The ambassador and the athlete for Africa, part 1

Have you ever got a phone call that makes you drop everything and go? Too often these calls are of the traumatic variety, but I got one on Monday of the thrilling kind.

A friend of mine (I’m going to leave this part vague to be respectful of the person’s privacy) called me and invited me to the United States Ambassador to Kenya’s house to meet professional basketball player, Luol Deng of the Chicago Bulls. I actually didn’t scream “YES!” right away. We are in the middle of finals week here at Rift Valley Academy, and there are a thousand things to be done before the end of the year next Thursday.

But God’s timing for this little treat was perfect, and my schedule was just open enough to attend. After classes closed on Tuesday, we (a group of three of us) drove the hour to the Ambassador’s house in Nairobi to return early in the morning on Wednesday before proctoring my final exam.

The ambassador’s wife welcomed us in and showed us around. The grounds were meticulously beautiful, and the home was a perfect blend of Kenyan style and American elegance. But the truly exceptional part of the home itself is its residents.

Judy, the child of an English and Latin teacher at Rift Valley Academy and graduate of RVA herself a few decades ago, married a former classmate from RVA—Scott Gration—after reconnecting in New Jersey as young adults. His military career (a Major General in the Air Force) took them around the world as they raised their children. Scott played a key part in defining the military strategy for Barack Obama’s presidential campaign. (Read more about Gration on Wikipedia.)

And now, somehow, God led them back to Kenya.

After a two-year stint as Obama’s U.S. Special Envoy to Sudan, Gration was appointed as the Ambassador to Kenya (a strategic southern neighbor of volatile Sudan). A Swahili-speaker since birth who grew up in the Congo, the former missionary kid returned with oodles of political experience to the land that so shaped his youth. Who better to serve as Amabassador?

Despite their role as state representatives, the Grations see their position as God-ordained. They use their platform and hospitality to show love and grace to all who enter their palatial home.

Today, it was three nobodies from a small school in the hills of Kenya, and one huge somebody—a 6’9” huge somebody to be exact—who were the guests in their home. As if meeting the ambassador and his wife wasn’t enough of a treat, we’d get to meet NBA superstar Luol Deng.

More on Deng’s story tomorrow…