Africa memories

Our plane touched down at PDX on Saturday, February 6. April is coming fast. I am settled back into my "home" and "work" routine. I do not wake up at 2:45am - wide awake - anymore. My jet lag is long gone. Any facial sun tan I brought back with me has faded. The sights, smells, and sounds of Sierra Leone and Guinea slip farther back into my memory bank. What memories now rise to the surface?

Life is hard for the majority of people in West Africa. Heat and humidity. Poverty and unemployment. Sickness and disease. The lack of clean water and consistent electricity. All are a daily reality. This is not to mention the struggle to find enough food to eat every day when you don't have a job or the job you do have pays you very little. People by the thousands live day-to-day, hand-to-mouth. And yet they march on, day after day in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds. They find a way to exist and live. And many of them discover a way to live joyfully while surrounded by daunting circumstances. To put it mildly, West Africans are a resilient people. I am humbled by their perseverance.

My Africa team is the best (shown in the photo with the 5 Susu men we spent 2 1/2 days with on retreat in Guinea). We spent almost two weeks together under some challenging circumstances - jet lag and adjusting to a new culture, place, people, and food. And all of this without argument, conflict, or differences. Call that a miracle! We enjoyed being together. We helped each other when assistance or encouragement were needed. We laughed together more than I have laughed in years! We got to the place where we could begin to finish each other's sentences. We endured each other's jokes. We looked beyond our respective quirks. We found acceptance in our brokenness and weaknesses. We were truly a team.

We spent the majority of our time in West Africa at the "Sesay Cafe by the Sea." The home of Sam and Josephine Sesay in Lungi, Sierra Leone. They not only took us into their home; they ushered us into their hearts. They treated us like family. We felt like family. We shared space, time, food, conversation, laughter, and prayer together. The rhythm of African life worked its way into our daily existence. It wasn't so much white skin touching black skin as it was people from two vastly different continents and cultures touching each other at a below-the-surface level. The Sesay's are an incredible family. We are the better, I am the better, for having rubbed shoulders and hearts with them.

Footprints on our hearts

I recently read a new book on leadership entitled Leaders Who Last by Dave Kraft published by Crossway Books. Kraft writes about sitting with one of his daughters in the office of her high school counselor. They were discussing an issue concerning his daughter. On the wall behind the counselor was a collage that stole his attention. There were dozens of pictures of the counselor's students at football games, school outings, proms, etc. Right in the middle of it all was a quote -

Some people come into our lives and quietly go. Others stay awhile, and leave footprints on our hearts, and we are never the same.

Kraft lost track of the conversation and lost track of time. He was mesmerized by the quote. He prayed under his breath, "Lord, make me a person who leaves footprints in people's lives. I don't want to be a person who comes and goes with no lasting impact. May I be a person who intentionally and lastingly influences others."

At short time before this experience Kraft had been asked by his supervisor in Stockholm, Sweden, "So, if you could do anything, what would you want to do?" Kraft could not give him an answer. He was thirty-eight years old and had served on the staff of The Navigators for ten years. He was experiencing a lack of motivation, uncertainty, and no clear joy or direction in his ministry assignment in Sweden.

This led to Kraft getting away for a few days to pray, fast, and think things through. He hid away for three days to wrestle in prayer. He took a Bible, a legal pad, a couple of books, and most importantly, a strong sense of determine not to come back until he had some sense of direction.

He developed a list of things he should be doing that truly expressed who God had made him to be. Eventually he and his family left Sweden and returned to the United States. Over time a strong sense of purpose began to emerge. The crowning moment occurred when he read the quote mentioned above on his old high school campus.

Kraft is now seventy years old. A short time after visiting the office of his daughter's counselor he wrote down his life purpose statement -

To leave footprints in the hearts of God-hungry leaders who multiply.

Kraft discovered his life purpose - "I was designed to be in the leadership development business. I mentor, coach, and invest in the next generation of leaders. That is my purpose, my unique contribution to the body of Christ and the kingdom of God. I want to leave footprints in the lives of people - not just any person, but leaders and influencers who are hungry for God."

Hm mm. What is my life purpose statement? What is yours?

Kraft suggests a few steps to help us along the road to identifying our purpose -

1. Record Bible passages God has applied to your life.
2. Reflect on how God has used you in the past.
3. Determine what you are passionate about.
4. List your known gifts and strengths.
5. Delineate what you have excelled at in your work experience.
6. Define what action words best describe what you like to do.
7. Write down what you enjoy doing in your free time.
8. Reread all your answers.
9. Take notes of common themes.
10. Write down key words or ideas that repeat.
11. Summarize those key words in a short, energizing statement about yourself.

May God graciously lead us down the road of living our lives with powerful purpose!

Faith as its meant to be

Charles Malik served as the Lebanese Ambassador to the United States and President of the United Nations General Assembly in the 1950s. On September 13, 1980 he gave an address called "The Two Tasks" at the opening of the Billy Graham Center at Wheaton College. The following quote reflects the personal and public scope of his Christian commitment - "I speak to you as a Christian. Jesus Christ is my Lord and God and Savior and Song day and night. I can live without food, without drink, without sleep, without air, but I cannot live without Jesus. Without him I would have perished long ago. Without him and his church reconciling men to God, the world would have perished long ago. I live in and on the Bible for long hours every day. The Bible is the source of every good thought and impulse I have. In the Bible, God himself, the Creator of everything from nothing, speaks to me and to the world directly, about himself, about ourselves, and about his will for the course of events and for the consummation of history. And believe me, not a day passes without my crying from the bottom of my heart, 'Come, Lord Jesus.'"

Mary Karr on Prayer

Mary Karr is the author of the bestselling 1995 memoir The Liars' Club, its sequel Cherry, and the recently published third installment Lit. She is also an award-winning poet. Lit covers the period of her alcoholism and move to sobriety, her failed marriage, and her conversion to Christ via her entrance into the Roman Catholic Church.

In an interview with Jon Sweeney in the pages of Books and Culture (March/April 2010, p. 15), Karr made this comment about prayer - "I pray not from being particularly devoted or righteous, but because I'm particularly desperate." It seems to me that desperation is at the heart of some of my (our) most passionate and deepest prayers. I do pray out of devotion, my love for our Triune God of grace. I do pray out of being righteous, that sense of trying to do what pious people do. My prayers of devotion are truly inward and meaningful but not always enduring. My prayers of righteousness are often short, mechanical, and of a surface nature. But my prayers of desperation come from deep within my soul, can be blood-stained, and cry out for God's intervention and mercy.

Paul Miller in his book A Praying Life makes the point that our best prayers come from a realization that God is both infinitely powerful and infinitely caring. I pray because God can accomplish what I can't. I pray because God truly cares about me even if I feel I'm simply a speck of dust in his vast, immeasurable universe.

An infinitely powerful and caring God understands our desperation and desires to turn it into devotion. How so? We cry out in desperation. God hears and answers. Our gratitude gives birth to devotion. But what about when God does not hear and answer our desperate cries as we wish? Devotion can still bloom if we grapple with the fact that our infinitely good God knows what is best for us and, because of this, sometimes denies us what we so urgently desire. Unanswered prayer is answered prayer.

Johnny Cash

This week I downloaded the latest release of Johnny Cash's music from Amazon.com - American VI: Ain't No Grave - 10 songs for $3.99 (I only paid $.99 thanks to the $3 credit I forgot about). This is the sixth and final installment of Cash's critically acclaimed American Recordings album series. Cash sings about the pursuit of salvation, the importance of friendship, the dream of peace, the power of faith, and the joy and adversities that entail simple survival.

My favorite is Ain't No Grave, a hauntingly fearless and strong proclamation of his resurrection from the dead -

There ain't no grave can hold my body down

There ain't no grave can hold my body down

When I hear the trumpet sound

I'm gonna rise right out of the ground

Ain't no grave can hold my body down

Guitar, keyboard, percussion, and church bells combine with Cash's signature sound to give voice to the certainty of resurrection for the follower of Christ. You can hear the personal conviction evident in Cash's singing of these resurrection lyrics.

Following Ash Wednesday, in the beginning days of Lent, on our way to Easter Sunday morning, Ain't No Grave is now part of my Lenten experience. Check it our for yourself.

Children

This is a picture of Gav, the team's "child magnet" in Africa. We walked down to the beach one afternoon below Sam and Josephine's house. These boys appeared out of nowhere. They loved having their picture taken. When you showed it to them they started pointing at the camera, eyes growing bigger, laughing, and talking to each other in their native language (since Sierra Leone was a British Colony, the people speak English).

Even though Sierra Leone has one of the highest infant mortality rates in the world, young children are everywhere - walking to or from the school in their uniforms, playing on the beach, running between houses (fences don't exist in Lungi), playing soccer, congregating under shade trees talking and laughing, or carrying food or water on their heads (mostly girls).

Children in Lungi, a town of about 20,000 across the bay from Freetown where Sam andJosephine live, have the run of the town. It's not uncommon for them to take off from home, roam the neighborhood, and be gone for hours at a time. Everyone feels (is) safe. It reminded me of my childhood where on a summer day I could disappear with my friends for most of the day and wander all over my part of town and it was no big deal. Moms didn't worry back then like they do now. It was a safer time.

When Gav and I took our afternoon hike down to the beach a little six year old boy tagged along. I didn't notice him at first. But as we made the big turn and started walking back to Sesay's by another route I pointed him out to Gav who told me he had been following us the whole way. Sheku told me his name was Alpha and he was Hawanatu's son (Sheku is the pastor of the Susu Gospel Ministries church in Lungi and Hawanatu runs the ministry's preschool). Alpha had wandered away from home and made his way to Sam's and then he came with us. He was a long way from home. His mother didn't know where he was and it was no big deal.

I was struck by the freedom Lungi afforded Alpha. Lungi was a safe place. I saw Hawanatu at church the next day and mentioned how Alpha followed us to the beach and hung around with us for a couple of hours. She smiled and reported that it was common for him to disappear for hours at at time like that. She wasn't worried because she knew he was safe. Everyone watches out for each other's children. In this sense, Africa felt like a welcome step back in time.

Africa impressions

After we hit the ground in Africa the first thing I noticed was the unrelenting heat and humidity. Sweat drips down your forehead and runs down your back. I remember new waves of sweat appearing as I dried off from my shower to wash off the sweat. Any breeze of almost any kind is welcome relief. A fan brings a smile to my face. And air conditioning, the little that seems to be available, is like entering into another world. One afternoon we took the temperature a few feet away from the shade tree we were sitting under - it was 108.5 degrees in the sun. The shade measured 94 degrees. We didn't venture out into the direct sunlight unless we had to.

Since there was little or no electricity in the parts of Sierra Leone and Guinea we visited the nights were pitch black, blacker than anything I can remember experiencing back home. Both nights we stayed in an African motel in Tanene I stayed outside after the others had gone to bed. I wanted to peer up at the night sky and feel its vastness and awesomeness. There was literally no man-produced light anywhere. The stars seemed bigger and brighter. The striking contrast between light and dark, black and white was stunning. I saw clusters of far-away stars that I had never noticed before. Orion lay straight above me and shined brilliantly like it was lit up by neon lights. I felt like a pin head, a grain of sand, a speck of dust.

I will never forget the taste of cold water. In the African heat drinking lots of water is a necessity in order to avoid dehydration. We drank filtered and bottled water. Ice is hard to come by because electricity is hard to come by. What you end up doing is drinking lots of lukewarm water on hot, hot days to quench your thirst (or at least attempt to). I have a memory of drinking a cold bottle of water. The situation surrounding the cold water is blurred in my mind. I know it was at Sam and Josephine's. The generator was running. This meant the refrigerator was running and the water was chilling. We walked into the house and were handed bottles of cold water. I quickly opened mine and took a long, deep drink. I will never forget that moment and how good and sweet and cold the water tasted. Simple things in Africa are huge.

While in Africa you eat like the Africans, at least we did for most of our trip. I developed three categories of food - the dishes I enjoyed, those that I was slowly learning to enjoy, and those that I wasn't sure if I could ever enjoy. The one thing I looked forward to eating most when I returned home was a Honey Crisp or Granny Smith apple. Either one would do. I craved a sweet, crisp, juicy apple. And to my great delight, when Heather and the girls picked me up at the airport, they brought me a cut-up Honey Crisp apple!

P.S. the picture is of me and Alliance missionary Phil Stombaugh standing outside the Alliance Guest House in Conakry, Guinea