Those Kendalls

Next time you see Paul Kendall be sure to say “habari” instead of “hello.” Paul is obsessed with learning Swahili and it’s a riot to follow him around the Rift Valley Academy campus trying it out and learning as he goes. And of course everything and everyone he encounters is ‘muzuri’ … good. The Kenyans love our Ashevillians.

And we’ve loved winding down our month in Africa with some time with the Kendall family—well, half of them. Paul is managing the household well (with a little biscuit making from Bernice) in Christie’s absence, along with Mary and Rich(ardson). They have been terrific hosts, showing us the RVA campus, introducing us to parents and friends, building fires, taking us on walks for real African food, feeding us in the school cafeteria —and all the while reminding us of home.  It’s nice to have coffee from a Dripolator mug.

The school campus sits perched above the Rift Valley. It’s cool and breezy up here at 7,000 feet (no heating or air conditioning in the homes) but down in the valley it’s nearly desert. There are tent cities of displaced people from the election violence a few years ago living down there—from the campus you can see them gleaming white against the brown landscape—and Paul has already begun ministering there. Last week his Sunday School class trucked drums of water and other supplies down to them, and he’s busy thinking up better ways to help.

Meanwhile, Mary and Rich seem to have settled into RVA life happily, with new friends, activities, and sports. We loved having them as our African guides for a few days...and it took the edge off harder places like Joytown and Kijabe Hospital.

We've now been back in Nairobi two days and leave in just an hour for the airport, first to Amsterdam and then on to Atlanta...and home. With more stories to tell.

Survivors

On Thursday we crisscrossed tea plantations and coffee farms to reach Thika, an old town north of Nairobi, Kenya. Some might remember The Flame Trees of Thika, one of my favorite books of childhood and later a TV series. Today colonial remnants are hard to spot (as are flame trees) but Thika is an industrial and agricultural center—in fact, Del Monte has a pineapple processing plant there and roadside stands were stacked high with them.

But we were in Thika to visit Joytown Special Primary School for the Disabled.

There 340 kids live and go to school under supervision of five therapists (5!!) and about a dozen teachers and dorm mothers. These are some hard working heroes, as many of the children are severely handicapped and in this culture often neglected or cast out by their families.

 Francisca helps to run the school and told us her story. She was born with spina bifida and her grandmother several times tried to kill her...with rat poison. Her father described her as "useless" and her extended family thought she might possess an evil spirit. "No one understood me," she said. "I had problems with my bladder, and my legs would not bend. I was always alone and always wet. I had no peace—at home or at school." Ultimately her mother ran away with her and took her to a Catholic priest, which turned out to bring only temporary respite. But when an uncle became a Christian, he helped get her to Kijabe Hospital, the Africa Inland Mission outreach that specializes in treating childrens' disabilities. She was 19.
There doctors amputated her right leg from the knee down and treated pressure sores that can be fatal in spina bifida victims. And they taught her to catheterize herself, which proved life-changing for her. She was no longer an outcast who always smelled bad. They also shared the gospel: "My life completely changed."

Francisca went on to work at Kijabe Hospital for 10 years before she began mentoring children at Joytown. Many of them suffer from spina bifida, cerebral palsy, or other birth defects, and Francisca understands how isolated they feel. Now she is married. And she is expecting a baby. Doctors at Kijabe have treated thousands of spina bifida cases, but one told me today they've never known a survivor who went on to have children.

 Francisca here is comparing her cane with a student's.

Flora

We do solemnly swear that it is summer here.

Rebecca Bell in the raspberry patch. Sunday afternoon.

And abundant swiss chard at the Bell home in Harare.

Jacaronda in bloom in Johannesburg. Everywhere.

A park in Johannesburg.

Roses in Stellenbosch. For Dottie and Carol.

Seaside nasturtiums in Hermanus, South Africa.

And unnamed beauties in the Company's Garden in Cape Town.

Tonight making our overnight flight from Harare to Nairobi. Realizing we are on the downhill I am overwhelmed by the blessings of safety, health, peace among ourselves, and richness of new friends. God is good all the time.

Zim time

 I am listening to the strange sound of rain on a thatched roof. It is both thumping on the roof and running down off the verandah behind where we sit, dry, indoors.

 

We are staying in an old cottage in the Harare suburb of Borrowdale, an area settled by Europeans, largely around the time of independence, which for Zimbabwe happened relatively late—and under unusual circumstances. The white Ian Smith led the Rhodesian Front, first fighting for independence from England then fighting the black militant ZANU forces, with majority (i.e., black) rule not coming to Rhodesia/Zimbabwe until 1980. During that prolonged struggle many white families moved out to places like Borrowdale as blacks began to take up residence and business in former white areas of the city.

Today we talked to Tim, who heads up Scripture Union in Harare, and was one of the first blacks to attend Central Baptist Church. Until then blacks were not allowed to use the sidewalks in the city, could only walk in certain areas, and only to and from work (for whites). They had to live in designated areas, often alongside industrial sites, could only shop in certain places and were prohibited from buying certain things, like the local Castle beer. Not quite apartheid, but close. So today Tim is one of the leaders at Central and heads up a Christian ministry that takes Bible literature to government schools, even teaches classes on scripture to students.

Central started in the city center in 1928 as Salisbury Baptist Church (Harare was named Salisbury until independence) but today is a mostly black church. The church has had a black pastor but currently the senior pastor is white and associate is black. Vibrant only begins to describe it. We’ve had a great time getting to know senior pastor John Bell, a lifelong Zimbabwean and my original contact here and now friend and outstanding host, and Asafa, the assistant.

Today after Central’s service, Asafa took us to a “high-density area,” the government term for the projects, so that we could experience “African worship” in native Shona tongue. Pastor Gardner Moyo and the congregation were welcoming. 

As we readied to leave, a member of the congregation, whose name is Knowing God (really) prayed for us as a family, and for us all to “grow together in Christ.” Shona names are always meaningful, and in addition to Knowing God, I’ve met Zimbabweans named Thank You, Six Pence, Grace, and learned tonight that at one time Wireless was a popular name (given by parents jealous of the whites’ telegraphs and telephones).

Listening to Shona then English then Shona and Scripture recognizable to all and among people who live in houses made of brick, corrugated metal, and cardboard & plastic was a reminder of something emphasized at Lausanne: Christianity is the only truly world religion. It breaks the barriers.

But none of that’s to say that Zimbabwe is easy, or easy to understand. We spent yesterday visiting high-density areas all over the city, shocked by the extent of poverty, woeful housing (high-rises of one-room lodging once meant as hostels for single men now housing families), chaos, and crime. As John said, “We live in a land of sadness.”