11 January 2009

Well, it wasn’t quite the Christmas we’d planned. As some of you already heard, I (Stephanie) ended up spending Christmas in Nairobi Hospital, after a bad case of influenza led to a black out and fall early on Christmas Eve morning (two falls actually, says Bill—I don’t remember), which left me with a gash on my head requiring stitches, a nasty concussion, and vertigo and balance issues, the net result of which was the five-day hospital stay. Hmm, one of those life events you don’t quite expect. But I can report that when they tell you it takes two to three weeks to recover from a concussion, that’s just about right. It’s only in the last couple of days that my head has almost entirely cleared from the fuzziness and I feel like myself again. Praise God, it wasn’t more serious, and I feel better each day. Poor Bill says he has flashbacks of his wife lying on the floor with lots of blood, but of course I don’t remember that part. The main impression it’s left on me is the wonderfully competent and cheerful hospital care available in Kenya. Nairobi Hospital is the closest one SIM uses for medical evacuations from Ethiopia, so we’re grateful to be just down the road from it now, instead of a two-hour international flight when we lived in Addis Ababa. And, compared to the ever escalating price of US medical care (no NHS…), it’s incredibly cheap: $85, or about £50, for a 20-mile ambulance ride, just under $2000/£1300 for emergency treatment, a CT scan, X-rays, and five nights in a private room, $300/£200 for the ENT physician’s bill, and $500/£320 for the cardiologist’s bill, including an extensive cardio work-up. Amazing.

However, as you can imagine, all this significantly complicated the Christmas holiday for Linnea (20) and Caroline (18), who were making their first visit to our (their???) new home in Kenya. It’s hard enough when your parents move to another country where you don’t know anybody, much less to have your mother in hospital, AND miss the beach holiday at the Kenyan coast we were all looking forward to. Bummer. But Caroline and Linnea rallied nicely. By the end of their three week stay they’d mastered Nairobi’s local transport system so they could get out and about on their own, and found ways to soak up Kenya’s lovely sunshine even without going to the beach. Christmas Day was a bit crazy, though. It was the girls’ first experience putting together a big holiday dinner for guests (missionary friends we knew in Ethiopia), with Dad reading turkey roasting directions out of a cookbook and Mom coaching by mobile phone from her hospital bed. They did great! But since we didn’t get to open presents on Christmas morning, several days later they were so eager to unwrap their gifts that they hauled everything to the hospital and we had Christmas again there. Last night Linnea and Caroline boarded the plane to head back to the University of Virginia, where classes resume on Tuesday. Still waiting to hear if they arrived safely, but by now they—like most missionary kids—are such seasoned international travelers that I’m not worried. Well, not too worried…

Bill’s and my new term at Nairobi Evangelical Graduate School of Theology (NEGST) started last Monday. We sort of inched into it slowly last week, because of my health issues and having the girls still here, but this week we need to go full throttle. Especially Bill, who suddenly has three large courses to teach because he’s just been asked to pick up a third course from a missionary colleague who’s had to leave for urgent medical treatment. So now Bill is teaching Systematic Theology II: Christology, Soteriology & Pneumatology (43 students), The Church’s Ministry & Mission (about 35 students), and a church history course which covers The Reformation to the Modern Church (48 students). Whew! I don’t think I’ve ever heard of anyone teaching post-graduate courses in three separate faculty departments at the same time—theology, church history, and pastoral ministry—but somehow Bill has managed to achieve this. Considering that we came to NEGST because they had a biblical studies position open for me, but nothing specific for Bill, the college certainly has figured out how to make use of him. Please do pray for Bill, though, because this is quite a heavy teaching load, especially with the number of students in each class.

I, on the other hand, am only teaching one course at NEGST this term, because I have a long list of projects for the Accrediting Council for Theological Education in Africa (ACTEA). My NEGST course is on exegesis of Greek narrative (my PhD topic) and I had this same group of ten students last term for Intermediate Greek, so that shouldn’t be too bad. Which is fortunate, because the ACTEA work is huge at the moment. My biggest challenge right now is organizing an on-site accreditation visit for a large seminary in Nigeria at the end of February. Because they’re asking us to accredit their undergraduate, post-graduate (masters) and doctoral programs all at the same time, it’s probably the most complex visitation ACTEA’s ever done. I’ve been putting together a team of seven people with appropriate academic credentials, that I’ll lead for the on-site assessment. But it’s one of those situations where everything is taking longer to pull together than you think it should and the whole process has been plagued by a series of set-backs. The most recent one was when a key team member dropped out last week—not sure how I’ll find another qualified person who can drop everything and go to Nigeria with only six weeks’ notice, but I’m looking. Please do pray for that specifically! I’m also scheduled to travel to Zambia next week for an ACTEA staff meeting (I’ve been waiting till the last minute to confirm that, to see if I’d feel well enough, but I think I’ll be 100% fine by then). And I’m coordinating a pair of training workshops in Ethiopia and Kenya in March. (Those are going OK so far, just lots of details to stay on top of.) In addition I have a backlog of ACTEA accreditation applications from various schools to evaluate and reports to edit, revisions to draft for ACTEA’s accreditation standards and to shepherd through some sort of revision process (may have to invent that), and the normal daily email correspondence to keep up with. And this is meant to be a one-third time position! Fortunately I enjoy the work—or at least most of it, except for this problematic Nigerian project—and believe in its value. But no wonder I barely have time to teach.

The only other news I can think of to tell you is that after a lot of looking around we’ve settled into a nearby church, Karen Vineyard. Never thought we were really the Vineyard type (!), but this one’s fairly low key. What interests us is that they focus on outreach to the local ‘white Kenyan’ community, they attract a wide variety of internationals, and they have a good small group/home group system we can join. I’m also interested in their ministry at a women’s prison. I went along to a Christmas event the church sponsored at the prison in December, and hope to continue with that. Mostly, after months of feeling new and disoriented in Kenya, it’s nice to have a church family to be part of!

So that’s where we are at the moment. Here’s a summary of our current prayer items, before I include a bunch of Christmas holiday photos:

• Praise for God’s protection during Stephanie’s illness and fall, for great hospital care in Kenya, and for no lasting ill effects.
• Praise for good family time during Linnea (20) and Caroline (18)’s three weeks at ‘home’ in Kenya for Christmas, and prayer for each of them as they start a new semester at the University of Virginia.
• Prayer for Bill’s heavy teaching load at the Nairobi Evangelical Graduate School of Theology (NEGST) this term: Christology, Soteriology & Pneumatology (43 students), The Church’s Ministry & Mission (35 students), and The Reformation to the Modern Church (48 students).
• Prayer for Stephanie’s work as Accreditation Officer with the Accrediting Council for Theological Education in Africa (ACTEA), especially the many challenges she’s facing putting together an on-site accreditation evaluation at a large seminary in Nigeria in February.
• Prayer for the Lord’s continuing guidance concerning how long we should stay in Kenya and where we should go next, along with a satisfactory resolution to the family conflict over selling Stephanie’s late parents’ house (which needs to be done before we can buy a house for ourselves in the US).

Let us know how you’re doing as well—we love to hear from you! (Find us on Facebook!)

blessings,

Stephanie

for Bill, Linnea and Caroline Black

Christmas 2008

At the beginning of the term break in December our NEGST students’ and faculty wives group visited Amani ya Juu (‘Higher Peace’), a development project for refugee women where they learn reconciliation skills, as well as how to make gorgeous quilted needlecrafts.

Me & some of the NEGST wives—a fun day out for all.

Linnea & Caroline Arrive for Christmas

“I had a farm in Africa at the foot of the Ngong Hills…” Caroline shows off the view of the Ngong Hills from Karen Blixen’s house, near where we live.

One afternoon Bill & Linnea & another friend climbed the Ngong Hills. (That’s Linnea in photo.)

We love Kenya, but we’re still convinced that the best food in Africa is Ethiopian! Linnea (right) eagerly anticipates the injera b’wet at an Ethiopian restaurant in Nairobi.

Our kitchen on Christmas Day—a little crazy, with mom in hospital… From left: Bill coaching, Linnea cooking, and our friend Jimmy Cox carving.

Later that evening they all brought me a plate of Christmas dinner. (From left: Bill, Caroline, Jimmy Cox, me, Linnea, Roxanne Cox, David Cox, Stephen Cox.)

When we still hadn’t gotten to open our gifts several days later, Bill & the girls packed everything up and brought it to the hospital…

…and we had Christmas again.

While I recuperated, Bill & the girls explored Nairobi. One of our favorite places is the giraffe research centre near our house.

Then they decided to take our little Toyota Corolla on safari in Nairobi National Park.

They saw more giraffes…

…and zebra…

…and warthogs, ostriches, various sorts of antelope, etc. But no big predators that day. When Linnea realized how close we live to the park, she said maybe it’s a good thing there were no lions!

A street sign we’ve never seen in America:

Before they left, Linnea & Caroline managed to get an invitation to the Ford Models Kenya Supermodel Search finals (sort of like the finals for Next Top Model).

Caroline says that unfortunately her shortness is accentuated when standing next to models.

Bill relaxing at home.

Believe me, he deserved a rest after serving as ‘cruise director’ for the Christmas holidays while I was ill. Thanks, Bill!

22 November 2008

Greetings from Obama-land! At least, that’s what Kenya feels like these days, thanks to the US election. One of the major Kenyan TV stations suspended their programming on election day to run hours and hours of CNN coverage, so Bill and I (Stephanie) got to watch US election returns in real time for the first time since I can’t remember when. Of course we had to stay up all night to do it, because of the time difference, but it was worth it. Then the Kenyan president declared a national holiday to celebrate Obama’s victory, and we had a day off from classes. Our Kenyan friends were amazed when we told them that people in the US don’t get a day off work to vote, and didn’t get a day off to celebrate the election. But watching this election from the vantage point of Africa, it’s not hard to understand why it captured the imagination of people around the world.

We’ve also been watching the US financial markets since that has a global impact as well a personal one. But it, too, looks a little different from here. In my work with the Accrediting Council for Theological Education in Africa (ACTEA) I have a colleague who’s a white Zimbabwean. He and I happened to be sitting next to each other at a conference in South Africa last month checking the internet on our laptops. I was looking at our rapidly diminishing retirement investment account and made some comment about it to him. “Yeah,” he said, “my wife and I used my entire pension savings to pay the electric bill one month, back when the hyperinflation was just beginning.” Sort of puts things in perspective. He’s the development and finance director at a theological college in Zimbabwe, and he said that in light of the global economic crisis he and the rest of the college leadership had a meeting recently to consider what the implications might be for their school. He said that after a short discussion they all just threw up their hands and laughed, saying “What further difference can this possibly make?!”

Compared to those international headlines, our life here at the Nairobi Evangelical Graduate School of Theology (NEGST) has seemed fairly serene for the past month or so. For various reasons I missed sending our supporting partners an update in October—my apologies!—and several of you have emailed to ask how we are, since you hadn’t heard any news. But part of it was that there wasn’t much to tell. As they say about writing, ‘no conflict, no story’, and actually, we’re enjoying being here so much I couldn’t think of anything interesting to put in a newsletter. You may have to wait until we’ve been here long enough to develop some juicy problems before the newsletters get more entertaining! God has been really good to us to bring us to this point in our lives, and we’re grateful. We recently informed our NEGST and SIM supervisors that we’d like to stay on through the 2009-2010 academic year, so please do pray that the Lord continues to provide all the financial resources needed for us to do that—in a year when we know many of our individual donors and supporting churches may be struggling financially.

NEGST is on trimesters, so we’ve just finished our first 10-week teaching term and the students are preparing for exams. At the moment they’re all completely stressed, but we faculty members are enjoying the break from classes. This term Bill’s been teaching Systematic Theology I to the second-year MA’s and MDiv’s, plus Old Testament Survey to a small group of undergraduate extension students. He has also been busy helping his Ghanaian department head get the fledgling African Society for Evangelical Theology (ASET) off the ground. Bill is serving on a couple of ASET committees and has been overseeing the writing of the constitution. I have half of the first-year MDiv’s and MA’s for Hermeneutics, and a very keen group of second years for Intermediate Greek—which is quite a tough course, sort of like Greek ‘boot camp’ (military basic training), so it’s a bonding experience for all of us! Actually, most of my energy goes into trying to teach my hermeneutics students how to think logically and write clearly. I’m constantly intrigued by how many very bright African students we have whose poor educational background means that they can’t put a coherent thought together and write it down. When I push-push-push them, at first they’re surprised, and then eventually they rise to the challenge and start producing some decent work. But it’s a process… We’ve just received our teaching assignments for next term, starting in January: Bill will continue with Systematic Theology II, and also take the MDiv’s for The Ministry and Mission of the Church, while I continue with my Greek students in Greek Exegesis (Narrative Books). I’m only teaching one class next term because I have a lot of ACTEA work and travel scheduled for January through March.

In fact, that’s probably my biggest challenge at the moment—keeping up with the ACTEA work. Besides the backlog from the two months I was away this summer in the US, I’ve inherited about a year’s worth of undone projects from a staff colleague who’s just gone on study leave. In my mind’s eye it’s a towering pile of tasks that’s going to topple over and bury me. But it’s interesting work. Right now I’m organizing an on-site assessment to accredit a large Baptist seminary in Nigeria (will travel there with an ACTEA team in February), and workshops in Kenya and Ethiopia in March to train instructors from theological colleges in educational goals and methods (faculty from Trinity and Columbia seminaries in the US coming to lead those). And in January I’ll go to Zambia for an ACTEA staff meeting, so all that will keep me on the road.

            Bill and I made a small road trip of our own the week before last, driving several hours into the Kenyan countryside to spend the weekend with Samuel and Esther Chege Ngarachu. When Bill was a university student he spent two months living with Samuel and Esther and their three young children in their tiny rough plank home and following Samuel around the circuit of five small rural churches he pastored. Bill was the first ‘mzungu’ (white guy) they’d ever had stay with them, so it was a learning experience on both sides! That was 28 years ago. Since then Samuel and Esther have been our father and mother in Kenya, and we’ve been able to visit them a number of times and to watch their kids grow up into well-educated Kenyan professionals. Now Samuel’s 71 years old, and he and Esther have retired on a small farm. No electricity, no running water, but lots of warmth and good times at their house! We sat around and reminisced, met some of their neighbors on Saturday night, and on Sunday morning Bill preached to the little congregation of twenty people at their local church. Then they sent us home with our car loaded with produce from the farm. (Esther wanted to send a live chicken with me, but I passed on that.) A great reminder for us of what the multi-cultural family of God is all about.

            Linnea (20) and Caroline (18), both at the University of Virginia, are in the last stretch of their semester, with exams looming. Now we’re counting down the days until they come to Kenya for Christmas, especially since it will have been a whole year since Bill has seen Linnea. Actually, it would’ve been cheaper (because of the dates we’re able to travel) for us to go to the States for Christmas rather than for them to come here. But when we floated that idea we got a stream of incensed emails: “We are Africans! We want to come home to Africa for Christmas! You don’t understand who we are as missionary kids and what we need!” But you don’t even know anyone here in Kenya… “It doesn’t matter. It’s Africa and we want to come!” As missionary parents Bill and I felt a certain sense of gratification in that, so now we’re looking forward to a relaxed tropical Christmas together.

That’s our news, and here’s a list of our current prayer requests:

• Praise for a good first term teaching at the Nairobi Evangelical Graduate School of Theology (NEGST), and prayer as we prepare next term’s classes: Bill teaching systematic theology and ministry of the church, and Stephanie teaching Greek exegesis.
• Prayer for Stephanie’s work with the Accrediting Council for Theological Education in Africa (ACTEA)—especially for the preparation she’s doing now for projects in Nigeria in February and in Ethiopia and Kenya in March.
• Prayer for Caroline (18) and Linnea (20) finishing the semester at the University of Virginia, and for their long-distance travel to see friends at Thanksgiving and ‘home’ to Kenya for Christmas.
• Prayer for the continuing legal conflict with Stephanie’s brother over selling their late parents’ house and resolving their father’s estate, and prayer for the family friend who’s agreed to take power of attorney over the house to help move the process along. This situation is a sad and bitter one; please pray for Stephanie’s brother’s salvation in the midst of it.

Happy Thanksgiving to our American friends! And we pray for all of you wherever you are, especially in these uncertain economic times around the world. God is good, and we’re trusting him to provide for each of us. It will be interesting to see how he does it…

blessings,

Stephanie

for Bill, Linnea and Caroline Black

Here’s me (Stephanie, second row at left) with my hermeneutics class. I told them to wave to our supporters!

One of the things we appreciate about NEGST is the diversity of the student body. In this snippet from our hermeneutics class photo there are students from Kenya, Nigeria, the Gambia, the UK, the US, and Korea.

Doing group exercises on the chalkboard in Intermediate Greek class—my attempt to make learning all that grammar interesting for the students. Njeri, George and Daniel (all from Kenya) laughing as they struggle to come up with the answers…

Soren (Denmark) writes for his group…

…while Mary (Kenya) writes for hers as Sharon (US) and David (Kenya) cheer her on.

Uchay (DR Congo) shows off the finished product.

You Anglicans and Episcopalians out there may be interested that we spent Sunday afternoon a few weeks ago at Kenya’s Anglican cathedral…

…watching one of our American NEGST colleagues being ‘made’ a deacon (first step toward ordination to the priesthood). Just one more way Anglicans in Africa are influencing the church in the US.

A completely different setting: the farm owned by our Kenyan ‘parents’…

Samuel…

 

…and Esther.

Me getting dressed to visit their church on Sunday morning. No electricity or running water, but there are ways around that.

Bill sitting with the elders before church, to plan the worship service.

Afterwards, the three pastors: Samuel (retired), Stephen (current pastor of this and several other congregations in the area), and Bill (guest preacher).

Back on the home front, Linnea (L) and Caroline (R) show off their university colors at a weekend retreat for their Christian fellowship group. (They claim they did not plan to wear those shirts on the same day!)