are (said in your best Jeff Foxworthy voice) you might be a Westerner.

You want to know my preference…the Western way or the African way? After four years (and probably after 40 years!), I still think my culture’s way is best. But the one thing I learned—a point that was made strikingly obvious as I rubbed shoulders on this trip with a bunch of new missionaries—is that you have to come to peace with the culture in which you’re living. It’s better for your blood pressure. It’s better for your emotional well-being. It’s better for your relationship with Africans.

You lose all sense of control when you cross cultures. You can’t control little things. You can’t control big things. The rules of the land and the customs of the people are far too powerful for one little person—much like the Nile River in which we found ourselves. It was in control. We were at its mercy. If it held us under water for 15 seconds, we stayed under for 15 seconds. If it smacked wave after wave in our faces, leaving us gasping for our next breath, we waited and hoped for our next breath to come soon. Relief, in the form of our next breath, would come eventually, but in that particular instance, we were powerless.

Relief does come though. You might still be drifting aimlessly down the river of a foreign culture, but the day comes when you find peace. You might never enjoy the feeling of being out of control, you might never like the foreign culture as much as your home culture, but you will find peace if you seek to assimilate yourself.

As I walked off the bus at 7 p.m. past the tardy bus driver and the seat thiefs, I felt peace. After four years of gasping for air in the cultural rapids of Africa, it was a welcome emotion.

Rafting the Nile, part 3

Apparently, most of the thrill-seekers who use the rafting company we used (Nile River Explorers) are non-Christians. We found that out early in our trip as employees and river guides cussed and insinuated for the first hours of our stay there. They boasted of the “best bar in East Africa” and provided a jar of free condoms for visitors.

No big deal, if you ask me. Why should Christians expect non-Christians to follow the ways of God?

I guess no one really noticed that we weren’t drinking, carousing, or laughing at the crass jokes for the first few hours. As we stopped for lunch, our boat’s guide—Juma—told us we could take our life jackets, helmets, and clothes off if we wanted to. I had to say something, and I felt like this was my chance to openly bring God into our rafting experience. I told Juma that none of us in the boat are husband and wife, and it wouldn’t be right for us to be naked together. (My bluntness got a few laughs from my friends.) I explained God’s design of marriage and sex from a biblical perspective. Juma, a rather loud and boisterous Ugandan, asked me point blank if he was sinning because he had three girlfriends. I replied yes. He shot back with some angry comments, but when we boldly answered back unruffled, he kept the line of questioning going.

For the next two hours!

The other five Christians in our boat and I answered as clearly and as logically as we could. He rarely accepted anything we said, instead bouncing from issue to issue to deflect from plain truth. We covered the fall of man, the accuracy of the Bible, charity, the origins of the church, the resurrection, the sacrifice of Christ, angels and demons, heaven and hell. All as we munched on pineapple and paddled under the beaming sun.

Juma’s questions revealed that he heard some of the Gospel story before but that he truly knew little of what it means to be a Christian. At the end of the day—after he had proceeded to fire off questions about the economy and America and Ugandan civil war—he had heard not just the spiritual side of our faith but also its application in the real world. As we parted ways, he politely thanked us for “teaching so many things”—a respectful demeanor he hadn’t taken earlier in the day.

Although I wish that I could tell Juma became a Christian on the banks of the Nile, I can’t. Hopefully Juma’s day will come. But on that Tuesday, it was a day where the thrills and spills of God’s creation combined with the stories and glories of God’s salvation. Truth was spoken; love was shared. Non-Christian rafters all around us were bristling under their hard helmets; demons were trembling in the heavenly realm. We came to experience God’s creation; God used our words and our lives to speak of His salvation.

And that was the greatest adrenaline rush I had on my Nile River rafting trip.

Rafting the Nile, part 2

Writing intimidates me sometimes. When it comes to telling stories and talking about relationships or characters, I’m not scared. I have a solid grasp on what it means to tell a good tale. But when it comes to describing nature, I’m clueless. A sunset. The top of Mt. Kenya. The ocean cliffs. An African safari. To even begin to describe beauty like this seems foolish. Words are just insufficient to me. Like giving someone a kazoo and asking them to play Handel’s Messiah.

I use that as a preface to say that my descriptions of…
a quarter mile river (at parts) slinking its way through lush green hills
...and deep brown fields under partly cloudy blue skies
...and the dreadful and exhilarating sound of a class 6 rapid a few hundred feet ahead of you
...and a million gallons of water rushing at your face with only a vinyl tube as shield
...and an eight-foot wall of water towering angrily above your head
...and spinning in circles under a waterfall while the upside-down raft speeds away from you at the surface
...and the sweetest, softest pineapple chunks you can imagine at the end of the day
—all these descriptions are pretty weak compared to the actual experience.

The Nile River rafting was the most adrenaline-filled thing I’ve ever done. I’ve water-skied and snowboarded and surfed and cliff-jumped and ocean kayaked and rafted the Colorado River, but this blew them all away. After over six hours on the water, our weary and burnt legs walked up the sticky, muddy hill to the transport trucks and our dry clothes.

However, regardless of the adrenaline-high of adventure sports, something else happened on the water that will be my favorite memory of the Nile.

Rafting the Nile, part 1

Back in December, I wrote a blog called “De-nied de-Nile” so part one of this adventure really begins there. Once you’ve jogged your memory on that part of the story, I can pick up where that left off.

As a year-round school, we have the months of December, April, and August off (more or less). Due to my passport issue in December, I couldn’t go then. And since we’re going back to the U.S. for home assignment in late July, I wouldn’t be able to go then. So, it was “April or bust” for me and this Nile River rafting trip. Making this trip even more urgent is the fact that the country of Uganda (the source of the Nile) is working on a dam that will eliminate the best of (but not all of) the rapids on the Nile. By the time we return to Africa in August of 2010, there’s a good chance any Nile rafting will be greatly diminished.

I sent out ads about the trip in mid-March and recruited a group of 12 total to go along. The journey began on Monday at 7 a.m. from Nairobi on a bus. The bus was comfortable (perhaps even considered a “luxury” bus by East African standards)—a few stuck windows and broken seat belts but rather spacious and plenty adequate. The trip would be long—about 10 ½ hours of road time with an hour of stops spaced out through the day. But the scenery would give us various breathtaking vistas along with a comprehensive tour of major Kenyan towns in the western part of the country.

The first landscapes we experienced were rather desolate. The sparse trees and the dusty land seemed to be feuding. It was as if the land were resentful of the height and color of the trees while the trees were embarrassed of the withered land. The greens were up there; the browns everywhere below. Eventually the dusty hills gave way to a mountainous stretch of windy roads through lush forests. While drought may be lingering over much of the central and northern parts of the country, there was plenty of green through this section. By the time we got to Uganda (late afternoon), the scenario resembled Hawaii, with palms and green undergrowth growing from dark red soil from volcanic activity long ago.

But an awe-filled appreciation for beauty wouldn’t be our only emotion of the trip. There would be boredom. And achy-ness. And sweat. And laughter.
The laughter mainly came from road signs…like the Hallelujah Drug Shop and Avoid Morning Sex Shop the Mur-ziik Yoghurt Stop (who hasn’t wanted some yogurt on a long road trip?)…but there was also the incident with the girl who ordered fish and opened up the aluminum foil to find a fish head.

When the journey ended we found ourselves in a dodgy cabin hanging on a cliff a few hundred feet above the mighty Nile River. The next morning, the excitement would begin.

Rain and rest

Imagine with me...

The rain wakes you up in the middle of the night. Hard rain. It keeps going for two hours...letting up around 5am to allow you an hour more of sleep before morning. You shower and dress and go outside and there is not ONE puddle on the ground. Impossible?

The land here has been so incredibly dry for the past 9 months...that this is exactly the scenario we've experienced this week. We've had a few nights of rain now since this "first rainy night," and the soil is actually starting to darken a bit and to become somewhat "muddy" in the mornings.

The rain actually brings a smile to our faces everytime it starts. I don't know if you've ever felt joy over rain. I don't even mind that I'm losing sleep over the rain...for two reasons really.

The big reason--rain is life and wealth for the people of Kenya.
The little reason--it's vacation and without the stress of school, a few lost hours of sleep are nothing at all.

(The picture above is dusty Kenya outside a local church)