Theology on Safari: 12 December 2011

Christmas greetings from Kenya! We have been immensely grateful for the abundant rains in this land of mostly subsistence farmers, rains which have also put an end to northern Kenya and southern Somalia’s most recent famine cycle. But when it kept raining straight through November and into December, a month and a half beyond when they usually dwindle away into the bright hot equatorial sun, we began to wonder if the cold, wet, drear and mud would ever come to an end. We are on our fourth straight day of azure skies and welcome warm sunshine. Looks like we’ve managed to put the ‘short rains’ behind us.

But we have more than the rains (and their ending!) to be grateful for. The past several months have also seen a parade of answered prayers march through our lives. Blind eyes suddenly see, demons get knocked around, tables and chairs flung about, Pharisees are put in their place, sinners called by name, and disciples left flustered and struggling to keep up whenever the Lord passes through. Though matters are by no means resolved for me (Bill), I am greatly relieved to know that God is right here in our midst in our situation, and that he is working for His great good even when days, weeks and months pass when we simply cannot see. Back in October, this is how Stephanie asked our friends and praying partners to pray for us:

Prayer for Bill to be shown the future direction the Lord has for him, and for good progress with the church history book he’s writing.
Prayer for Stephanie teaching hermeneutics and Greek syntax this term at the Nairobi Evangelical Graduate School of Theology (NEGST).
Prayer for Stephanie’s work with the Accrediting Council for Theological Education in Africa (ACTEA), and for ACTEA board members meeting in Nairobi on 11-13 Nov to discuss leadership transitions.
Prayer for Linnea (23) searching for her first job after graduation, in global public health, in the Washington, DC, area.

Let me tell you what the Lord has done…

First, thanks for praying for my work on what is becoming a book. Having time on my hands has enabled me to achieve the kind of focus I need to write. I’m more than 150 pages into a project that is shaping up to be a history of the understanding of authority in the Christian churches – Roman Catholic, Orthodox, Protestant and Pentecostal. I haven’t experienced this sort of satisfying joy in a project since I was in the midst of my thesis at Cambridge. I’m grateful for the time I’ve been able to devote to it. I only hope I can find the time to push it to completion.

I’ve also been looking for a teaching position. Three weeks ago I received a phone call from the graduate studies director at St Paul’s University in a town called Limuru, about 30 km/20 miles down the road from us. I’d applied to St. Paul’s several months ago and had promising conversations with important people, but their process had been glacial and I wasn’t expecting to hear anything till after the new year. Suddenly the director called to ask me if I’d be willing to teach two courses for their modular Masters of Theology program: Christology and Soteriology and the History of Christian Spirituality. I said, Sure, when do you want me? He said, Um, can you come and start tomorrow? Fortunately, one of the courses I had taught before, but the history of Christian Spirituality was an empty blackboard for me. So there I was, three weeks ago, standing in front of a classroom of students for four hours trying to sound like I knew what I was talking about. That would have been tolerable, except that I had four to six hours of lectures to prepare and give for every day through the following two weeks. I was, in that effective British term, ‘shattered’ after two weeks of intensive teaching, but grateful that I now apparently have a job as an adjunct lecturer at St. Paul’s University, teaching masters students theology and history, the very thing I’ve done for the past three years at NEGST. St. Paul’s is a well-established cooperative school that trains Anglican, Presbyterian, Methodist and Christian Reformed pastors and church leaders (see more at www.stpaulslimuru.ac.ke). In this latest and most ironic twist of my ongoing saga, I now find myself training the new generation of leaders in the denominations of those churches who have been our main supporters! This is not yet a done deal, as their process continues to move like tar on a cloudy day. But my foot is firmly in the door. Thank you for praying.

I have also gotten more involved in my local Orthodox church, and have had the opportunity to get to know and work with the Archbishop of Kenya, His Eminence Makarios. I was invited to give lectures to two classes on the early church fathers at the nearby Orthodox seminary, which trains priests from all over eastern and southern Africa. And the Archbishop invited me last week to go with him on one of his pastoral visits to churches in the western part of Kenya. So from this past Tuesday through Friday, we were bouncing over bad roads visiting Orthodox churches, schools and clinics. It was an astonishing glimpse of what God has been doing in the lives of very ordinary Kenyans in some very out of the way places. There are more than three hundred Kenyan priests serving in at least that many churches all across the country. Still it’s a jolt to come across a sign that says ‘St. Photios Orthodox Church’ out in the middle of an African nowhere.

Keep praying, though, as I have realized that all of the change in my life has made me unsure of my sense of call. Should I carry on and assume that St. Paul’s is where I am meant to be? Should I continue to push on all doors at the Orthodox seminary and see if any of them open for me there? Or will one of the US universities to which I applied for positions teaching early modern European history say ‘We really want you on our faculty’? If that were to happen, should I take the opportunity to earn a salary and pay off the educational debt we’ve taken on, commuting back and forth from Nairobi while Stephanie carries on here? So there are still many questions. And I welcome your counsel. But like Samuel, I can put up my ebenezer, my marker stone of help, and say, ‘Thus far has God helped us’.

In the meantime, Stephanie has just finished grading the final assignments for her Hermeneutics class, finishing a successful term at NEGST that also included a class of eager second-year Greek students. Stephanie is a superb teacher, and the students in her classes hold her in high respect (as well they should!). She is teaching them how to read the Bible, and for several of them, these classes aren’t just academic requirements – they become transforming experiences. It is our hope that our input would somehow be useful in the Lord’s hands in the lives and future ministries of these students. Thank you for praying for Stephanie in her classes.

And thank you for praying for the Accrediting Council for Theological Education in Africa (ACTEA) board members meeting here in Nairobi on 11-13 November to discuss leadership transitions. One of the transitions in question is that Stephanie will be leaving her role as ACTEA Accreditation Officer at the end of this month. She wanted to make sure that the rest of the leadership team was ready to carry on without her. The meeting went well and Stephanie pronounced herself satisfied, as well as relieved to be nearing the finish line. She has done some very significant work for ACTEA, including revising all of their accreditation standards, which will be used as the benchmark for theological education in Africa for the next ten or twenty years. Personally speaking, I don’t think they quite realize how much they are going to miss her. Again, thank you for praying.

And lastly, we’d asked you to pray for our firstborn, Linnea, who has been struggling to find her first professional job. She and William have made a home in Rockville, MD, near where William works as an engineer. Linnea has had a couple of make-do jobs, most recently at Starbucks, waiting for something to come through. After a lot of interviews and a quick trip to Charlottesville to attend a jobs fair, Linnea was offered a place with one of the companies with whom she interviewed. And then, later the same week the IT consulting company that was her first choice offered her a position in their healthcare sector. She was over the moon, as were her parents in faraway Kenya. She starts in January, and now begins her post-barista career as a professional woman. Thanks, again, for praying.

As I traveled the bouncy, rutted backroads of western Kenya with the Archbishop this past week, I was struck again by all the children and women with no shoes, all the little huts and houses with no electricity, outdoor kitchens that consisted of three rocks on which to put a pot to boil water. I saw little churches made out of sticks and mud and manure, with the people not able to come up with enough money to buy the metal sheeting for the roof. Almost every home has lost children to diseases that could have been prevented. I saw children so desperate to learn how to read and write that they walked ten kilometers to school and back every day. The archbishop had brought several boxes of new dresses to give to the wives of priests and teachers and administrators. I thought that was a strange thing to do until I saw the eyes of these women and realized that they simply never get anything new or beautiful. This of course contrasts with all I’ve been hearing from the homeland about so-called ‘black Friday’ or the frenzied attempts to get everyone into the stores to shop and spend money, and the mindless accumulation of more and more stuff even though we all know that none of this can make one happy or leave one fulfilled or bring one peace. So whether it is the material poverty of western Kenyans or the poverty of mind, heart and soul that just as effectively hollows out the lives of men, women and children in the Western world, we are all surrounded by potent reminders of just why we need a savior. Most homes here won’t celebrate Christmas in the way I’ve grown accustomed to as an American. They can’t afford to. But sometimes I wonder if the absence of the decorations, or the special foods, or the various parties or all the presents affords one a clearer view into the cave where the virgin teenager gave birth to a son. It happened just as the angel in Joseph’s dream said it would:

“Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.”

To which Matthew, the gospel writer, adds this commentary:

All this took place to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet: “Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel,” which means, ‘God is with us.’ (Matthew 1:21-23)

Incarnation. God with us. In our poverty. To save us from our sins. May you, too, see the Virgin and her Child with new eyes, and understand anew just what our God is up to.

And may you have a wonder-filled feast of the Incarnation.

P.S. We’re counting the days until Caroline’s arrival this weekend. You might enjoy reading her take on how MK’s do international Christmas, on her blog: http://words-of-whimsy.blogspot.com/2011/12/i-am-santa-claus.html.

On the road with the Archbishop…

Travelling companions, first night out