All Saint's Day

All Saints Day

Looking back to September, I am recording from my paper and leather journal today.  We are transcribing from earthy stories to internet stories, perhaps adding small glosses, but striving for authentic interpretation of this amazing life in Africa.

(9/15)

Yesterday we ventured out to Narok town to visit some friends where I lived in 2003 and 2004.  Tim Mantai drove out to Tenwek to pick us up in his car.  It is a 1 hour drive, then he took us 1 hour back to his house. He told us that we can use his vehicle any time we want to, any distance to drive is not too far.  We ate lunch with Tim and Lorna and felt so welcomed and refreshed by their friendship and hospitality to us.  Then we met Edith in town.  She had been waiting for us there all day in the hot dust-bowl town without a drop to drink.  She just was happy to spend some time with us and helped us navigate around town a bit.

Josiah got a real Masai bow from an old old man with long stretched earlobes, selling on the side of the dusty dusty road.  The arrows in the quiver were real hunting arrows, designed to lodge and kill.  We only bought the bow.

Then, we went to find Wambugu’s house.  He was my car mechanic before.  His family wanted us to have dinner with them.  We were so tired and ready to go home by then but I knew that in Kikuyu culture (and other tribes as well but that is his tribe), one is required to feed visitors and to reject that offer is a sincere insult.  They had been counting on us coming for some time.  They had cooked cabbage, peas, chapattis (like a tortilla), and goat stew and chai and bananas with cleaned and cut peelings. The bananas that you buy in North America have been cleaned before you get them.  Nothing that grows outdoors south of the equator is naturally that sterile.  Their two girls who are named Karen and Katie were waiting for us all day in beautiful little satin Kenyan princess dresses.  I don’t know how they kept them clean outside in their rocks and dust courtyard.  They wanted to meet the white Katie and our kids.  They were so kind and polite to total strangers among them.  Annie and Josiah really enjoyed being there without even recognizing my inner impatience with wanting to go home, they didn’t seem to mind at all.  It took a few hours.  I kept reminding myself what they told us at Mission Training International “How flexible are you willing to be for the sake of the Gospel”? 

And the Gospel is more than a piece of information, a statement or a point of view.  It is in relationship as we learn to LOVE AS GOD HAS LOVED.  And we let go of self preservation, we are free to have faith in the Resurrection of Jesus who will raise us with Him in the End.  If we have died with Christ, what more can we loose?  If we are resurrected with Him, why do I still cling to my mortal flesh and personal preferences?  If I let go, I find freedom in Christ to stay the long hours in uncomfortable places, to go the long distance for reaching out in relationships. 

But yesterday it was our Kenyan friends who were showing me the Gospel.  They were the ones acting like the Kingdom of God more than me.   

Finally just after dusk Wambugu asked Tim if he could drive us home using Tim’s car (remember 2 hour round trip).  Of course Tim allowed it and would not accept any money for fuel.  Wambugu explained to us that they have a phrase “Friendship has a price”.  In Kenya, people show friendship with others by material and tangible sacrifice for the other person.  Solidarity.  It’s a way they exhibit honor and the other’s value in their heart.  I think that is a lot like the Gospel.

Now we come to October.

Last week, a beautiful sunshiney day in the low 70’s here on the equator.  Our kids did their morning schooling and their afternoon playing with wild abandon.  As usual, we have people stop by on their way to the hospital to ask for funds. 

Aside: Tenwek is a unique case of mission hospital that is fully supported by patient fees.  Now, that would exclude the missionary salaries because we raise our own and basically volunteer to be here as staff.  But the Kenyan staff is paid and the hospital run not by outsiders or grants or taxes, but patient fees. It’s supposed to make the system “sustainable”, but it also makes it complex when people are destitute and asked to pay their bills before they are discharged.  Each day they wait for their family to have fund raisers for collecting their medical fees, the daily rate of staying in a hospital bed piles up.  Can you imagine paying cash on delivery when you go to have a baby or appendectomy or meningitis treatment at your local hospital?  But a physician cannot deny helping someone who comes with an emergency.  So there is a needy patient fund to help cover some of these people.

Back to the sunny day.  A mama and small child were there on the back porch waiting for me so they could ask for her money for medicine.  The child was tiny but her face seemed old.  She could not stand or sit on her own but leaned into her mother’s arms from her lap.  They said she was 6 years old.  She appeared to me to have something like cerebral palsy.  Her name is Chelangat and her mouth didn’t function properly enough to keep from drooling a little bit out of the corners.  But she had a smile that could light up like those florescent tube lights that flicker wildly as they light up the dark (that’s what my kitchen light is like). 

Chelangat didn’t speak with her voice to me, but boy did she speak to my heart that day.  I asked her mama to have chai with us before they went to the clinic for her appointment, but the mom wanted to be there on time.  So I gave them something for buying medicine and then the mama heaved her up on her back and tied her with clothe into the place she has been carried for these six years now.  They came back in the afternoon with a receipt (because Westerners and agencies from the west rely heavily on receipts for proof).  I gave them lunch and my house helper Peris got them some clothes from the clothing bin that is used for local orphans.  The mama and the little girl who could really smile.  I was struck by how little support that mom must have and how few resources they have available to help.  They are hoping to get a wheel chair soon (for limited use on roads that are never easy here), but for how long can she carry a six year old? Tiny frame that she is, she still requires a constant arm of support.  So I brought a living room arm chair to the kitchen that the girl might rest on it while the mama ate with two free hands.  She fell asleep and peed in the chair.  Now which of these characters is the hero?  Certainly not me, I’m just a bleeding heart.  But I saw that mama in her unwavering commitment to care and support a girl for her whole life though it cost her everything.  And I saw Jesus.  She heaved her up on her back again and tied her in place as they headed down the road.   I am Chelangat.

We are weak but he is strong. 

Have a blessed All Saint’s Day.

Prettier pictures of life this month

Is it a result of shut-down?  No, it's public transport.

 We are not gifted in graphic design, photography, or things that will delight your eyes.  I am realizing that Kenya's beauty is like that too.  Not always aesthetically pleasing, but something that delights the deeper senses. Friendliness matters more than font style here. Relationships are more valued than organization  (I think I'm gonna like it here)! Disclaimer: This is more of a sloppy collage than a fancy scrap-booker page. In defiance of the generationY tendency to self-inflate online, enjoy!  Also, Michael has some more "realistic" Africa pictures of medical cases at: www.daktaricases.wordpress.com

A journey: Some of the beauties of Kenya from our first month.

"Wait for me"

some great wonders in the yard: bouganvillia, daisies, Nile lilies, and children playing so happily.

banana tree in our yard

Little Miss likes to stand on the porch and sing. real loud.

view of the hills and tea farms across the river

the backyard and our house

our sweet potatoes

 Some other sweet potatoes:

Annie and her buddy Levi making mud pies after school

Man-cub and his first chameleon.  So elated for the hour.

little chameleon escaped and he plunged into the depths of loss the next hour.

If I had a hammer, I'd hammer in the morning.

built himself a bench

Michael's blessed hiking time on Saturday.


Thank you for remembering us in prayer!  Thanks for your friendships with us!  We miss home, and we are having the time of our life too.  Love, Katie 

An Almost Perfect Weekend (We are Ok)

This weekend was almost perfect.  It was warm and sunny, we had a full family day hiking to the river, seeing the hydro-electric dam that generates power for Tenwek, meeting some Kenyan kids to play with, a skype call with Michael's sister.  And then a notification from the US Embassy: Do not go to Westgate Mall. Shooting. Al-Shabab. Sheer terror.

If that notification went unnoticed, the weekend could have been so nice. For us in isolation.  

But we don't live in isolation.  Bad news really does affect us.  We were in that shopping mall and the Nakumatt supermarket that is under siege exactly two weeks ago stocking all our supplies.  When I lay my children down to sleep at night, it's on pillows purchased in that holed up terror hideout. I cover them with blankets bought in the upper isolated back corner of that store, where I don't know if I saw an emergency exit or not. 

I wish that image were not in my head. We were trained for this in pre-field so I feel even the simulated surge of panic rush my veins. I wish it were just daisies and roses and not really happening.  This is the third day of it. 

We are pushed to examine our motives for being here again.  God, is this where you want us? 

But Sunday came and I had a commitment to go to church with our house-helper, Peris.  Peris has been leading Bible studies for women together with another missionary for 8 years now.  They train women to teach other women the Scriptures and when they have memorized 18 verses, they are given their own Kipsigis language Bible.  I knew it was important day for them, but I had no idea how important.  So yesterday I got to go to a Kipsigis church service that lasted 5 hours for these 83 women to receive their first Bible.  That was why I was here.

They put a graduation gown on us and all 83 women had sashes and uniform for graduation.  We marched in singing and processing.  I wanted to duck into the first empty seat possible, but being dubbed “line leader” they had me sit on the dirt floor platform with the other leaders for the ceremony.  Thankfully I knew a little bit of what to expect from a Kenyan church ceremony event.  I needed to make an official greeting and short word to the congregation so I told them I also just graduated from my Bible study at Emmanuel Christian Seminary in the USA and my professor was a Kenyan, even a member of their tribal family the Kalenjin. And I needed to sit there for five hours.  The hundred or so children would stand outside quiet and still too as they waited to see their mamas awarded.  And there was singing. Oh there was singing and singing and singing.  These folks got their praise on yesterday.  They sang “I know that Jesus has loved me” over and over in Kipsigis language.

If my Internet was able, I’d upload a video of the singing.   They got their names called up and I handed the Bible to them with two hands because a gift is given and received with two thankful hands in Kenya.  Then I shook hands just like President Sweeney did for me at Emmanuel Christian Seminary graduation a few months ago. And then the families put garlands of shiny tinsel around their necks and the paparazzi took phone photos with intensity. And then they sang some more.  They sang in Kipsigis “Thank you Linda, God sent you from America to bring us this Bible”.  (Linda is the missionary whose home we are residing in this year while she is on furlough, and who gives me the honor of hosting the women’s Bible study training in the home too)

It was intense, and it was real.  They were so grateful to receive their own Bible, like you wouldn’t believe.  But we do believe.  We do believe that the Word became flesh and resided among us so that we could receive His Life that is truly Life.  And it is an awesome thing to consider.  So that when terror strikes, I can recite over and over and over again “I know that Jesus has loved me” and that is where my life is.  Even if I’m holed up in my deepest fear of dying in Wal-mart, a senseless death or tragic waste, that Jesus has loved me and given his death defeating Life to me is enough.  I have to remember that.

In truth, my heart and flesh cry out for the safety and comforts of an easy peaceful life.  And he answers back to me that I have already died with Christ and my life is hid with Him.  Is there anything safer or more comforting than those Mighty Outstretched Arms that reached down to rescue me already?

Even if I made my bed in Hell, still there He would find me. (Ps. 139)

So we press on, living by faith and not by fear. 

Karibu Tenwek (our first week)

Tomorrow will be the end of our first full week here at Tenwek.  It's hard to know where to start when you sit to write something like this, when you have sensed, felt, and experienced so much in the past week.  It would probably be best to start at the beginning.  Here we are departing from Atlanta incognito.  My favorite comment on this picture has been that I bear a striking resemblance to one of the Mario Brothers, and that Josiah is looking "shifty" an apt description of him.  It made for some comic relief in the setting of good-byes, though we did our 'staches' off before heading through security.


The flights were long, and as smooth as can be expected traveling with young ones.  Our first night in this guest house we all went to bed early (in the morning), and slept through the night until late the next morning we saw the African sun shining on this little paradise in Nairobi.  "We sure are good at this traveling thing" we thought as the kids went back to bed smoothly that second night... to awaken again in about an hour and be up until 4 AM.  Since then, the 'jet-lag awake at night' time has gotten progressively shorter, until we are pretty well back to sleeping through again.  One advantage of being awake from 1-3 AM last Saturday with jet-lagged kids watching Lady and the Tramp was that we could listen to the University of Georgia vs. South Carolina football game radio broadcast online.


Our reception here has been overwhelming.  We have joked that it is an all-inclusive resort (for a few days), where other missionary families have cooked all our meals for our first few days, and there are so many people around to help us.  One night, as we were getting ready for dinner, Katie went out to our little garden to find a sweet potato for dinner.  She knelt in the African soil in her long missionary skirt and a kitchen knife in hand, dug out a sweet potato, and in perfect Scarlett O'hara, "As God is my witness, I'll never go hungry again!"
Other big family news has been Josiah's first days of kindergarten.  These are his buddies: Jacob, Cooper, and Walter.  He has a song that he likes to sing, "You never get bored in Kenya!" is the refrain.


And I got to start doing some doctoring again earlier this week, and I know it's a cliche, but it's really a dream come true for me.  This life and work is what I've been preparing for my whole life.  I've had fantastic opportunities to learn about medicine in Kenya, and to serve some extraordinary patients, and to do some clinical teaching for some incredible Kenyan interns and med students and a Cameroonian resident.  I hope to post a case of the week series, so stay tuned. 

This is the good life!

Two weeks into mission training, two weeks from leaving

4:30 a.m. on Monday- drive out to the ATL airport for our big month long Colorado adventure at Mission Training International.  As we sat in the plane still on the ground  in Atlanta, my eye was drawn to the air traffic control tower windows with taped in jumbo letters.  Our flight was delayed for a mechanical check, and while waiting an extra 45 minutes to make sure all engines were go, I knew we were going to miss our 45 min connection in Houston.   But which would you prefer: fly under mechanical uncertainty and depart on time, or wait for mechanical clearance and run like the wind with small children through the terminal to connect with a closed door and rebook in customer service?  The window in Atlanta ATC tower was prophetic.  The sign says “OWN IT!” Yes, I want the air traffic controllers and the mechanics and the pilot to “own it” when I fly with them. 

And after missing the connection in Houston by 30 seconds, we rebooked to Denver instead of Colorado Springs, begged a merciful old friend to drive us from Denver up to our destination at Mission Training International.  Inconvenient.  Time to spare go by air.  And yet alive because someone was doing the job right.

The first 2 weeks here we did a program  The main idea behind language learning in a new culture will be: “OWN IT”!  We have been equipped with tools for entering a new language (for us it will be Kiswahili and Kipsigis) and the kids too have a corresponding class every day that helps them prepare for cross cultural living.   While it takes extra time and effort and unearthly amounts of energy, it will be important for our new context that we enter well.  Language has an almost magical power to access people in their context.  For example, does the name Pavlov ring a bell with you?

called Principles in Language Acquisition Training.

While we may feel like a nursing home resident with no keys to our name,  (house and cars all gone) language learning will be the symbol of responsibility in our pocket.  It will take more time than we’d like if we choose to do it.  It will be frustrating too.  But no one else will own it for us.

Now a word from our children:

Man-Cub Josiah loves living in this “hotel with a school inside it”.  We have a door that goes straight to the playground from our room!  He has mastered the monkey bars in his 3 a day workouts and will soon be ripping out of his t-shirts.  His class took a surprise field trip to the Garden of the Gods in the first week to help them understand expectations and surprises as a missionary kid.  He liked visiting the Manitou cliff dwellings of the ancient Anasazi Indians.  He liked it especially because he got his first bow and arrow there.

Little Miss Annie has been the most homesick one of us.  She transitioned into a big girl bed right out of her crib.  When she cried for her old bed, I cried too.  When she said “I wanna go hoooome” Josiah lovingly replied to her “Annie, we don’t have a home.  We just live free in the wild now”.  Annie does get to play with more friends here than she ever did before.  The older girls dote over her and the little bitty ones provide companionship she has needed for a long time.  They make mulch pies daily on the playground after class.

The children’s teachers here really study our children and help us learn their strengths and weaknesses.  We are living in a community of 30 adults and as many kids.  It’s a bit awkward at times. Our family  is adjusting to a new way of living and preparing for an even newer one.  We have our ups and downs with attitudes and with bodily function mal-functions (Daktari says it’s because we all have immunities to bugs in our home state but not to each other’s).  I’ve been out of class a few days when a child of ours needs to recover from something or another grotesque.  We like spending time together though so I’m usually glad to do it.

The trainers and staff here also comfort us with the stubborn fact that there is no perfect family.  When we pretend to be that, we become religious whitewash tombs full of dead men’s bones.  Woah. 

But if we learn to say “I’m sorry” to one another, we learn to be forgiven people.  And Jesus told us in Luke 7 that whoever is forgiven little will love little.  So we’ve been growing in love, you might say…

Home: by Daktari wife

So tired that my eyes were lined with red, my attitude similar. Tugging a few sleeping bags and some children along with me we made our way back home. Everyone a more than a little frayed with fatigue.

When I was in 3rd or 4th grade I remember a similar event. After a slumber party with catty little neighborhood girls, up all night, I had to walk ½ mile home with my sleeping bag in tow and the incessantly bright early morning sun shining through my squinted eyelids. Now that I’m all grown up, I use a sleeping mask on those occasions that I need to keep the morning mist and clouds and block out the light and hold on to my precious right to be tired. And cranky.

We spent the night at the church building last night.

Not for a slumber party youth event, but for overnight hosting with a local ministry our church participates in to give homeless families a shelter for a week. The families sleep in Sunday School class rooms for one week and move early on Sunday morning to another church building to spend another week trying to stay together as families without homes.

And I am so ornery with my children after just one night of it. Home. These children need to stay at home, not in the lobby of a church building with cots and pallets on the floor. Eating junk food and running amok late at night? Not my children! I used to use them as my excuse to not sign up for things like this. But the whole point of the ministry is that it is keeping families together through tough times. One of the guest families had a 6 month old and 2 year old and they are still kind and gracious to one another in the midst of homelessness. Mother Teresa once said to me rather incriminatingly: “Moodiness is nothing but the fruit of pride”.

But home is something we are made for, longing for it is the most natural and godly desire of our heart. It all began when we lost the Garden. The second part of the book of Isaiah is laden with the poetry of hearts longing for Home and the comfort, comfort my people, that it will come.

Buechner said “we are all homesick for the Kingdom of God” that is what we are missing. We seek to fill that homesickness with a beautiful house, backsplashes and bathrooms, these private places that we build for ourselves to feel most comforted in our “home” like we deserve this. But the American “dream” and the American market collapse have been built around the myth of home ownership that rival our Edenic loss and desire to get back in. And there was an angel set there to guard the gate with a flaming sword for a reason. We can’t get back. Not by our own means anyways. You must go in at the Gate.

Well it’s always easier to speak of the sins of our neighbors and our society at large than it is to acknowledge my own sin written all over my weary face. We come home from church and take naps. Blessed Sabbath naps. My head on the pillow.: Home. But not quite. There’s a burning in my soul that is wanting more. Something is calling me out to spend this quiet time reading Isaiah. But I’m too weak. I sleep for a one sweet hour. Even then God still keeps the children at bay in their beds long enough for me to get into the Word too. I go Home into the scriptures. This is where I belong. Like Israel in Exile, we too must learn to live outside the geographic boundaries and into bigger dimensions of Home. God Himself is now our home. Nothing less will fill this need. Not my flight into busy, nor my quest for control over my children, neither my flight into bed nor coffee cup. I am quite simply sinning in this pursuit.

Now hear the Good News:

“I have swept away your offenses like a cloud,
your sins like the morning mist.
Return to me,
For I have redeemed you” Isaiah 44:22

Time to start packing up house, Katie. We are moving out in 4 weeks (or less)!

So I slough away some dusty belongings, then on Monday I attempt to bake bread, and watch Power Rangers with my boy. Happy together on our couch. I have been redeemed again.

Still, I am Homesick and haven’t even left for Africa yet.

Big Daddy in Memoriam

Last Sunday my grandfather passed away.  His name was “Big Daddy.” He was so named, not because of his ample girth (though he had the usual southern-fried extra around the middle, from eating my grandmother’s cooking for 63 years).  No, his name was Big Daddy because that was his personality.  His personality was huge, and left just such an impression everywhere he went.

One of his greatest loves in life was to make people laugh.  Any kind of person and any kind of laugh would do; from the smiles of the church lady at Cartwright Baptist, to the stately chuckles of the officials and politicos during his time as County Commissioner;  and the guffaws and belly laughs of the truckers at Wagner Freight and farmers of the Sequatchie Valley Co-op.  And there was no area of humor that he did not master: practical jokes were probably his favorite (including, maybe especially, the one where he ended up in jail), but the outrageous were probably his second favorite (ask his grandchildren about his toilet bowl guitar).  There were no topics that were off-limits: politics, race, family, religion all played into his jokes, and I will never forget the twinkle in his eyes just before he got to the punch line.

And another thing that everyone who knew Big Daddy appreciated about him was his generosity.  He gave so much, in so many ways.  He never met a stranger, and gave away his extraordinary personality to everyone he met.  One of my strongest memories of spending time with him was rising early in the morning on Saturday at the farm, driving in his old beat up Datsun pickup, which smelled like chewing tobacco and his dog (who accompanied him everywhere). We’d drive to Hardees, where they knew to expect him, and he would buy a bag of biscuits and drive through the valley, visiting neighbors, especially the homebound or poor, sitting with them and sharing breakfast.  I have no idea how much of his wealth he has given to charitable causes.  He never spoke of it to me.  But I am certain it is an astounding amount, because that’s the kind of person he was.

We always spent holidays at the farm.  And ever so occasionally, he would sit us (his grandchildren) down after a holiday meal for one of his fireside chats.  He rarely gave us advice, but when he did, it was best to listen closely.  His favorite topics were hard work, integrity, and family values.  He came to hear me speak several times, a message to our church, a valedictory speech, and a mission presentation, and he would give me pointers; most notably to always speak up and stand tall, and I always remember this in that second after I walk to a podium and before I open my mouth.

He is, and always will be, with me.  In the moments after his death, as I try to gather every memory and store it away for safekeeping, these are the first things that I recall.  They are by no means the only things, and everyone who has known him has a story.  That is legacy in its own right, and to be remembered in stories is to be remembered forever.  Thank you Big Daddy.