1 October 2009

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 5^th, 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 50^th 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 :)

3 June 2009

I (Stephanie) have been so immersed in work at the Nairobi Evangelical Graduate School of Theology (NEGST) that I looked up and suddenly it was June. Somehow all of May passed me by without writing to you—my apologies! Bill says I must have been really immersed in the class prep I was doing at home this past Saturday, because when he got back from grocery shopping he discovered banana peels on the floor by our bedroom window and realized that monkeys had come in the house while he was gone and stolen the ripe bananas from the kitchen counter and I didn’t even notice.

I’m teaching two courses for NEGST this term, both of them on Greek exegesis, one focusing on Ephesians and the other on Greek narrative (we’re doing Synoptic Gospels and a bit of the Septuagint as well). The narrative course is part of NEGST’s extension program and meets two nights a week at the Anglican cathedral in Nairobi’s city centre. This means traveling a hour through rush hour traffic every Tuesday and Friday night, teaching for three hours to tired people who often arrive late from work, then another 30- to 45-minute ride to reach home by about 9:30. As you can probably tell, my enthusiasm for this commute is minimal! But I do realize that bringing theological education to where God’s people actually are is important, so I’m taking a turn teaching in this program. My extension students include a high court judge, a missionary from Singapore, a retired engineer, several pastors, and a mother of very young children (she brings the new baby to class with her). Meanwhile, in my on-campus course I’ve had the same group of ten second-year-Greek students for three terms in a row, and I must say I’m feeling a good deal of satisfaction at how much their Greek skills have improved. I think a couple of them could do PhD work at this point, and five or six more will be able to use Greek quite effectively in preaching and teaching. The other two just basically struggle with Greek, but I concede that that’s no real reflection on their calling to ministry!

After teaching three heavy courses last term, Bill’s appreciating having just one this term, even if it is four hours of Systematic Theology every Monday morning. The focus of this term’s theology curriculum is ecclesiology (doctrine of the church) and eschatology (the end times). Bill enjoys the opportunity to challenge students’ preconceived ideas on such controversial topics as forms of church leadership, the sacraments, women in ministry, the ‘last days’, etc. It’s true that most of our African students (like most of us elsewhere) have never asked themselves why they believe certain things or how those beliefs and assumptions match up with the biblical texts and the global history of Christian interpretation of those texts. Fortunately we have quite bright students at NEGST and they say they’re actually grateful for the challenge to think through these issues for themselves. Bill’s also appreciated having some extra time this term to do some reading and writing of his own, and he’s been busy organizing the logistics for our upcoming furlough (see below).

Because I’ve been so busy at NEGST recently, I’ve been somewhat ignoring my other job as accreditation officer for the Accrediting Council for Theological Education in Africa (ACTEA). Since I did big projects for ACTEA in Nigeria in February and in Ethiopia and Kenya in March, I haven’t needed to do any traveling in April or May, so it’s been a good time to catch up with things here. But now the pendulum is swinging again, and I need to make short trips this month to Zimbabwe (7-10 June) and Zambia (15-17 June). Fortunately I do like to travel. I haven’t yet become too blasée to relish the idea that next Monday I’ll be in Zimbabwe, the following Monday I’ll be in Zambia, the following Monday in the UK, and the Monday after that in the US of A—love it! I’ve never been to Zimbabwe, so I’m especially interested to see that situation first-hand.

            Then on 22 June, Bill and I will finish our first academic year in Kenya and board a plane for our biannual ‘home assignment’ (furlough). We’ll spend a week in Cambridge visiting friends and our supporting church there, and then head to the US for July and August. Can’t wait to see you all! It’s been two years since Bill’s traveled ‘out of Africa’, as last summer he was here supervising our move from Ethiopia to Kenya while I was in the US with Linnea (now 20) and Caroline (18)—so I think he’s more than ready for a change of scenery. Once we reach the States, we’ll spend the first week or two helping Bill’s mom move from Ohio to a new house in Georgia, and then we’ll hit the road, driving up and down the mid-Atlantic coast to see as many of our supporters as possible and say ‘thank you’ for making it possible for us to be here teaching in Africa. We’ll finish with a couple of weeks’ holiday in South Carolina with Bill’s parents, before taking Linnea and Caroline (currently spending the summer with the grandparents in SC) back to the University of Virginia. Bill will hover nearby for another week to see that the girls are each well settled into their new off-campus accommodations, while I return to Africa a bit earlier in time to attend an ACTEA meeting in the Ivory Coast. Here’s our tentative schedule—let us know where we can meet up with you:

23-28 June        Cambridge, UK (St Andrew the Great C of E)

1-8 July             Cleveland, OH → Athens, GA

11-12 July         Anderson, SC (Central Presbyterian Church)

16 July              Richmond, VA (luncheon @Third Presbyterian Church)

17-26 July         Virginia Beach, VA (Kempsville Pres Ch, 19 July; Grace Covenant Pres Ch, 26 July)

30 July-2 Aug    Reading, PA (First Presbyterian Church)

5-18 Aug           Hilton Head, SC (First Presbyterian Church)

21-23 Aug         Charlottesville, VA

            And finally, Bill and I would like to report that we had a glorious safari and beach holiday over the Easter break just before this term began—one of the wonderful perks of living in Kenya! Before spending the rest of week at the Indian Ocean coast south of Mombasa, we had several days at Tsavo National Park, which I think is the largest animal reserve in the world. It’s certainly big anyway. It’s about the size of Wales (or New Jersey), more than twice as big as Yellowstone. And it has LOTS of elephants. We have an old family joke, “Oh, look, it’s a wildebeest,” which reflects the fact that although we were quite excited about seeing our first wildebeest (in 1984) our ten thousandth wildebeest (about two hours later) made somewhat less of an impact. Well, Bill and I have just about decided that Tsavo elephants are the new wildebeest. We were camping in and exploring just one segment of the park, and one afternoon we drove for more than three hours and about 125 km/75 miles before we saw another human being, but we saw scores and scores of elephants. An amazing glimpse of God’s creation. I’ll include some photos below.

So that’s our news, and here is a quick summary of our prayer requests:

• Thanksgiving for the completion of our first year in Kenya teaching biblical studies, systematic theology and church history at the Nairobi Evangelical Graduate School of Theology (NEGST)—it’s been wonderful!
• Prayer for Stephanie’s travel to Zimbabwe (7-10 June) and Zambia (15-17 June) as part of her work as accreditation officer for the Accrediting Council for Theological Education in Africa (ACTEA).
• Prayer for the travel and logistics involved in our upcoming ‘home assignment’ in the UK and US, 22 June-end of August—we hope to see many of you.
• Prayer for Linnea (20) and Caroline (18) spending the summer with Bill’s parents in South Carolina and working at summer jobs there. And praise that Caroline was able to get her driver’s license in Virginia before heading to SC for the summer.

Looking forward to seeing many of you in the next few months!

blessings,

Stephanie

for Bill, Linnea and Caroline Black

Here’s my NEGST extension class that meets on Tuesday & Friday nights at the Anglican cathedral

Our monthly NEGST Ladies Fellowship in May, bringing together women students, student & faculty wives, and staff. It was the East Africans’ (Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania) turn to host

East African snacks: matoke (plantain in peanut sauce), arrowroot slices, mandazi (fried bread)

Fortuna (from Bourkina Fasso) has done a fantastic job as our chairwoman this year

Here’s our youngest attendee (with his mum):

Camping in Tsavo National Park during our Easter break

Bill pondering the view from the tent

Tsavo is known for its elephants

But there are other animals, too. This was a close encounter of the “omigosh-it’s-a-lion!” sort.

Beautiful Tsavo

We’re grateful for the good year Linnea and Caroline have had at the University of Virginia. Here’s Linnea with the two young Somali refugees she’s been mentoring as part of UVA’s student volunteer services. (She’ll be a director of this mentoring program next year.)

Caroline (far right) demonstrates the limitless versatility of missionary kids—African adventurer to Virginia belle!