Small Groups

Faustin headed to Eldoret this morning with Salome to do some interview research for his dissertation at the local university. Without the task of documenting women in the Bungoma boondocks, I headed to the conference with Mike. And without Faustin to share the teaching load, Mike was tasked with teaching all day long. This meant that the pastors were bound to enjoy significant small group discussion time, because teaching all day long didn't seem like something Mike was quite energized to do. It didn't seem like something Tigger would have been energized to do on speed and Red Bull (especially if Tigger was still recovering from a 10 hour time change). Furthermore, small group interaction is a cornerstone of discipleship, so it couldn't hurt to have a little more of what had been built into the curriculum in the first place.

The conference rhythm swings between lecture-style teaching, small group discussion, and open response time. Mike begins each session outlining and explaining theological themes from the workbook. Then he opens the small group time by proposing a question or prompt. The pastors really thrive when it comes to the small group time. The Kenyan culture is intensely relational, and any opportunity for interpersonal connection is a delight. I had been under the impression that this style of small group discussion would be foreign to these Kenyans, thinking that because of the strong bonds of friendship they form in their already small churches, they would have had little experience splitting off into even smaller discipleship groups. Faustin ensured that they would be familiar with the practice, however, and whether familiar or not, they certainly enjoyed splitting off into the discussion groups. Eventually, Mike recalls them to a larger discussion, which is quite difficult, because Kenyans love to talk. They can't be too disappointed, however, because what follows is an opportunity to talk more. Before taking a break and getting into the next section, Mike opens up the floor for them to relate to the group as a whole what they discussed during the small group time. Inevitably, one will stand up and make a comment that gets everyone else buzzing, and before too long, the day is over.

There is another small group also in existence immediately outside the conference building. A throng of children assault me any time I step outside. Generally when I exit the building, it's with the intent of seizing a photo opportunity I've spotted from my seat inside, but I frequently miss the shot thanks to the chittering flock at my feet demanding that I immortalize them by pressing that small silver button on the strange black thing with the big eye that I'm always carrying around. Apparently, I am such a fantastic sight for some of them that they have no choice but to stare at me, dumbstruck. Others are too excited to contain their glee, and spout unrelenting streams of swahili gibberish at me. Typically, my response is to squat down, look them in the eye, and assure them as cheerfully as possible with as broad a smile as I can muster, "I have no idea what you're talking about."

At one point, right in the middle of taking a picture, I felt a hand reach over my shoulder to snatch my camera away. Turning, I recognized one of the pastors gesturing to me in an attempt to cajole my camera away. This is the same guy who claimed to be a prophet, foretelling Mike's eventual transition into full time missionary work, and has set a goal to build a church of 25,000 in Bungoma (Wisely, Mike queried, "Do you think that's God's goal?"). He has zeal, to be sure, but we're not entirely certain that his head's all the way in the game. Once I determined that he just wanted to turn the tables on me and take my picture, I relented. At the time, however, I was shooting with my long lens (for those of you to whom it means anything, it's a 70-300mm), and it requires a good distance between the camera and the subject, even at minimum zoom. So I wasn't surprised when he started to back up to get me in the frame. Surprise began to mount, however, when he continued to back up. And back up. And back up some more. He finally took the picture when he had reached the threshold between obviously intending to photograph me and obviously intending to make off with my camera. Apparently, he wanted me full-frame, with room to spare over head and under feet. Chalk it up to artistic intent... or perhaps to having a small group of hens loose from the coop.

Distant Frequencies

I've always been intrigued by the ambient sounds of a foreign place. When at home, I rarely notice the train in the distance, or the cars passing by, or the air conditioner whirring in the corner. They're too familiar. But the collection of sounds in Bungoma that the natives probably tune out for the same reason present a beguiling commotion to the unfamiliar ear. At night, the ambience is amplified.

For the third night in a row, the evening sky has apprised of an imminent thunderstorm. The heavens fade into a hazy shade of indigo, and distant clouds materialize. When the rain begins, it drizzles for a few minutes before the sky ruptures all at once and lets loose a torrential downpour. The rain lasts for about an hour every time, and the last 20 minutes are as if someone is very slowly and very steadily tightening a leaky joint in some faulty plumbing. More enthralling, however, is the interplay of lightning and thunder that follows. The lightning is so bright and sharp that it sets the entire sky on fire, and seems as though it must be only a few feet above. The thunder, however, stalls for such a long time that it must be miles away. Additionally, such a sharp strobe of light would seemingly call for an abrupt crack of thunder, but in this too, the thunder slyly misleads. Instead of a sudden clap, the thunder always seems to roll faintly as if the sky ate something it was having trouble stomaching.

Another midnight sound was not so easily identifiable. We knew it was either crickets or frogs, or perhaps both, but for the first night, we were unsure. On the second night, we had our answer when a frog vaulted its way into our room. Mike found it in the shower at first, but two mighty hops later, and it was across the threshold and under the desk. I think it must have sensed a kindred spirit here in the form of a one-legged frog prince. After chasing him around for a few minutes, Mike eventually caught him, and tossed him outside to croak all night with the rest of his buddies.

Perhaps the most intriguing sound in the distance is the sound of Muslim prayers being broadcast over loudspeakers from a nearby mosque. I don't remember this from my previous visit, and I really hadn't noticed many Muslims in Kenya. I know that a moderate percentage of the population is Muslim, but most of them reside in the larger cities - especially Mombasa, which is further East, and more within Islam's sphere of influence. We did pass a few small mosques on our bus ride, but they didn't seem well populated or well kept. I can't recall if I've ever heard these infamous daily prayers before. A few times each night they can be heard, sometimes bellowing militaristically, sometimes billowing melodically, and always muffled. While the broadcast prayers of the mosque are the most present, I'm even more conscious of another expression of distant prayers. Yours. The conference has seen many lives in the process of transformation, Mike and Faustin are managing the training with wisdom and grace, and my ankle is healing much more quickly than expected. Some distant vibrations, it seems, are louder even than the ambient sounds of the night.

The Corn Sea

So my last two posts ended with stomach-churning gimmicks, and I'm sorry for that. Hopefully I can buck that trend as I continue to chronicle my adventures, but I'm not making any promises.

Bungoma is surrounded by a sea of corn fields. To liken it to Easter Island alone in the middle of the Pacific would not be as much of an exaggeration as you might think. And if the corn fields are the ocean, then I was swimming for most of the day. My ankle did put up a bit of a fight, but considering that I'm the one with the will power to control the leg it's attached to, it was a fight I easily won. Today's project was to visit as many of the women involved in TLAfrica's womens' ministry as possible. Salome spearheads an empowerment program for the women of Bungoma through TLAfrica, and Veronica is her on-site manager. They have impacted the lives of dozens of women in the area by teaching them to read, enabling them to study Scripture, and by training them in micro-finance, enabling them to provide for their families, as many of them are widows. TLAfrica provides either cows or small business loans for these women. In the case of those who have been given cows, support is raised here in the states to purchase an animal for them, which they use for milk for their families and for selling. Several cows have given birth this year, which promises more income as the calves grow. In the case of those who have been given small business loans, they are entrusted with a sum of money that they are expected to pay back at the end of the year. Those that are successful in repaying the money are given more. Today, we visited 11 women involved in the program, 10 of whom live in meager mud huts nestled amidst vast fields of corn (the eleventh lives more or less in town). The goal was to interview them and document how their lives have been transformed thanks to the Lord's moving through this ministry. I followed Salome and Veronica over miles of footpaths through the stalks, and down roads enclosed on either side by 10-foot walls of corn. There is a giant corn mill visible from nearly any part of the city and the surrounding countryside standing as a testament to the industry of the area and a beacon of hope for lost travelers trying to navigate the maize (see what I did there?). I kept my eye on it for most of the day, knowing that if I stopped to take a picture and my corn sea sherpas lost me (a very likely scenario), I would only have to point myself in the direction of that midwestern monolith to find my way back to town.

During our trek, countless people - mostly kids - emerged from between waves of crops, seeming to materialize out of nowhere. I considered "children of the corn" as a title for this post, but this really isn't a horror story, and most of them are far more terrified of me than I am of them. Those that aren't are delighted to see a muzungu (basically, a white person), and even more delighted to have their pictures taken. The conventional American understanding of corn fields involves a farm house every few miles, and nothing but crops in between. I don't know what the corn-to-person ratio is in the midwest, but it's obviously quite a large number. The ratio here seems to be about 1. People in Kenya are as numerous as the corn, and just as ripe for the harvest.

Despite the abundance of corn all around, for the first two days I hadn't consumed a single kernel here until this afternoon. In fact, corn in any form is not even on the menu at the Hotel Tourist Bungoma. So it was strangely unexpected when we were offered corn by two of the women that we visited. Not wanting to be rude, I ate a cob's worth of corn at each place, and returned home unexpectedly full, having embarked on our voyage across the golden sea without anything to eat. Corn lunches were not the only gifts we were offered, however. On two separate occasions, a woman disappeared into a back room or into the yard and returned with a chicken. A clucking and flapping chicken. The first time this happened, it seemed very much as though the lady wished to present the chicken as a gift to me, personally. She also asked me when I was planning on visiting her again. It wouldn't have been so unusual if she hadn't proposed it to me as if my return was an absolute certainty, and if she wasn't living on an island in a sea of corn. The second time a chicken was presented, it was clearly meant for Salome. I thought this much more reasonable, and Salome handled both situations with grace, asking the women to bring the birds into town the next time they come. I'm sure Salome has little more use for a live chicken than I, and I'm secretly hoping that she'll wait a few days before devising some other occasional excuse to present one woman's chicken as a gift to the other, and vice versa.

There is an inverse relationship between possession and generosity, which defies logic. These people have so little, and they are so much more willing to share what they have, whereas those who have much are frequently reluctant givers. It seems to me that those who have little place great value on what they do have. This too, should logically lead towards closed-fistedness, but I believe that when you truly value something, you long to share it with others. Conversely, those who have much cannot concentrate enough value on any one thing to muster up a desire to share it. Of course, there is also the notion that those who have little are simply less tied to material things. This is also quite true. However, I think that considering generosity in terms of value placement seems a more compelling and more profound understanding of this phenomenon. (It certainly rings true when applied to the greatest gift ever given, which I long to share with the world...) Whatever the cause, these women, who possess so little, have more to give to the wealthy of the world than could ever be repaid in gifts of dollars, cents, or cows.

When Mike returned from the conference, he reported that the pastors are really digging into the material. It seems his harvest is just as plentiful, but he still hasn't been served any corn.

Africa Time

The conference this morning began at 8:30 on Africa time. Africa time is a time zone of sorts, but unlike New York always being 3 hours ahead of LA, and Nairobi always being 10 hours ahead, it has no geographical relationship to any location save itself. Essentially, the formula is that wherever you are in Africa, the time there is always anywhere between 30 minutes to 2 hours behind the time wherever you are in Africa. Faustin did advise us on the time change, noting that we shouldn't plan to get started until 9:00 to allow time for people to arrive and greet each other on the first day. But a 30 minute cushion wasn't quite enough. We headed from the hotel to the church, which I remembered very well from my deja vu, and I would have been right to assume that it couldn't hold 90 people, but I was pleasantly surprised to discover that the Lord had blessed them with the funds for a new structure. The corrugated tin building held up by a matrix of tree branches over a dirt floor would seem very primitive to us, but for these people, it is a matter of pride, and a testament to the Lord's provision. We rolled up around 9:30, and enjoyed meeting and greeting many new faces, as well as a small handful of familiar ones, then went inside to enjoy some authentic Kenyan worship before the conference began. Finally, enough of the attendants had arrived to begin, so at 8:30 this morning, we began right on time at 10:30.

The conference began with Mike's first session of teaching. He introduced his discipleship curriculum, which applies three key scriptural metaphors - those of light, water, and fruit - to the philosophy and practice of discipleship. As I've mentioned, the concept of discipleship is something desperately needed here in Africa. Of course it's desperately needed everywhere, but there seems to be an extra barrier between these people and the understanding and acceptance of the idea. That is not to say that they're unwilling - these men and women have hearts for the growth of the kingdom of God that are as fervent as any hearts in the world - but discipleship has not been a natural part of their faith up to this point. After all, they've been evangelized with the "here's a Bible to read, now I'm going home" method. They were given faith without foundation, ministry without mentorship. Why would we expect them to engage in discipling one another when they have never been shown how? Mike's teaching concluded with an intense small group study session (some practice forming discipleship groups would seem like a decent idea...), and a question and answer time. It seems that reluctance to be the first to speak in a classroom setting is as universal a condition as lost-socks-in-the-dryer syndrome (The point isn't that these people don't have dryers - or socks, for that matter - the point is that if they did, they'd surely lose their socks in the dryer eventually, and be just a bewildered as you or I. Also, that's not the point either. The point is that they were hesitant to speak up.) After a short lull, they came out of their shells, and really began to latch on to the teaching.

Tea time came around lunch time, and proved to be the highlight of my day for an entirely different reason. We took bicycle taxis back to the hotel. I think the world would be a much better place if all transportation - or at least all taxi transportation - was handled in this fashion. The passenger rides behind the driver on a padded seat over the rear wheel. There is a tiny handle under the back of the driver's seat to hold onto. When we finally got off back at the church, I noticed that Mike's knuckles were quite pale. I took pictures and video the whole time, and seriously contemplated riding backwards for a more unobstructed range of camera angles.

Africa time continued as we had lunch around 2:30, and the first day concluded with Faustin's turn to teach. His focus was the other side of Mike's discipleship coin: leadership. The two teaching times really enhanced one another. I love watching Faustin teach, because his style really sits somewhere in between Socrates and Billy Graham. He speaks with wonderful insight and interacts frequently with his classroom, but he has the fire of an evangelist. It's a beautiful and effective mixture.

Back at the hotel, we ordered dinner, and just as the night before, it was served to us an hour afterwards. I think they really do have to go kill the chicken first. The wait provides ample time for contemplation, and I got to thinking about when the entire world must have operated on Africa time. Certainly we didn't always have something better to do all the time. When did we forget how to sit still? There was a time when men knew how to talk with one another without having to schedule the meeting on their iPhones. At least for this month, I think I'll enjoy my trip back in time. Back in Africa time.

Deja Vu

When we pulled into Bungoma, a series of very familiar circumstances came rushing to greet me like a puppy who's been left at home for too long. (I know it's a strange analogy, deal with it.) First, we were greeted by Juma, the pastor of Love of Christ Fellowship, and his wife Veronica. I had met them both during my visit two years ago. We enjoyed a very jocular reunion. While I had anticipated meeting them again, I was reminded of their little mud-hut church which couldn't possibly hold 90 people, and knowing that they had been arranging the conference, a hint of suspicion pressed upward upon my left eyebrow just a bit. We hopped into a taxi which took us straight towards the same hotel where we almost stayed during my last visit. "Almost" is a slight exaggeration. We were no nearer to staying in the Hotel Tourist Bungoma than Columbus was to landing in India, because the Hotel Tourist Bungoma was not then ('then' being two years ago, not in 1492 when Columbus sailed the ocean blue) an establishment where any self-respecting tourist would consent to stay. Last time, we took one look at the concrete slab rooms, the unfinished hole-in-the-floor stairwells, the alarming absence of any furnishings save a rather stiff bed, and the even more alarming absence of glass in the wide-open windows, and we turned around and caught a two-hour ride back to Eldoret in the dead of night. Oh yes, it was also raining that night, in such a sideways fashion that it came right in through the wide open windows to the rooms, providing you with a cold shower upon entering the bathroom, whether you wanted a cold shower or not. So you can imagine that that hint of suspicion lifting my eyebrow immediately began tugging quite a bit harder when we turned into the driveway of the Hotel Tourist Bungoma. To my pleasant surprise, we were directed to another part of the establishment - a row of little bungalow apartments. Mike's room was still less than satisfactory, what with a broken half of a bathroom mirror, a disgruntled shower, and the lack of a constant flow of electricity, but all things considered, these accommodations proved to be delightful compared to what experience had led me to expect. Mike and I wound up sharing a room, which is really a preferable arrangement anyway. As we headed up for dinner, I noticed that the sky had turned a strangely familiar shade of indigo. Sure enough, within minutes, the rain was back, and in force comparable to it's appearance last time. At least this time, there would be no two-hour drive back to Eldoret. Resting in the knowledge that most of the unwanted flashbacks would not come about in quite the same unfortunate way, I'm now looking forward to those moments I won't mind reliving. If tomorrow is anything like I remember, it will be a day of challenged perspectives. The Lord will reconfigure my notions of wealth, value, and happiness, and there will be many new faces and new friends. There will be hordes of children dying to have their pictures taken, and a swarm of welcoming brothers and sisters eager to shake hands. If tomorrow is anything like I remember, it'll be a day I won't forget.

Indiana Jones and the Riders of the Loose Car

After a luxurious breakfast at the Methodist Guest House in Nairobi where Mike and I have been staying for the past two nights, we were picked up by Faustin and Salome in a taxi headed for the bus station. Today's 8-hour bus ride marks part one of a four part exposé on the inner dealings of the Easy Coach line from Nairobi to Western Kenya. It's a trip I'll be forced to enjoy three more times during my stay in Kenya. It's the same trip I likened two years ago to 8 hours of the Indiana Jones ride at Disneyland. I was told that it would not be like that this time, but I wasn't holding my breath.

The bus extravaganza began at the Easy Coach station, where they pulled an old fashioned shell game on us. Except instead of hiding a pea under one of three cups, they hid our luggage in one of three busses. We watched them load our luggage onto the bus headed to Bungoma, and then went to stand in line. Apparently, in the time it took for us to turn around and get in line for our bus, they moved one bus out, and backed our real bus into its place behind a third bus, and it wasn't until we were all about to step onto a bus to somewhere else that we discovered that we weren't in line for the proper bus. Of course this meant that we needed to ensure that our luggage was indeed headed where we were, and amazingly enough, they had it right. Pretty impressive sleight-of-bus if you ask me. After three Easy Coach employees asked me to take their picture and two of them tried to either buy or steal my monkey, we were under way.

You're probably wondering about my previous statement. I should have included Marvin the Missions Monkey in my cast of characters, but he was misbehaving at the time of my last post, so I had chosen not to give him the attention he wanted. Marvin is the representative of the Granada Heights Friends Church missions department, and I am his caretaker on this the first of what will surely be many travels to many distant lands. Someday, he'll have more mileage under his belt than that monkey the Russians launched into space, and with the added bonus of not being dead. He's quite adorable, and he knows it, which accounts for both his poor behavior, and his appeal to random (and unexpectedly bold) Easy Coach employees. Back to the bus ride.

For two-thirds of the ride, it seemed as though the promise of smooth sailing would ring true. Most of the road repair that was going on then has been completed, meaning that we spent much less time on dirt side-roads. This cut down immensely on the indianajonesness of the ride, but the ride wasn't over. We made our final rest stop in Eldoret, two hours from our final destination. After 10 minutes for a quick bathroom and snack break, we were called back to the bus, and the driver took off. One problem. Faustin had gone off to do whatever Faustin goes off to do during 10 minute rest stops, and no, there's nothing to read into there; Faustin often heads off to accomplish things while the rest of us are snacking and relieving ourselves. I'm sure he had accomplished 30 minutes of... accomplishments... when he was heading back to the bus, but the problem was that he wasn't physically on the bus when the bus took off. He wasn't emotionally, mentally, socially, or spiritually on the bus either. Mike and Salome put up quite a fuss, and we pulled over to let him on.

After Eldoret, the final two or three hours were still maddeningly bumpy. Between the absurd frequency of rather invasive speed bumps, the smart-car-sized potholes, and the unevenly laid asphalt (as if hastily glopped on by Lightning McQueen himself), there was almost no space between the bone-jarring bumps. Every part of the bus was squeaking or clanging, producing a cacophonous concerto of chaos, nay, a reverberating raucous rhapsody of ridiculous rattles that's as annoying as an avalanche of asinine alliteration. Either some poor sap needs to tighten every loose bolt and screw in the entire vehicle, or the whole thing needs to be dipped into a vat of WD-40. At one point, Mike pointed out how amazing it was that the bus was still intact. A small miracle indeed. Probably on par with that water-into-wine parlor trick. Without prompting from me, he also likened the ride to Indiana Jones, adding significant support to my analogy. Until this point, I had been entertaining myself by taking pictures out the window (yes, I took pictures out the window for 6 hours), but the funny thing about taking pictures is that you have to be able to hold the camera still enough to know what you're taking a picture of, let alone to get a focused exposure. So I decided to switch to reading. The funny thing about reading is that you have to be able to hold the book still enough to distinguish the words on the page from one another. So I decided to switch to sitting. I knew from experience that attempting to nap would result in the collision of my head with the window, so I didn't try that. Once safe in Bungoma, we stepped off, feeling as though we were still vibrating, as you may continue to feel the sway of the ocean after stepping off a cruise ship, but not so pleasant, and without the fond memories of just having been on a cruise.

Zzzzzz

In Kenya, the sound produced by the repetition of the 26th letter of the alphabet is just as likely to signify a mosquito in your ear as it is to signify a state of unconsciousness. Coincidentally, it's during that state of unconsciousness that you are most likely to have a mosquito in your ear. I have no idea whether or not there have been any mosquitos in our room (Mike says he saw one... but then he asked me what they look like... so...), but there has certainly been an ample supply of unconsciousness. We landed yesterday morning, and almost as soon as we made it to our hotel room, we were both asleep. I think Mike was up and down for a meal or two and an e-mail or two, but I can't be quite sure, because I've never been much good at knowing what's going on around me while unconscious.

I suppose it's time I introduced you to the cast of characters for part one of the story.

• Luke Payne. Narrator and protagonist. If you're reading this, you're probably already pretty well acquainted with him. If you're not, it's likely that you'll become well acquainted with him by reading this. So keep reading.

• Luke's ankle. The villain. Luke's ankle is causing significant strife, but his plans often backfire when he provides Luke with premium economy seating. He may win a battle here and there, but in the end, he will be defeated. Much like another familiar villain.

• Mike Sanborn. Sidekick. (Ok, I suppose I'm really his sidekick, but what do you expect when Robin is writing Batman's story?) Mike is the pastor to adults at Granada Heights Friends Church. A gifted theologian, Mike is bringing his knowledge to Kenya to share with some pastors involved with the organization TLAfrica (Transformational Leadership in Africa), headed by Faustin Ntamushobora. Over the next week, Mike will lead a series of seminars and small group sessions with these pastors focusing on discipleship. It's an issue that is badly needed in Africa, where many have been given bibles, and filled with a passion for evangelism, but left hanging when it comes to building transferrable and transformative relationships with others in the Kingdom of God. Mike doesn't sleep well on planes, so he has also been well acquainted with the letter z since our arrival.

• Faustin Ntamushobora. Faustin is the founder and executive of TLAfrica. He is the brains behind our involvement here in Kenya (to stick with the Batman anaolgy, he would be Alfred and Commissioner Gordon rolled into one), and was the one who recruited Ed each of the last two years as well. He is a brilliant evangelist, and a visionary when it comes to the methodology and philosophy of the advancement of the gospel in Eastern Africa. Perhaps due to the nature of his work and perhaps due to his time in the USA, he is also one of the most forward-thinking and scheduled Africans I have ever met. Of course he's still African, so his planning is very flexible, but the balance is quite amazing. In this and in many more ways, he is uniquely suited to the task of organizing the advancement of the gospel in Africa and communicating the needs of Africa to the West. Faustin's wife Salome, and his daughter Pelagie - both wonderful, delightful, Godly women - will probably show up in chapters to come.

• Almighty God. The only real hero. In the interest of avoiding a slew of schmaltzy clichés, I won't attempt to fit Him into my story. My story fits into His, which is found in another book. Go read that one while I catch some more "zzzzzz"s.