April Update--Maasai Village, Isuzu Trucks and More Pictures

Hello--Welcome back to the Africonnection blog.

We're in the two-week break between trimesters. The trimester ended with a very strenuous two-week period during which students took 3-hour final examinations in each of their classes which count 60% of their final grade. You can imagine the pressure! Faculty have nearly completed grading and having the examinations reviewed by outside experts, and in a little over a week we will begin another trimester.

Some General Updates and Notes

• First--We want to brag about the students at ANU. Some of them have prosperous parents, but our business manager says 40% struggle to pay their fees. Even so, they have wonderful, giving hearts. The young man to the right with the "NAZ" T-shirt on is named Dennis. When we had him over to dinner a few weeks ago we discovered that he is a wonderful young man: captain of the soccer team, co-leader of the male students devotional group the "Purpose-Driven Brothers", and a vibrant, unapologetic Christian. Dennis was one of about 30 ANU student leaders and staff who took an ANU bus to a camp for people who had been displaced as a result of the post-election violence. The ANU group brought food, clothing, and as you can see here, some much needed affection to the people like this little boy in the camp. The pastors who run the camp said food had run out and the ANU bus was a literal answer to prayer.
  
• Second--remember Yvonne? We introduced her a couple of posts ago. She's the very impressive daughter of a single Mom in Western Kenya. Their home was surrounded by a gang of young toughs during the post-election violence and more recently her mom told her that her brother had been accepted to University and so the very limited family support would have to be split between two children. During THAT crisis, Yvonne was asked to testify in a chapel service, and without mentioning her OWN situation she told the story of the firey furnace. At the end of her presentation she said--"So are YOU in the fire today? Then now is YOUR time to BE a Shadrach, BE a Meshach, BE an Abednego!" We are amazed by the courage and resilience and FAITH of many of our students here. Anyway--one of our readers felt God leading her and has volunteered to cover Yvonne's school fees! We know you don't want publicity, but thank you, thank you faithful Northwest lady for seeing and responding to the need. At a time when the prime rate in the US is 2%, you invested in an amazing "growth stock."

Maasai Village Day

Two Saturdays ago we took our "blended son" Nathan deep into Maasai tribal lands near the Tanzanian border to visit a Maasai village of 120 people and 600 cattle. (Warning: Multiple references to animal droppings in this section!) The Maasai are a nomadic tribe of cattle herdsmen who claimed and roamed much of Western, Southern Kenya and Eastern Uganda in the days before borders and governments. They are kind of the Amish of Kenya: they've made a conscious decision to reject modern life and embrace traditional culture. That means (out-Amishing the Amish) they cook with fires, live in huts made of sticks and cow dung, and eat only what they can get from their large herds of cattle: beef, milk and cow blood. Oh--an answer to a question you would never have asked: they demonstrated building a fire by rubbing two sticks together and lighting a bit of dried elephant dung (see the picture right). We were braced for an unpleasant smell as the 6-month old dung was lit, but guess what? Elephant dung six months old is mainly grass and leaves, and it smelled surprisingly pleasant--a LITTLE like an old-fashioned autumn. After Nan and Nathan did some haggling for some Maasai beadwork in an impromptu market and prepared to leave the village, some of the Maasai men offered to pose for some pictures. One of Nan is to the left. Another tip: many Africans think it looks undignified to smile in a picture. You would have found these men very personable and warm if you had met them in person as we did. If you think of it, please pray for the Maasai. Their world is changing and they are struggling to know which Western habits to adopt and which to reject. Their culture hangs in a precarious balance and they need God's wisdom and care perhaps even more than most of us.

A Meditation on the Isuzu F-Series Truck

While it's true that we had a little GMC pickup while we were in Nampa, we've never been especially interested in trucks. In Kenya, trucks are fascinating. For one thing, there are no Chevys or Fords or GMC's or Freightliners. Instead, there are the Tata --an Indian-made knock-off of the heavy Mercedes truck; Faw and Foton trucks from China; old Leyland and Bedford trucks from England, Fiat trucks from Italy, a classy old Toyota one-ton model and many other brands. While the most common truck in Idaho was the pickup, the most common truck in Kenya is the Isuzu F-Series medium-duty work truck, introduced in 1966 under the name "Ty", but changed in 1970 to the "Forward" or "F-Series."

We confess we like the Isuzu trucks because, as a couple hovering around sixty, they remind us of ourselves. Most of the Isuzu trucks have been on the road for several decades. Often their paint is chipped, the metalwork is dented, and it isn't unusual, viewed from the rear, for the frame to be leaning one direction while the body leans another. There's a hill between campus and town where we often see eldery Isuzu trucks straining to reach the top in first gear. And yet (here again we choose to see similarities) the F-Series is a workhorse: ancient trucks carring loads of quarry stone, or bags of rice or crews of laborers headed home from a work site. They're making a contribution. They're serving a purpose.

What's the message of the Isuzu F-series truck? Usefulness and contribution are not mainly about attractiveness or youth or even energy. They're about perseverance and durability and faithfulness. The Isuzu F-Series trucks are not fascinating because they are shiney or fast. They're fascinating because in spite of their imperfections they are helping their struggling Kenyan owners keep a job, make a living, deliver necessities, build the nation.

Do you share our empathy with the Isuzu truck? Take heart in two directions: God will continue to be faithful to us, but God also counts on us to continue to be faithful to Him and to His work in the world. God will keep his promise in Jeremiah 29:11, but sometimes God's miracles are the work of his imperfect followers: Babies need rocking. Sunday school classes need teaching. Elementary school kids need tutors. The hungry need food. Adolescents need mentors. The lonely need e-mails and notes and friends. Local government and charities need faithful board members. The ill and frightened need comforters. The lost need to see a way to Jesus.

The modern idea is that the jobs we get bring dignity to us. It's what the African church is fighting right now as you'll see in one of the prayer requests. The Isuzu truck sends a different message: that good and faithful workers bring hope and dignity to any honest work they do. Teddy Roosevelt said it well: "Far and away the best prize that life offers is the chance to work hard at work worth doing." We understand and agree with grace theology, but we look at the Isuzu truck and its example speaks to us: "There's meaningful work to be done. Don't let satan distract you with talk about your age or your short-comings. Help make a miracle. Get busy."

Some prayer requests

We appreciate so much the many, many people who say they are praying for us. At the same time, we hope you also hear us saying that we are doing VERY well, and we would appreciate it so much if you would pray about some of the people around us:

• Three Nazarene DS's we met at our Africa East Field retreat in Limuru--one in Kenya, one in Tanzania, and one in Uganda, are facing tremendous challenges right now. These are fine men--two are graduates of ANU. You can pray that they will be protected from people who hate them because they are from the wrong tribe or because they have been chosen for their positions over men more interested in titles and perceived status, as we mentioned in the Isuzu post. When Mark asked the DS from Tanzania to read Psalm 84:11 as part of a retreat devotional, the DS gasped and came to embrace us both. He said God had given him this scripture as he accepted the challenging assignment: "For the LORD God is a sun and shield: the LORD will give grace and glory: no good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly." He cried as we prayed that God would protect him and his family from the physical threats of people from different tribes and the anger of a few disappointed pastors. This "jockeying for rank" has been painful for us as Western Nazarenes to hear and understand, but there are so few routes to status and titles in Africa that the desire for them sometimes deeply clouds the judgement and actions of a few pastors. Pray for the DS's, pray for the spiritual and relational growth of this small number of frustrated pastors, and pray for us at ANU as we try to raise up a new generation of church leaders who share the integrity and character of these embattled but faithful DS's.
  
• Each trimester, some of our students do not come back because their families can't afford the fees. God is faithful and miracles happen in this regard every trimester, but please pray that God will give these students faith, and that He will make a way for them to continue their studies. The future of Africa literally depends on a new kind of leadership that graduates of ANU are beginning to provide.


• Pray for ANU leadership and field and regional leaders (Field Strategy Coordinators Don and Evie Gardner, VC Leah Marangu, local partner, Mark and ANU faculty member pictured to the left.) Just after graduation, we will be holding a pre-planning session for an October meeting to talk about theological education in Africa and about how to do sustainable compassionate ministries. A brief word about each of these items: There are SO many demands upon university-educated and ordained graduates: leadership, teaching, earning money to support a family, budget preparation, etc, etc. University leadership and regional leadership want to make sure we're giving our students the basic preparation they need for the tasks of a 21st century African Nazarene leader. In regard to Compassionate Ministries, the key word is "sustainable." We've all heard the saying about "giving a person a fish" versus "teaching them to fish." ANU wants to help pastors and churches to find ways to underwrite their OWN ministries and their OWN grassroots Compassionate Ministries projects. We need to talk about how to do that, and about the role that support from the US can play: how can American money support Africans as they "learn how to fish" rather than accepting a single"fish." Can you sense how important this might be? Please help us pray that God will give ANU wisdom as it helps fulfill the desire of the African church to move from a position of dependency ON the US to a position of relatively equal partnership with the US.

Africonnection offers snail mail!

Mark's grandma was"Mary Hazel Pitts" who was a founding member of the Stinesville, Indiana Church of the Nazarene in the late 1920's. She passed away before e-mail came into its own and probably wouldn't have used it if she were still alive. We realize "Mary Hazel's" of the world often don't have access to the blogs and e-mails others send around the world. So, in her honor, we're establishing the "Mary Hazel Club" for the first 20 non-internet connected, senior names and addresses you send us. We've found a service that will turn a blog post into a paper snail mail letter. If you have a senior who would like to join our "Mary Hazel" Club, send us their name and street address and we'll use this new service to send them a paper letter. All they have to do is promise to share it with OTHER non-internet connected seniors. Because we'll be paying a small fee for each letter we send, we'll have to start small, but we'll take first 20 requests for this six month experiment.

Thank you so much for your e-mails, snail mail letters and packages. We appreciate your support so much. Thanks for your faithfulness to God, to the Kingdom and to the Church. We'll look forward to hearing from you, including, as always, how we can be praying for you or your church or family.

Mark and Nancy