Pilot Project: Small Struggles, Small Victories

Quick update on the Pilot group for those who are interested. We went there yesterday, and it looks like about half the group has begun planting in earnest (from the nursery to the field), and the other half is getting ready to do the land preparation. What this means is that everybody is a little behind. We've had a series of small obstacles, starting with hoof and mouth disease among the cows (less bulls for plowing, less cash for paying people to plant or help with preparation). Some farmers went to the bank we've been working with for an emergency loan, but it has been slow in coming, also causing delay. Also the weather probably made the germination a little poorer than could've been hoped for.

On the other hand, farmers tend to be a pretty negative bunch and as best I can tell, there have been no serious issues that will follow us to harvest. What's more they've worked together to figure it out, and have been persistent, without throwing up their hands and waiting for us to come up with solutions. Best of all, at this past meeting we got a "market survey report." Becca and I were wondering why they were talking about that thing we did way back in January until we realized that the group had, on their own, found out about a large buyer, raised the money to send somebody to investigate, and will be sending somebody again with a sample today. If the price is good, this buyer will be a basically inexhaustible market, but he only buys in bulk: in other words, this group would do exactly what it meant to do, to allow a group of farmers to better producers and find better markets than they could on their own. AND it indicates that the process we brought to them, which is the heart of the whole project, has at least to a minor extent been carried on. We taught them the value of market research, showed them how to do it, they bought it, and at least this time, carried it out on their own. Praise the Lord! Pray that the bank would move faster, that the buyer would come through, and that the group would keep on trucking!
Peace,
rhodes

Some Thoughts On (Almost) Being Arrested

On a regular basis I am stopped by the Kenyan Police Department. Often I am asked for bribes. Amost always they mention an obscure "offense" pertaining to my 20 year old car (your passenger window doesn't roll down, etc). Sunday I had a different experience altogether.

The first thing you need to know, though, is that I had the opportunity to preach on being the body of Christ on Sunday morning. It went pretty well, and I was pretty pleased with my challenge to the congregation to put off the old self and live like new creation people for Christ.

On the way home I was pulled by a police officer who promptly told me that I had committed an offense because one of my tires was too worn. "Seriously?" I thought. "That doesn't even sound like a real ticket." And so I somewhat politely I told the guy that I didn't believe that was really a ticket but if he wanted to write me a ticket I would take it.  Which he did.

Now you should know that in my probably dozens of times of being stopped I have never seen anyone ever receive a ticket. I assumed this was part of the bribe rigamarole. So I sat there smug and calm, waiting to give him my self-righteous answer about bribes when he asked. Except he never did. Just handed me a ticket and told me to come to court the next day at 8 a.m.

This post is part public confession.

I lost my temper. I was rude. I asked the guy why he was bothering, why he wanted to waste my time with a garbage ticket when we both had better things to do. By the time I drove off I was shouting at the guy, making a fool of myself, and effectively doing the worst demonstration of putting off the old self I could possibly come up with considering I'd been eloquently preaching on the matter like 27 minutes previously.

Three things happened that evening. First, I called a local, well-connected friend to ask him what I should do, because I didn't know what to expect at court or even where it was. Second, I researched on the internet and quickly found that this officer was fully within his rights; driving with a worn tire is a ticketable offense. And third, Jesus convicted my socks off that I had chewed out one of the few officers I'd run into in the last year and a half who wasn't trying to rip me off. One in a hundred had actually been doing his job; and I yelled at him.

My friend knew the head of the traffic department at the police station. The officer told me to just bring the ticket in and he'd throw out the offense. By the time I got there I was so riddled with guilt that I asked to see the officer who had given me the ticket, prompting the two officers I was with to ask me why and forcing me to explain that I had been very rude and needed to apologize. And then the guy who is currently throwing out this ticket for me, says "Ah, that is very bad. And were you coming from church?"

"Actually I was preaching." Yikes.

In the end I apologized by letter to the officer I had spoken with and apologized to his immediate supervisor. I promised to try to treat each individual officer by their own actions, to not judge them by the actions of other officers I'd encountered. And I left.

Why am I writing all of this? Public confession, I suppose. We're studying Jonah right now at church, and I read somewhere that one interpretation of that whole story is the tale of missionaries who need converting. Clearly my hard heart falls in that category. And because sometimes I have a soft heart towards those the world finds less loveable (the poor, people from other cultures), it's easy for me to get all puffed up and make a fool of myself with my lack of love to somebody else (say by preaching on love and then yelling at a police officer).

But also it demonstrates a powerful point about the difference in the lives between the wealthy and the poor as well. Wealth and education come with a whole basket of benefits that we don't always recognize, not least the benefit of social capital with people who are connected, in power, in the know. I didn't do anything illegal, nor did my friend. But because I "knew somebody who knew somebody," I was able to get the info I needed. Here and at home systems of all sorts can be like nets that the poor among us get caught up in, and often times their social capital doesn't include people who have influence or knowledge to help them get out. What a blessing it has been in my life to have an uncle who does my taxes, a dad who helped me buy my first health insurance policy, lawyer friends who helped me get out of more than one ticket. I got my last two jobs largely through being recommended by people who were connected.

And so often these are the exact things that the poor don't have. Ever since we helped our househelp get a bank account she has saved faithfully. But among her own peers that wasn't something anybody really knew a whole lot about. And so maybe another lesson in all of us is that by building relationships with the poor, by simply letting them into our lives, we will let them into our networks and be able to help them in real and empowering ways. Meanwhile we will be blessed by their social-networks as we learn more about a different culture, about the hospitality that is nearly always best demonstrated by the poor, and about the depth of relationships forged on the margins.

Peace,
Michael

Crescents and A Cross: Some Thoughts And A Book Rec

Let's face it: whether you live in Kenya, North America, or Europe, the crescent and the cross have been making major headlines in the news. A Dutch lawmaker is working to outlaw immigration from Islamic countries, there is a political battle waging in New York over a proposed Islamic community center complete with prayer room two blocks from Ground Zero, and some church down in Florida (called the Dove World Outreach Center for heaven's sake!) is holding Koran burnings.

But what has hit closest to home for me has been the coverage of "the church" in Kenya. "The church" in Kenya has been one of, if not the leading voice against the new constitution that got passed this week. Why? One of the primary reasons cited was the inclusion in the constitution of a number of legal courts set up to allow Muslims to settle family disputes (these courts have been around since Independence as a way of uniting the country politically).

Large numbers of churches and church-goers over here really did embrace the sort of inflammatory, unlistening, unthoughtful, "us/them" rhetoric that they probably learned from listening to U.S. politicians and Christians (like Pat Robertson, who poured thousands of dollars into the country to fight the constitution). In case anyone has forgotten to read the life of Jesus lately, let me throw out a thought: the way of Jesus is the way of weakness, it is the way of suffering as the path to life. In case anyone has forgotten, Jesus' strongest words were not for the religions actively engaged in persecuting his own, but for his own self-absorbed religious leaders. In case we've forgotten, the Jews had plenty of violent revolutionaries, many supported by "religious conservatives," and yet Jesus rejected both their method and their aims. And in case any of us are tempted to forget, let's remember the message of Easter: Jesus Christ is the Cosmic King. He has won. He has conquered death. His kingdom is unshakeable in its foundation and in its coming. We have nothing to fear. Period.

As Christians Christ calls us to reject this "us/them" zero-sum war. If we are in a war, it is a war to see who will be the greatest demonstrators of love to those we disagree with, who will be willing to use their life and voice to love, honor, listen to, and befriend the religious "other." Some of you will say, "well the Muslims started it." Maybe. But there is a whole lot of history out there going way back that most of us haven't listened to, a history that shames us as much as anything. And anybody in Christendom who wants to be judged by their most fanatical members maybe needs to get back to that history.

Because you know who loses in all of this? The church. And by that I don't mean the National Association of Evangelicals or the PCA or the National Council of Churches in Kenya. I mean the body of Christ. Because Muslims throughout Kenya (and in the US now) are reading the opinions of our most radical, angry members, and they are lumping all of us together with them. Countless Christians here voted yes for the constitution because they believed that it provides the best shot at real reform in their country. But as far as the media is concerned, as far as what will be put on the doorsteps and dinner tables of millions of Muslims in this country, the church lost. And that hurts the body in the one cause we should be really concerned about: loving our neighbors so much in every area of their lives that they joyfully embrace the Savior. We're not to be defined by what we don't do, aren't like, don't believe, and certainly are not to be defined by what we hate. We are to be the love letter from Christ to the world, the one body of Christ, defined by our self-giving, long-suffering, cross-shaped love. Where do Koran burnings fit in?

This pastor from Florida who is propogating hatred in the name of the King who wilfully died for us "while we were yet sinners" asked the question: when you look at Muslims, how can you even think they're happy? Have you ever seen a Muslim look happy?

The reason he can ask that question is because he doesn't have any Muslim neighbors. I do. My neighbors on both sides are Somali Muslims. They are wonderful people. They have helped us with water when our tank runs out, given us leftovers from their Ramadan fast meals, watered our garden when we were away, invited us into their homes, worried over us when were gone for long periods of time, helped us get our power back on. Last week even as the headlines were winding down about "the church" making their final push "against" Muslims, the same papers were running stories about the prayer rallies for peace whatever the outcome . . . sponsored by the Muslims. And even now in my own country, where a Muslim leader who has declared that he wants to "outwork" radical Muslims like Osama bin Laden by promoting peace and helping Muslims work to understand other faiths, Christians are making news burning Korans and campaigning against one of the most important parts of our Constitution: the freedom of religion that means that we can have, if we took the time to, more opportunity for honest and open and loving conversations about Christ with Muslims than almost any other country in the world.

In light of all of this, I'd like to recommend a book published by the Navigators by Dr. Nabeel T. Jabbour: The Crescent Through The Eyes of the Cross. Dr. Jabour is an Arab from a traditionally Christian family who gave his life to Christ and lived and worked in Egypt for 15 years. He helps us understand the "state of Islam" today in a way that transcends the two normal options of either ignoring the real dark sides of Islam or stereotyping the entire religion into radical homogeneity. I got this book from my cousin David Jemison, who has been serving as an independent translator for the U.S. army in Iraq for two years now, a Christian whose life has been threatened on repeated occasions by Muslims through his involvement in the war . . . and yet who still works tirelessly among his family and peers to help Christians understand that this is only a miniscule part of the story, to help us see the Crescent through the eyes of the God who gave Himself on the Cross for us . . . and for them.

Until we try to understand the people we disagree with, including Muslims, we will continue to, in my opinion, shame the cross of Christ horribly in public. The best way, of course, is friendships, and some of us have incredible opportunities to be neighbors with Muslims. But for those of us who don't, or for increased understanding on how to relate to the Muslims in our midst, this is an incredibly helpful book.

May Jesus Christ who died to bring us peace teach us how to walk in His light through our difficult and complicated world.

Michael

Praise God for Peace!

Well the official statement hasn't been made, but it seems that the new constitution passed with flying colors, and that the process has remained peaceful. What a blessing!

Pray Today For Kenya

Kenyans are voting on whether to accept a new constitution to replace the colonial one designed by the British. Please pray for peace and for God's will in the outcome. The new draft purports to help reform broken, unjust, and ineffective systems surrounding land, legislation, the judiciary, and government ethics.

Cutlure and the Body of Christ: Reflections on Work Part 2(b)

More than a month ago, I wrote about how part of our call as missionaries is to help the body stay connected. One aspect of this that I didn't discuss then is the idea of cultural exchange as a way of learning about Christ.

In the Bible we get several significant hints that culture will outlast the current era and enter into eternity. In Revelation we read that God will be worshipped in every tongue by every tribe; when John sees Zion he tells us that 'nations will walk by its light,' that the 'kings of the earth will bring their splendor into it,' and that the glory and honor of the nations will be brought into it.' God created man in His image, but later created woman also; one gender alone apparently could not contain all the giftedness of God. I think the same could be true of culture.

And if this is true it means that different cultures have different strengths in seeing Jesus. Nothing radical so far; Paul calls his racially diverse churches the body of Christ made up of people with diverse gifts for the building up of the whole. I think given his context we can assume that part of what he meant was that cultural differences are given to us because we reflect Christ better together than we do apart. Our cultural worldviews and assumptions and commonalities, in other words, are too small to reflect God's imaging glory. So he made tribes and nations and races and peoples to reflect, mosaic-like, His glory to the world.

So missionaries have a rare opportunity of learning how another people group thinks. And I believe that if we keep our eyes and ears open, God will show us new things about Himself through the way "the other" looks at Him, and will convict us of our own culture's particular sins in light of another culture's. Because whether Kenyan hospitality and community solidarity convicts me of my own culture's individualism and greed, or whether my anger or frustration at Kenyan culture's seemingly lacking concepts of sexual morality remind me of my own culture's blindspots in the same area, living here is constant conviction through the new eyes of another culture.

My boss Horace Tipton is currently taking seminary classes at St. Paul in order to be ordained in the Anglican Church here one day. I recently asked him about his experience, and what he said really struck me: "I'm so glad I'm doing my studies here, because I couldn't learn this much about the way Kenyan Christians think anywhere else." In other words, Horace is seeing first hand that Kenyans envision and formulate their faith with nuances different from our own, and that knowing them is valuable for all of us!

It is far too easy for someone as arrogant and prideful as myself, coming from a culture as arrogant and prideful as our own, to walk through the world with my eyes squeezed tightly shut to legitimate differences of perspective to the Bible, to faith, to family, to finances. It is far too easy for me to believe that the narrow theological tradition where I find my roots contains the full counsel of what God has given to the world. Perhaps it is far too easy for us as American Christians, with the italics and word order all wrong, to view all things through our own red white and blue tinted cultural glasses, and to pretend that nobody wears glasses with any other hue. But being here has challenged Rebecca and I in that, and that is surely a gift from Jesus.

Peace,

Michael