Africa Supporter Update #2

It seems to me that it is now a good time for an “Africa Update”, and today is the perfect day to write such an update. This morning I woke up to Uncle Alex quietly knocking on my door bringing me my “morning tea”. I can assure you that not all “missions” are as posh as this example betrays, but that is life here in rural Uganda when you are a guest. I’ve been staying at A Perfect Injustice’s guest house at “House B” for young boys in a village 20 miles north of Kampala. My schedule today was actually quite relaxing. I had my morning tea, dropped off my tea set, and was frankly appalled to see a large cauldron filled with literally over 100,000 ants—wings and all—about to be roasted for human consumption. I promise you, I’m still not that brave. Then I helped Uncle Peter in the field for a couple hours hoeing in preparation for the planting season (oh the blisters…). Then we rested, ate rice and beans, and rested again. Today is a little more lax than the average day, but I’ve enjoyed talking with the Uncles and Kamara. Furthermore, I’ve had the time and space to nearly finish Stanley Hauerwas’ (my favorite theologian) memoir, Hannah’s Child. It is one of the more provocative and challenging “Christian books” I’ve ever read—although in my opinion, all Christian books should contain those two characteristics. It is far too academic to fit in well with the surroundings, but in all honesty, I tend to exist in the space between the head and the heart so reading about Hauerwas’ life amidst the friendship of Africans is incredibly fulfilling.

But anyways, God is good and I have appreciated my time spent away from Kampala, which is where I will spend most of the remainder of my time in Uganda once Abby and David arrive at the end of the week. Here I have the space to acclimatize myself to not only the weather and pace, but the culture—and I have found that I need that. I haven’t lost my ability to easily move through different cultures and spaces, but I will say that being in the Kivulu slum at the street program for street boys was a tad overwhelming. This is likely because I am still not very good with young children. This may seem odd for someone who has spent the last four months as a history teacher, but it is true nonetheless. On the other hand, perhaps we should be very cautious of ever becoming underwhelmed by the scenes and human costs of abject poverty and dehumanization. I know that much of what I’ve observed in this life I should never be OK with. In time, I am sure I will find my place in the street program, perhaps leading games and devotions with the street children who attend.

My focus for my time here, however, is on the men who are the caregivers of such precious children as those in the street programs and now those who are in the homes. These men—men such as David, Alex, Peter, and Eddie—are the men that I have come more specifically for. Starting likely at the end of next week will be the Mending the Soul group that David Kakeeto and I will be co-leading. The idea for such a group came to me one day sitting in the pew at church. I give full credit to the Holy Spirit because I think that no external reality caused me to think of fusing my love for Africa with my skill and experience in doing MTS groups. But the idea came and with the encouragement of a couple friends I started down that path that has brought me to where I now sit writing you.

In truth, I am wholly out of my league. Thankfully I trust that God has called me to this specific context despite my weakness. God has also been so gracious to afford me the opportunity to do an MTS group with David while he and Abby were back in the U.S. This will likely prove to be the critical action to prepare David’s and my hearts for leading broken men who care for broken boys into their own pain and to find Christ there—for this is exactly what we aim to do. It will not be my task to increase my brothers’ faith, for their faith is already radically being used to enlarge the Kingdom. No, it will be my task to assist my brothers in realizing more of the Truth. That is one of the best parts about Christianity: we get to tell one another the Truth. I’ll get to share with them in scripture what God has to say about the abuse they’ve suffered, the abuse those they care for have suffered, and the healing from profound pain found in the Cross. This probably sounds somewhat abstract and for today it is, but as I journey with these men I expect incredible things to happen, incredible truth to be found. Hopefully I’ll get to share some of this with you.

And yet my prayer remains today what it was last week: Just like I am a cultural human, so are the men who I will be doing the group with. We come from profoundly different cultures and cultures always provide unique challenges to being honest with our experiences, beliefs, concepts of God, etc. Thankfully David can attempt to bridge the gap between myself, the designed-for-Western-audiences MTS curriculum and my African brothers. But David and I do not know how it will turn out. We just have faith that this is something that we should do no matter how hard it may prove to be. All that to say “Please pray for us”. That is what I would shout for all to hear if I could. There is efficacy in prayer and we believe that. Moreover, David and I have likely failed to pray enough so we quite literally covet your prayers! Pray specifically that a) the right men would be in our group, b) that God would prepare the hearts of these men for some serious introspective work, c) that David and I would be able to effectively lead these men through healing, d) that we would be able to discern who among the men would be able to faithfully carry on the leading of MTS groups in David’s and my stead.

Thanks for taking the time to read through this admittedly incoherent “update”. You can expect more coherency and specificity once our group has started and the real work has begun. … read below or on facebook for other musing on Africa & life.

God Bless you all,

Dan

Africa Journal #3

Africa Journal #3

Please extend grace to me as you read over what I will write over the next few weeks. I’ve read many short-term mission reports in my time (and written many myself!) and they rarely fail to be quite joyous and exuberant. This, of course, is a wonderful thing and I will be the last to tarnish the joy a believer has when boldly entering into “the mission field”. But I am not an unladen man. I wish I was, but what I am most facing as I process every night alone is the incredible pain I have carried with me to Africa. I would have loved to have just left it in the desert where it likely belongs, but as such things go, it has followed me here. This last year has been hell for many a personal reason. I would entertain the idea of explaining it to people, but it is something that defies simple explanation and I have found that explaining it doesn’t always help. It is, ultimately, an issue that God and I have to figure out. Why is this important? It’s probably not if I were to merely report the external reality around me. Yet I feel a strange compulsion to do what should probably be a common virtue amongst the believer: be honest. Honesty brings me to a place to say that my sheer realism/pessimism is caustic in a place like Uganda, where faith is no abstract notion, but the very fabric of the Christian church (ie. Christ’s followers). That may seem like an absurd statement, but I assure you it is not. Faith is part and parcel to the African church. They believe. There are few atheists in the church. They believe in a way that I can only dream of believing and some, incredibly, have told me that they dream of believing as I believe. What a poverty, then, that exists in my own heart. The contrast that my faith, with all its contradictions and doubts, brings to Africa is nigh palpable. It exists for me, in the self-conscious world of self, as this balloon that I have around my head, so inflated that it almost keeps me from entering a room. It says, “liar” on it and I feel moments away from being found out that when someone makes a statement about God I do not believe first, but first attempt to understand the theological and sociological framework behind a statement—because I have learned that Christians simply don’t believe the same things. That is not to say I think they are wrong, but I feel a strong desire to be precise and correct because let’s be honest, Christians have lied to one another, and to the World, quite a lot about what they believe. We say Jesus is Lord and yet we believe, for example, violence is restorative, redemptive and many of us will, quite literally, die on that hill—despite the radical nature of the person of Christ. It is a heresy to believe such a thing, I have found… and yet because we in the West are so liberal/rational/post-modern/whatever, we cannot tell someone that they are a heretic anymore—it costs too much or “we should have grace” . We don’t know how to move the Truth out of what we’ve been taught to believe. You see, I don’t see the world the way most people see it. It’s not simple. It’s not even manageable. It is infinitely complex and we, as believers, are completely out of control. Africa, for me, takes those things that I have silently been drawn to believe, and take them from the back of my mind to the front of my mind. Because in reality, the thing, pathetic theology we have come to believe is true is simply not strong enough to face the reality that exists outside of our safe world. Does our theology, does our practical belief have anything to say to those on the sharp end of a machete? I don’t think it does. I am the worst amongst the liars then because I find myself speechless, most often, when I am here. I have to talk just so I can fill the void between what I do not understand and what I so desperately desire to understand. I am a weak man. It is a desperate desire of mine to just be present because I don’t have anything to say. I bring nothing past a desire to be used for the Kingdom and to experience healing in my own life because I promise I need it as much as anyone. My heart is as corrupted as they come and of that I can assure you. Perhaps during my time here I will begin to truly grapple with Grace for as I sit here, completely loved by my African friends and so unworthy of their servant love I feel both Grace and a desire to reject it all the same. It feels much more correct, much more safe, much more just to hate myself in a place I have little to offer.

Today I was talking to a man who was kidnapped by the LRA and, I’m sure, experienced terrible things, but all he wanted to tell me about was his love of God. I want to weep in this life more than any other thing. I am so weak and detestable… and I rarely believe God loves me though I’ve heard it a million times. If I didn’t have the friends and community I have, I would probably cease to even entertain the notion no matter how evident the “proof”. All I have is a broken heart. That is the reality of my offering to people who, like me, have experienced great pain due to a broken world. Some may say, “that is enough”, but I do not believe them. I wish they were right but I am often paralyzed by this life. I struggle to find a coherent Christian narrative in the land where I live and it really, really messes me up because I don’t really know the truth and as wonderful as the Bible is, it rarely comforts me in the way that it ostensibly comforts others. You must understand that I desire God in a way that He would be very real to me and tell me the truth to cut through the fog of war in my mind because I struggle to believe almost anything some days and yet I grasp to this persistent hope that I have pinned my future on the Truth and that in God’s timing I would know it deeply, intimately, and take refuge there. But I do not think this is the season. I do not think we, as a people, are accustomed to realizing that in suffering we see another side of Jesus and this is the side I want to see. I want to steel myself in sackcloth and roll my heart in ash. I want to mourn. I want to then find hope and cling to it despite that I feel keenly aware that there is something wrong with everything and that my existence in this body politic known as “The Church” has not really prepared me for the reality that what I feel now, in this very place, may be the least common denominator in human experience. But what do I know? These are just the musings of a mad man who sometimes glances off of this monolithic reality known as “the truth” and I’m left spinning at the implications because I cannot see what I have seen and not be changed. Something must give.

Africa Journal #2

Africa Journal #2

It feels good to get fingers to the keys. I don’t really have anyone to process with here and I am an external processor (for the most part). So writing is a release for me, especially on a day like today where my head and heart have been racing, going from one thought to the next. That’s not to say it has been negative, just busy internally. The reality is that the way I think and feel did not change when I stepped into the muggy air at Entebbe Airport. No, the same processes, emotions, fears, and hopes followed me here. They do not disappear and I am not sure if they should. I should be done hating myself for the various things I feel and struggle with, such self-loathing has obviously not produced life. So while I am here, again for the first time (haha), I would just love to be able to integrate both my past experience and the experiences of the right here, right now. I want to have, as Henri Nouwen would say, a “ministry of presence”. But who am I kidding? What do I bring to Africa past a broken heart and a desire to make a difference on this earth? Maybe that is where one starts. I do not know.

I do know that my time here has already been a crash course in Uganda 101. I’ve about died in a car accident, ridden on a boda boda who took me to the wrong place, eaten matoke a dozen times, carried 30 kilos of paint on my shoulder, called other white folks “muzungus”, killed a million bugs, made a fool out of myself playing football (soccer for all you US-only folks), stumbled through Luganda (it’s coming back!), walked through a marijuana garden in a slum, eaten jackfruit, laughed with the infectious smiles of children here, and, as is fitting for a short-term mission trip (which is what I’m ostensibly on), did a work project in a village. And of course, that is only the beginning. Tomorrow I go to church, and you’ve never experienced church to the fullest extent if you’ve never been to an African church. I’ll likely be asked to preach… and I’m not joking. Such is the danger of being considered “a missionary”, haha! But it would be an honor if they did ask me to preach, although I would kindly turn them down.

Africa is an amazing place. It is simply “other” compared to the West (as in Western/liberal civilization). It defies explanation for so many reasons and can’t quite be explained. Granted, a Ugandan moving to America would doubtless say the same thing. This is all just to say that the two societies are remarkably different. Now, you all know me and know that to me, for better or for worse, I’m always taking the macroview of experience. I’ll be asking existential, theological, or sociological questions amidst a very human experience. This is not a good thing, but it is a part of being Dan. Granted, considering the categorical imperative isn’t helpful to loving your neighbor. Neither is weighing the relative merits of pre-modernism, modernism, and postmodernism as it pertains to the Gospel and the efficacy therein those systems. But I do that. I cannot shut off my brain, and I didn’t learn to think like that in college. I learned to deconstruct in the Church. Likely that is due to the church’s capitulation to the American experience, but that conversation is for another time. I say all this to say that my hope and prayer is to, again, be present when Ibra is holding my hand or when Shafik is asking me about my life. I want to be present when I am back in the Kivulu slum amidst the refuse of human life and the incredible injustice one confronts upon walking across that bridge over a stream of filth into that slum. I want to be there, not in my head, not trying to deal with life in my head as I am often wont to do. Please pray I do not run in my head or my heart from the very real reality in front of me. There should be no words to describe a world so impoverished and unjust that children eat scraps out filthy, defecation-filled gutters—and I have no words. We in the West are inundated with photos of abject poverty around the world and all it has really done is make us unable to see. We are overwhelmed with the scope of the issue. We likely care, but feel powerless to move Heaven and earth to change how things are, for surely you and I did not singularly make things this way. For the believer, however, we have to find a way to make the gospel very, very real to the kids I attempted to play with yesterday. I do not have the answer to such a statement. My being here does not make me more holy than you, for I’ve done nothing here that I’ve not received more in return. Abby & David (and the others at A Perfect Injustice) show us all how it is done—how the Gospel of Christ is made real—by their presence amongst those who have nothing.

In Matthew 5, Jesus lays out, in what would eventually be called “the Beatitudes”/Sermon on the Mount, what the kingdom of God is represented by. They were not ethics, or demands, but descriptions of Christian community and presence. These verses are not about Jesus; they are Jesus. This is not a goal to reach, but a description of what it looks like to believe that Christ has ushered in a new age and we are just here to show the world that truth. Bonheoffer too focused on understanding the Sermon on the Mount in this way so that we would always focus on Christ. Bonheoffer’s “Discipleship” was written to those who were to be pastors in the confessing church—those who were more likely to die in Buchenwald then preach a sermon. This is the context of discovering the centrality of Christ in doing His Mission. This is the context by which lives are brought to the Savior. This is the context of my brothers and sisters ministering to the least of these. While they are unlikely to be killed, they are likely to face the full assault of Satan in other ways. But it is here, not necessarily this place, but in this heart position, this relentless mission that we see blessing of being poor in spirit, the blessing of mourning, the blessing of giving mercy. This, after all, is just some of the faithful learning to represent what God has already done. Now I just have to learn this for myself. Seeing such a visceral battlefield for the hearts of men and the soul of the Church played out in a Kampala slum is somewhat overwhelming….

Next week I will be starting a Mending the Soul group for the men here at A Perfect Injustice. You can expect the character or my writing to shift as I again lean on Psalm 77 for understanding my own life and the lives of those around me. This very well may be the calm before the storm.

Thank you for reading. God Bless you all.

Dan

Africa Journal #1

Africa Journal #1:

It sounds cliché, but it is true: The first thing you notice when you return to Africa is the smell. To be honest, I won’t even try to describe it to you because it is, appropriately, quite exotic to the Western olfactory senses. I love it. I was in Mexico just last week and as much as I love that country, it just doesn’t smell exotic. It doesn’t elicit in the one doing the smelling that sense of otherness and freshness. That’s not to say it smells bad. Quite the contrary since I have travelled all over the planet and the best food (and therefore smells) are to be found just south of the American border. But Africa, the smell is just different and it brings with it memories of riding in the back of trucks singing African spirituals under the starlit sky in Malawi, the smell of the rainforest just after it has rained in Congo, the smell of my thatched-roof hut in Zambia, and the smell of the markets and bustle of downtown Kampala—that unmistakable (and some say, caustic) mix of pre-catalytic converter exhaust and matoke.

As I write this I am sitting in my “guesthouse” feeling familiarly overwhelmed. No, not by the smell, but by the incredible shift that has occurred in my life this past week. Just over a week ago I had a job teaching history to kids with mental illness or drug addictions. Just 96 hours ago, as of this writing, I was in Mexico getting a root canal out what seemed to be someone’s house. It went well, but it will take some time to erase the images of blood and teeth flying out of my mouth. After that episode I spent a day eating the best food on the planet and chilling on the beach at a beach house that cost me $27 a night. About 72 hours ago I was climbing Mt. Ajo in Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument in southern Arizona. It is one of the most beautiful and verdant stretches of desert on the earth. Just 48 hours ago, after not sleeping for about a day, I boarded a plane to Dubai, UAE and for the first time in quite a while was able to take a deep breath and just enjoy the (15 hour) ride. Emirates is quickly becoming my favorite airline and they treated me well, as is characteristic of the Arabs’ hospitality. They even paid for me to stay in a nice hotel in Dubai for my overnight in the city! While in Dubai I was able to experience a disconcerting amount of proximity to opulent wealth that makes Beverly Hills and North Scottsdale seem petty. Dubai is unbelievably wealthy and the 7-star hotel, man-made islands, indoor ski resort, exotic car malls, and tallest building on earth I witnessed (again) just make you take a step back. I admit a certain draw to Dubai that I have not felt previously that I’ll have to process later, but the next morning I was whisked away to the incredible Dubai International Airport bound for one of the poorest countries on earth and the ultimate destination of my travels.

And now I am here with basically all I need. I wish I could report that some amazing spiritual revelation has befallen me in my 15 hours in Uganda, but I’m afraid that is not that case. There are a lot of romantic notions about Africa that affect us all at some point in time, but I do not wish to feel those romantic feelings of place. Last night I prayed a simple prayer that God would speak to me and use me while I am here. I am so weak and I really bring very little to offer to brothers and sisters who have ten times the faith I do. Nevertheless, I believe God has brought me back here to serve in a way that I can—a way that God can speak both to me and through me. This, of course, is through the Mending the Soul group I will be doing for the men here at A Perfect Injustice. These are my passion… and where your passion and the world’s need meet that is your calling. So for this season, that is my calling. God give me strength.

As I write this I still do not have internet or photos loaded up so please be patient. You can expect this entry and likely a few more in a couple of days! That was a pointless sentence, I know.

Well, I am off to the street program with Peter, my new friend here. We were supposed to leave an hour ago, but we’re still here, and that’s just fine with me. Oh, how I love Africa time!

homecoming: