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Greetings from Kenya! At least, it’s Kenya this week. Just when I (Stephanie) thought the logistics of life as a globetrotting missionary family couldn’t get any more complicated… On 24 August I arrived back in Nairobi from our two-month home assignment in the UK and US, just in time to wash my clothes and repack to leave for ACTEA-related meetings in the Ivory Coast a day and a half later. Bill returned to Kenya on 1 September, picked me up at the airport on the 5th, and my brother (my only sibling) died in Virginia several hours later. As many of you know, it’s been a torturous two years watching my brother descend beyond our reach into depression and alcoholism, not to mention the damage he’s caused along the way. Bill offered to go to the US immediately to oversee my brother’s memorial service and help my former sister-in-law and my nieces and nephew (ages 12, 14, 17 and 19) however he could. I’ll wait and go later to help sort the legal and financial chaos left behind. So less than a week after getting off a plane in Nairobi, Bill was on another plane headed back to Virginia. From what I hear he did a masterful job leading the memorial service in a very challenging situation. Thank you, Bill! (And thank you to so many friends in Virginia Beach who helped make it all work.) Since then I’ve been going round and round trying to resolve when to travel to the US to make arrangements for our late parents’ house, finish settling my father’s estate, deal with my brother’s debts, etc., etc. A mess. And especially sad, as I’m deeply feeling the loss of the last member of the family I grew up in.
Continuing the travel saga, tonight I’m going to Hungary for ten days, another part of my job as accreditation officer for the Accrediting Council for Theological Education in Africa (ACTEA). Yes, my head is spinning at the thought of another long trip! This is the triennial conference of all the regional networks like ACTEA that offer accreditation and other services for theological education in various parts of the globe, so it’s important for me to meet these people and to learn more about how my role in Africa fits into the big picture. Plus I’ve never been to Eastern Europe before and I’m really excited about seeing it—can’t wait!
And somewhere in there we’ve managed to begin the new academic year at the Nairobi Evangelical Graduate School of Theology (NEGST). It feels great to be back at NEGST interacting with such eager students from all over Africa. Bill is teaching Ministry and Mission of the Church in the Pastoral Ministry department, and also the core series of Systematic Theology courses that all NEGST students take in their second year. Or at least he’s been trying to teach his Systematic Theology class. It’s four hours of lecture every Monday morning. He did the first one the first week of term, but then the second week he was in the States and last week was Eid ul-Fitr, the end of Ramadan, a national holiday with no classes. Finally this week he managed to have a second class session. I asked him over dinner what he’d talked about in class. He explained that he’s trying to help the students realize that systematic theology as we evangelicals know it is largely a western evangelical project designed in western ways to answer western evangelical questions about God and the Bible—a project that was then imported into Africa with western missionaries—and that even though it can be helpful for them to learn this material, they don’t actually need to become western Christians in order to be thoughtful African Christians, so what we really should be considering is how all these ideas would look if we started by asking African questions, and they should treat this course as a venue for discussion and for testing their own beliefs and not as an end in itself. Whew… that’ll keep him busy for four hours on a Monday morning.
I was scheduled to teach two courses, Hermeneutics and second-year Greek, but one effect of the current global recession is that there’s less scholarship money for African students this year. As a result NEGST’s intake of new students is down and there weren’t enough students to make up the additional section of hermeneutics I was meant to teach. Which leaves me with thirteen solemn Intermediate Greek students, who are justifiably intimidated by the material we need to cover. It’s a fairly tough course, sort of ‘boot camp’ or intensive conditioning for New Testament studies. The students who take it are among the most able at NEGST—and NEGST draws quite capable students because of its academic reputation—which means they also tend to be among the most obsessive about studies and getting good grades. So they all sit there with a sort of stricken look as they contemplate the difficult material. I end up being den mother-cum-cheerleader, assuring them that together we will get through this. At the same time I’m constantly prodding them when they complain about the work being too hard (which it’s not, in my view). I don’t know how many times I find myself saying, “People, this is graduate school. This is meant to be advanced studies.” So sometimes the course ends up being as much about motivational psychology as it is about Greek.
Since I have some extra time because of the cancelled course I’ve also volunteered as a sort of personal coach for NEGST’s first cohort of PhD students, who are now in the final stages of writing up their theses. Most of them are floundering about at the moment, not quite sure how to put all their ideas together and connect them on paper. I try to get them to explain to me in their own words what argument they’re trying to make in the thesis as a whole. Then we work orally on making those ideas more focused and coherent, at least in their own minds. They’re doing some great topics, though, things which represent a distinctive African contribution to biblical scholarship. One guy I’ve been working with is writing on honor-shame issues in the book of Nehemiah. He’s showing how the honor-shame values underlying this Old Testament text are similar in many ways to the honor-shame values that drive his own culture in West Africa, and that a fuller awareness of those honor-shame dynamics helps us understand more clearly what’s happening in Nehemiah. Cool. I learned a lot just talking to him. This is why Bill and I are here working in theological education in Africa, trying to help these voices get their message out so the rest of the world can benefit.
We’re also getting into the rhythm of Nairobi’s rolling power blackouts. The no-power days in our neighborhood are Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays, from about 6 am to 6 pm. Except sometimes not—sometimes the power is on parts of those days and off at other times. So it becomes an art as well as a science to determine when to do things that require electricity. Tuesday I was trying to make something to take to the monthly potluck dinner for NEGST faculty that evening. I had some ground beef and some pasta, and what I was making with it sort of emerged and morphed as the power went on and off during the day. Bake a casserole in the (electric) oven? Boil something on the (gas) stovetop burner? It ended up being mostly boiled, but the electricity came on just enough at the last minute that I could throw it in a pan in the oven and melt cheese on top. The good news/bad news is that Kenya expects to feel the effects of El Niño later this month—the good news being that that should alleviate the current drought as well as resolve our hydroelectric shortage, the bad news being that it will probably cause extensive flooding and destroy people’s crops.
That’s our news and here are our current prayer requests:
- Prayer for Stephanie’s travel to Hungary (1-10 October) as part of her work as accreditation officer for the Accrediting Council for Theological Education in Africa (ACTEA).
- Prayer for decisions we need to make in the aftermath of the death of Stephanie’s brother, especially about when Stephanie should return to the US to deal with legal and financial matters.
- Prayer for both Bill and Stephanie teaching at the Nairobi Evangelical Graduate School of Theology (NEGST): Bill teaching Systematic Theology, and Ministry and Mission of the Church, Stephanie teaching Intermediate Greek.
- Prayer for Caroline (19) and Linnea (turning 21 this month) at the University of Virginia—for their studies, for Caroline leading a small group Bible study and Linnea serving as co-director of a community volunteer project, and for fall break and other travels coming up.
- Praise for God’s provision of several new prayer partners and financial supporters for our ministry, and continued prayer for all the funding we need in this difficult economic climate.
blessings,
Stephanie
(for Bill, Linnea and Caroline Black)
Abidjan, Ivory Coast – Overseas Council “Institute for Excellence”
Can you find Stephanie in this crowd of theological educators from West and Central Africa?
Not only were they all male, most of them were speaking French. I had to dust off my school girl French to communicate, but somehow we managed!
Lots of thoughtful discussion…
…and also good food and relaxed fellowship
An Ivorian feast: grilled fish, yams, plantains, chicken, couscous, sauces, finished off with fresh pineapple
On the beach near Abidjan
NEGST Faculty Colleagues
We’re happy to be back ‘home’ on the NEGST campus and part of the community here again
Bill chatting with colleagues at convocation in September. From left: Bill, Dr Henry Mutua (Missions), Allan Mbugua (Registrar), Dr Tewoldemariam Habtu (Old Testament)
More faculty colleagues: Dr Steve Rasmussen (Missions), Dr Peter Nyende (New Testament)
Dr Priscilla Adoyo (Institute for the Study of African Realities), Dr Alice Mambo (Christian Education)
At the September faculty potluck dinner. From right: Dr Douglas Carew (NEGST Vice-Chancellor), Dr Samuel Ngewa (Academic Dean), Elizabeth Ngewa
Letty (Dr Habut’s wife) always has a beautiful smile to share!
‘Crazy Hat’ tea party for faculty wives and women faculty members a couple of weeks ago
On my 50th birthday Bill was in the US for my brother’s funeral, so British and American campus friends treated me (far left) to a lovely birthday lunch on the day
Back to school…
While I was in Abidjan, Bill stayed in Virginia a bit longer to make sure Caroline (L) and Linnea (R) were settled into their new houses at the University of Virginia
Here’s my favorite recent picture of my family, taken Bill’s last day before flying back to Kenya—the photo currently proudly displayed on my computer desktop :)
