So this past weekend, Brandon, Lily, and I went to Uganda to raft the Nile, which turned out to be by far and away one of the coolest things I’ve done in a long time. After a tumultuous and excruciatingly early departure, we finally arrived in Jinja, Uganda just in time to get on a raft with four Swedish girls and a Kenyan guide for the 6 hr expedition. All incredible rapid experiences aside, I was pretty much beside myself freaking out thinking about Moses in the basket and the whole river turning to blood. Giddy would be a fairly accurate description. John Wilson claimed that this trip made the Ocoee look like a little stream in the backyard, but that hardly begins to describe how incredible the trip was. Our section of the Nile had 12 class V rapids, more than any river I’ve ever heard of. I’ve rafted the Ocoee probably five times, which, for those of you who don’t know, is the river they did the Olympic kayaking competition on when the Summer games were in Atlanta; in other words, its pretty hard core. But on the Ocoee I’d seen a raft flip like maybe once; on the Nile on Saturday, our boat flipped three times, and sent half the boat flying out the side inexplicably a fourth time. Somewhere between being sucked underwater in the middle of the final class v rapid, and reemerging to basically body surf through the rest of the waves, I thought to myself, “This is just about the best thing I’ve ever done.”
After the rafting, we had an equally fun and surreal, if not adrenaline evoking, experience in Kampala, the capital of Uganda, where we met Michael Pepper and his team of four other Lookout Mtn. Presers in the middle of their summer mission trip to northern Uganda. For those of ya’ll who know those folks, be encouraged; they’ve had an incredible opportunity to both see and be participants in Christ’s redemptive work, and that’s about the best anyone could hope for. Pepper is a good friend, and it was really refreshing/so strange to be able to kick back and chill with him some 8 time zones from our normal stomping grounds.
“Every rose has its thorns,” as they say though, and our first thorn was the four hrs + trip back to Kenya crammed into the back of a hot, dusty, cramped matatu. For those of you Memphians who remember sitting in the nosebleeds at the Pyramid for Tigers games, and how you had to sit sideways in your chair to avoid having your knees jammed into the seat in front of you . . . . picture that, but take away about 6 inches of leg space and you have a somewhat accurate depiction of my seating arrangement. Also, it was pretty much the only time I’ve ever entered a vehicle clean and come out completely covered in dust from head to toe; but then again, I’ve never been on such a miserable excuse for a road either. The second thorn came this morning, when I found out that about half the money I had exchanged back into Kenyan shillings at the border was counterfeit. Don’t hate, whoever was making the fake bills was dang good at what they do. I couldn’t even really tell the difference in full daylight, much less in the near pitch black darkness of the Ugandan border.
After the rafting, we had an equally fun and surreal, if not adrenaline evoking, experience in Kampala, the capital of Uganda, where we met Michael Pepper and his team of four other Lookout Mtn. Presers in the middle of their summer mission trip to northern Uganda. For those of ya’ll who know those folks, be encouraged; they’ve had an incredible opportunity to both see and be participants in Christ’s redemptive work, and that’s about the best anyone could hope for. Pepper is a good friend, and it was really refreshing/so strange to be able to kick back and chill with him some 8 time zones from our normal stomping grounds.
“Every rose has its thorns,” as they say though, and our first thorn was the four hrs + trip back to Kenya crammed into the back of a hot, dusty, cramped matatu. For those of you Memphians who remember sitting in the nosebleeds at the Pyramid for Tigers games, and how you had to sit sideways in your chair to avoid having your knees jammed into the seat in front of you . . . . picture that, but take away about 6 inches of leg space and you have a somewhat accurate depiction of my seating arrangement. Also, it was pretty much the only time I’ve ever entered a vehicle clean and come out completely covered in dust from head to toe; but then again, I’ve never been on such a miserable excuse for a road either. The second thorn came this morning, when I found out that about half the money I had exchanged back into Kenyan shillings at the border was counterfeit. Don’t hate, whoever was making the fake bills was dang good at what they do. I couldn’t even really tell the difference in full daylight, much less in the near pitch black darkness of the Ugandan border.
By the way, I've included a picture of me with my field supervisor, Patrick Koyi. This guy is the truth, and has really helped me out in my research here. I think he kind of looks like a tall, African Yoda, and he's definitely got that whole guru thing down. What do yall think?
My research has come to what may turn out to be a major crossroads (for those of you who are content with stories of Nile rafting and hippos, feel free to stop reading; I won’t be offended). For the first six weeks of my research, I basically did focus groups, participant observation, Participatory Learning and Action 10 Seed Ranking tools, and informal interviews with members of CCS sponsored groups and with local microfinance institutions (insert laughter from all com dev majors, and blank stares from pretty much everyone else; I apologize for the gratuitous jargon). I realized last week that I’ve sort of come to the end of what I can do with the focus group questions I was doing. This week I’m going to try some new participatory tools to try to get the groups to discuss what their community strengths, weakness, opportunities, and threats are. This is all a part of my efforts to try to do research that doesn’t just ask communities “What’s wrong with you?” but also, “What is right with you? What strengths and abilities do you have?” I have come to believe that poverty is much more than living below some arbitrary monetary sum, and that if we don’t respect, value, and seek to learn from the poor, we are fooling ourselves, reinforcing Satan’s lies to the community members, and generally ignoring the advice of the One who “chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise,” the One who has placed His image on every human being on the planet, and who “plays in ten thousand places, lovely and form and limbs not His own” in the lives of the economically poor of the world. But I’m also beginning to have this creeping sense of not having enough time, of being totally inadequate, and wondering how the heck I should go about trying to come up with ways to uncover what I’m really after. I may attempt a survey to try to understand the realities of the market situation in which these farmers sell their produce. I genuinely may not be able to pull this off; I basically have a phobia of surveys, and the issues that I am trying to understand are extremely complicated and difficult to uncover. In short, please pray for my research second half, and pray that I would have confidence that He will show me what He desires me to see and to report on.
Pray also for my day to day walk with Christ. The LORD has been so good to me, and recently I have been so overwhelmed by my own inadequacies and shortcomings. I have been confronted with my own brokenness and realized just how complicated everything is about development and mission and the Church and the world. There are many metaphors for the Christian as laborer, and I have certainly been encouraged by the call of Scripture to work joyfully as unto the Lord. But there are also a host of verses that ascribe to us the metaphor of wanderers or sojourners in the world. As I begin to catch a glimpse of the overwhelming complexity, and the inability of any of us apart from the work of the Holy Spirit, I have been filled with the feeling that I am more of a discombobulated wanderer than a “purpose driven” laborer, but that as such I have been given the incredible opportunity to see what Christ is doing in Bungoma district, and am doing what I can to be a part of it. I am reminded that ministry is not our service to God; it is God’s grace to us to allow us to see and be a part of His Kingdom work. Praise the Lord that He does not reject the likes of us, His ragtag, rebellious band of children, to be His agents for change in the world.
Pray for me, and please stay in touch. I love and miss you all, but there is plenty to do and see, plenty to rejoice in and mourn over, here in Bungoma, and I’m glad that the LORD has me here for another 6 weeks.
Peace,
rhodes
My research has come to what may turn out to be a major crossroads (for those of you who are content with stories of Nile rafting and hippos, feel free to stop reading; I won’t be offended). For the first six weeks of my research, I basically did focus groups, participant observation, Participatory Learning and Action 10 Seed Ranking tools, and informal interviews with members of CCS sponsored groups and with local microfinance institutions (insert laughter from all com dev majors, and blank stares from pretty much everyone else; I apologize for the gratuitous jargon). I realized last week that I’ve sort of come to the end of what I can do with the focus group questions I was doing. This week I’m going to try some new participatory tools to try to get the groups to discuss what their community strengths, weakness, opportunities, and threats are. This is all a part of my efforts to try to do research that doesn’t just ask communities “What’s wrong with you?” but also, “What is right with you? What strengths and abilities do you have?” I have come to believe that poverty is much more than living below some arbitrary monetary sum, and that if we don’t respect, value, and seek to learn from the poor, we are fooling ourselves, reinforcing Satan’s lies to the community members, and generally ignoring the advice of the One who “chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise,” the One who has placed His image on every human being on the planet, and who “plays in ten thousand places, lovely and form and limbs not His own” in the lives of the economically poor of the world. But I’m also beginning to have this creeping sense of not having enough time, of being totally inadequate, and wondering how the heck I should go about trying to come up with ways to uncover what I’m really after. I may attempt a survey to try to understand the realities of the market situation in which these farmers sell their produce. I genuinely may not be able to pull this off; I basically have a phobia of surveys, and the issues that I am trying to understand are extremely complicated and difficult to uncover. In short, please pray for my research second half, and pray that I would have confidence that He will show me what He desires me to see and to report on.
Pray also for my day to day walk with Christ. The LORD has been so good to me, and recently I have been so overwhelmed by my own inadequacies and shortcomings. I have been confronted with my own brokenness and realized just how complicated everything is about development and mission and the Church and the world. There are many metaphors for the Christian as laborer, and I have certainly been encouraged by the call of Scripture to work joyfully as unto the Lord. But there are also a host of verses that ascribe to us the metaphor of wanderers or sojourners in the world. As I begin to catch a glimpse of the overwhelming complexity, and the inability of any of us apart from the work of the Holy Spirit, I have been filled with the feeling that I am more of a discombobulated wanderer than a “purpose driven” laborer, but that as such I have been given the incredible opportunity to see what Christ is doing in Bungoma district, and am doing what I can to be a part of it. I am reminded that ministry is not our service to God; it is God’s grace to us to allow us to see and be a part of His Kingdom work. Praise the Lord that He does not reject the likes of us, His ragtag, rebellious band of children, to be His agents for change in the world.
Pray for me, and please stay in touch. I love and miss you all, but there is plenty to do and see, plenty to rejoice in and mourn over, here in Bungoma, and I’m glad that the LORD has me here for another 6 weeks.
Peace,
rhodes
4 comments:
Hi, Michael!
Greetings from your Pennsylvanian cousin! I sent you an email just a short time ago thanks to Lisa sharing your email, but had to leave a comment here too! It's so good to hear about your adventures. What a blessing you are! Thank you for sharing all of it with us.
I didn't realize how long you would be in Africa and misspoke in my email to you thinking your trip wasn't as long as it indeed is.
We will be anxious to hear back from you and to keep in touch better now than ever before (I hope) now that we have each other's email!
It's hard to see you all grown up and halfway around the globe when I envision you on Great Grandma's back porch swinging at age 5. You truly have become a wonderful man! What a privilege to watch you mature and grow into someone who's eyes are so firmly on Christ! Great Grandma and Grandpa as well as your Grandma Faye are smiling down from heaven on you. I can only imagine what Great Grandma would have said knowing you were all the way over in Africa. I don't think she ever could have fathomed having one of her little ones go so far away. Regardless they would (and do) all rejoice for the person you have become!
May God strengthen and encourage you while you continue to "tour" Africa and beyond. We will pray that He guides to through your requirements and enlightens you in His plan for both you and the people you are currently serving!
God Bless and much love,
Lori (Linn) Smith
I have enjoyed reading your blogs, but this was by far my favorite! I am praising God for his grace in allowing you to participate in his kingdom work and it was a great reminder to me to remember that God is advancing his kingdom through all of us weak and miserable and inconsistant followers no matter how mundane the task we are performing at any given time. Thanks for the encouragement!
I have been praying for you and your work and will continue to do so. It is still exciting to me to think of all of you summer interns all over the world. I picture little beacons shining at various points on a globe. Keep shining- always and only by God's grace!
preach it brother! love you bro. i cant wait to serve beside you in the fall.
update your blog! miss you bro
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