Nakuru

A few photos from the area where Davide and I camped, while conducting training in Nakuru, Kenya. Will post blog on how the trainings went in the next few days.

This was my tent. Quite comfortable, except for the fact
that the animals loved screaming all night ... then there
was the Muslim in the tent behind me who decided
to pray as loudly as possible at 3 AM our
last night there. I, of course, took the
opportunity to go witness to him.

This Rhino was actually lying down when I
went over to take his glamor shot.

The Water Buffalo: as mean as they are ugly.

Water Buck

There are thousands of Flamingos on Lake
Nakuru. When they fill the sky, it looks
like a painting by Monet

There is nothing like a close
interaction with a Rhino to get
your adrenalin going!

Right and Wrong v Wise, Not So Wise

Life is difficult. It’s even more difficult when you are stupid.
John Wayne

Whose Choice Is It?
God: Adam. I want you to make this garden more beautiful: all the animals are yours, as well as the fish and birds--rule over them. You’re free to eat from any tree you want, except that tree over there. Eat the fruit of that tree and you will die. Do you understand?

Adam: Got it, Lord. You want me to be fruitful and to multiply, make the garden more beautiful, tend to it, eat what I want, but not from that tree over there. Any other no-no’s that I should be aware of?

God: Nope, that’s it, just the one. Okay. The garden is yours. Do what you think best. I suggest you start with naming the animals.

Adam: (Walking over to long necked animal, looking back over his shoulder at God) Most Holy Creator God, please tell me what to name this animal.

God: No. I told YOU to name them.

Adam: Can you give me a hint?

God: (Silence)

Adam: (After naming some of the animals) Er, Lord … I am feeling kinda funny: I think it has something to do with wanting to be fruitful? How does that work?

God places Adam and Eve in the garden. He gives them some directions for life, and one commandment regarding the Tree. Other than this, they were totally free to do what they wanted, as they wanted, how they wanted. In other words, they were to use their God-given capacities for decision-making. Whether it was naming the animals or precious stones, what bush to trim, or which to leave alone, whatever, there was no right or wrong decision: only wise, or not so wise.

Come on now: if God wanted to literally tell us what to do in every decision we face, why then did he give us the book of Proverbs? I think too many people ask God for directions, while what he wants us to learn is wisdom.

Consider the freedom we have been given … and then reject. “Don’t eat that fruit” turns into “Don’t touch that tree” which then becomes, “We don’t want to accidentally touch that tree so let’s build a fence around it.” The next generation finds that some of the children keep kicking their footballs over the fence, so they build a fence around the fence … “just in case.” Next thing you know, there are so many fences (man-made rules) that it is now impossible for anyone to even get into the garden, much less enjoy its (permissible) fruit! I don't know about you, but this doesn't appear all that wise a way for living life!

Seeking God for Direction
Saul: Yowzer, what just hit me?

Christ: I did

Saul: Who are you?

Christ: I am the one you have been persecuting, Jesus Christ.

Saul: You gotta be kidding me. So you actually did come back to life? Shiii …

Christ: Quick witted. I can use that. I want you to go down to the city where I will give you further instructions.

Saul: A little help? I can’t see!

Christ: Ananias, Saul will be showing up. Pray for his healing and baptize him. I am sending him to the Gentiles.

Ananias: Saul, Christ told me to tell you to go the Gentiles.

Saul: I knew it. He wants me dead. The Gentiles? Is this a joke?

Ananias: No, he says you are to go witness to them.

Saul: Got it. Okay. Where do I go?

Ananias: Toooo the Gentiiiiles. Funny, he didn’t mention your deafness …

Saul: Cute. Which Gentiles?

Ananias: That’s your choice.

Saul (now Paul): Knock, Knock

Gentiles: Who’s there?

Paul: Paul

Gentiles: Paul who?

Paul: Paul-I-use-to-be-known-as-Saul. You might remember me from …

Gentiles: Go away

Paul: (Next door) Knock, Knock

Gentiles: Who’s there?

Paul: Paul

Gentiles: Paul who?

Paul: Sigh

Gentiles: Just messing with you man, come on in.

We have a tendency to think of Paul as having this on-going conversation with the Almighty, who told him where to go, what to say and to whom, every moment of the day. He did not. Go back and read the story: he only “heard from God” a handful of times. The rest of the time he was on his own, so to speak, using his God given capacities for decision-making. There was no Right or Wrong door to knock on, no Right or Wrong Gentiles to go speak with. He was told to go: how, when and where were pretty much up to him.

When Being Right is Wrong
Osh to Gosh: (Two Israeli Spies in Canaan) I know, let’s go over to that prostitute’s house!

Rahab: Come in, my little chickadees!

Gosh: You sure this is okay?

Osh: Come on dude, don’t be a legalist: there was nothing on the Stone Tablets about this … was there? We’re not married, she’s not married … Crikey, I knew I shouldn’t have skipped those catechism classes. Alright, just in case, we’ll only hide here for the night.

Rahab: Wake up, boys: Ya got trouble right here in River City. The cops are looking for you, but I know who you are, and I want to join up. I know your God is the True God.

Gosh: What did you tell them?

Rahab: That I had no idea what they were talking about.

Osh: You LIED?

Rahab: Of course I lied. It was either that or your heads would be on a spear before sunup.

Gosh: I think that goes against one of the Big Ten, Osh.

Osh: Well yeah … what are we supposed to do now?

Gosh: According to my catechism class, the penalty for bearing false witness to the Powers That Be is that whatever would have happened to us--should she had told the truth about us--should happen to her.

Osh: She’s toast? We’re going to whack her because she risked her life in saving us? I don’t think so. I think Joshua is going to want to have the sisters choreograph a victory dance to honor her. No way is she in trouble. These yahoos do not deserve the truth.

Gosh: Or kick us out of the army for failure to live up to The Code. What’s the deal then with soldiers who go along with someone who bears false witness? You heard Jethro’s message, Crossing Every T: Dotting Every I. “Obedience is all that matters. It doesn’t matter how you feeeeeeeel, it is all about doing what you are told.”

Osh: Get a grip man. This is not that … this situation wasn’t covered by that commandment. This is something different. I am not sure how, but I know I am right. In fact, I am so sure that I believe one day li'l Rahab here will be considered one of the heroes of the faith!

Rahab: I don’t care about the Faith Hall of Fame. Just promise me that when the fighting begins your guys will not smack me. Here … I use these flyers for advertising. Pass ‘em around to your officers and let them know that this is a drawing of the one who protected the spies … by lying for them.

Life is all about making choices, and most of those choices are rarely about being Right or Wrong, but about being Wise or Not So Wise. And when it turns out your choice may have been not so wise? You do not repent for it, you don’t feel guilty about it, you learn from it.

But what about when it appears to be a question between Right and This Can’t Be Right, Can It?

There is an old Chinese definition of wisdom: wisdom being the destruction of idealism. For years and years after hearing this, it plagued me, it worried me, it harassed me. After all, I am an idealist. Here is the Universal, the Mark, the Standard, the Good, whatever, and it is to be lived up to. And this is true … up to a point. However, just as we applaud piety while eschewing pietism, seek to honor individuality while standing against individualism, and hold to the concept of reality while rejecting realism, so should we seek to live according to our ideals without falling into idealism. (For Jesus’ take on Idealism, consider his comment: Man was not made for the Sabbath, but the Sabbath for man.)

Life does not always come to us with easy choices, especially when the choice is between what is Ideal and what is Real. In WW II, Russia was our enemy, yet we entered into an agreement with Stalin to help us rid the world of Hitler and the Nazis. Living in the tension between the Ideal and the Real requires wisdom, which, in turn, destroys, not our ideals, but ideal-ism.

Or so I believe.

Copyright, Monte E Wilson, 2008

Why I Go

I have a mailbox load of emails from people who have written asking why in the world I would go to Nukuru, Kenya, (see previous post) where close to one hundred people were recently killed in the riots brought on by the allegedly rigged elections. The short answer is this: Because I can.

If you had family members there, wouldn’t you want to go help in anyway possible? If you couldn’t go help, wouldn’t you tirelessly ask around to see if you could find someone who would go? Wouldn’t you pray ceaselessly that someone would go?

People are suffering. I can go help. Why wouldn’t I?

The longer answer is a bit more complex and I am not sure I can communicate it clearly.

As I see it, God created me so that when I am in the middle of a war zone or crisis, I feel the most incredible peace and sense of purpose. It is situations like these where I sense God’s hand on my life. Don’t get me wrong here: I experience anxiety like anyone else would, but it never overwhelms the peace I experience. While I have no desire to be a martyr, I trust God knows where I am (God: “Michael, where has that Wilson wandered off to, now?”), has led me to these places, and so believe he will use my life in such situations ... however he sees fit.

I am not an adrenalin junkie. I do not go out of some craving for adventure. And, believe me, there is no glory seeking involved: anyone who thinks differently has never been in such situations for long. Very few glory-seekers last longer than a few years, as the circumstances beat such sentiments out of you. All there is is a sense of calling to Be There for people who are suffering such terrible things.

It is not so much the relief (food, medicine, fishing gear and the like) or trainings that matters to me, as wonderful and necessary as these are for people, but the ability to communicate with people: “You matter. I see you are suffering, more importantly God sees.” And when you do this, you can see in people’s eyes and in their demeanor, that this acknowledgement—this visibility—touches them deeply.

I have never spoken of this publicly but believe it was the most formative experience of my life, within this context.

Twenty-one years ago I was in the Philippines preaching my last Evangelistic Crusade. Why it was my last doesn’t matter here. I was in a village that was controlled by the communist insurgents. Each night they would send word that if I stood to speak they would shoot me on the spot.

The main pastor hosting these meetings told me to not speak. My translator resigned the first night. The mayor came and told me that he would have some local militia close by, and that, when I was shot, they would kill the man who shot me. How’s that for a word of comfort?

Yes, I was frightened. Yes, I was anxious. Yet, as I looked out at the people and saw bullet wounds, faces disfigured by brutal beatings, a man missing an arm because he refused to stop preaching, how in the world could I say, “I am here to share God’s love,” if I walked away? How could I say, “O, you guys matter, your lives matter,” and then run?

The meetings lasted four nights. Each night was pretty much the same, with one difference. The previous year I had decided to stop “preaching” and simply share, usually for around 15 minutes. Amazingly, the crowds doubled. “What? An evangelist who doesn’t preach for an hour?” And most of the time there were no altar calls: not until the last evening. Anyway, I decided that if I were brief in this situation, it would appear that I was succumbing to fear … so, while I still simply told stories (bouncing off of Christ’s parables), I did so for around 45 minutes each night.

If you have ever seen one of these crusades, when the speaker stands to deliver his message, he has around 20 or more ministers on the platform with him. Every one wants to be seen! Not this time: there was just the new translator and Monte. However, each night all the ministers from surrounding villages and towns would later gather at the little hut where I was sleeping and talk for hours about how wonderful it was that God had spared my life. It was a crack up. And believe me I needed the comic relief.

When the meetings were over, an elderly man came to me and asked if I would have coffee with him. As we sat there, he told me of his despair, of how he cried to God every night asking him if anyone knew of his sufferings, if any one cared, if God cared. “Your being here tells me God sees and cares, it also tells me the church in America sees and cares for us. I don’t want their money. All I want is to know that they know, and are praying for us. (Can you hear his need for visibility and empathy?) I have never experienced such a sense of God’s love as I have this week. Thank you for being here, thank you for seeing us, for coming to see what is going on here, and for caring. Thank the church in America. Please go back and tell them that we are standing true to the faith, even in the face of such persecution.”

I was not a famous minister. I did not have a high profile. No one there had ever heard of me. I was just a guy who cared, who went because he could. And it made all the difference in the world to these people. Someone cared. Someone came. Someone said, I see your suffering; God sees your suffering. You matter to me; you matter to God.

After 35 years of going-because-I-can, I am still amazed at how deeply it touches people to be acknowledged, for another human to demonstrate that he gets who the other person is (relatively speaking), and what is happening in their life. I think part of it is how suffering so often isolates us from God and others: does anyone see? And if they see, do they really care? Another part of it—I believe the most significant aspect—is that in acknowledging the other person’s existence and circumstances, with respect and empathy, we affirm their inalienable dignity: this is especially so with those who are being oppressed.

So--

I go because I can.

I go because my own sense of dignity and self-respect would decrease if, knowing I can go, and seeing the dignity given every human being by right of having been made in the image of God being disregarded by men who only want to oppress and abuse, I did not do what I most certainly can do: for their sake, for love’s sake, for God’s sake.

I leave March 11 for Kenya and will be gone pretty much the rest of the month. Subsequently, there probably will be no more posting here until I return.

Copyright, Monte E Wilson, 2008

Kenyan Chaos, Christian Divisiveness: Where Will the Peacemakers Come From?

For the past 50 years, Kenya has been one of the more stable and promising nations in Africa. Ever since the allegedly rigged elections last year, however, it has been thrown into chaos. Three hundred thousand people have fled their homes, due to the violent protests over the recent election results. And where have they gone? They are returning to where they feel safe: Kambas to Kamba land, Kikuyus to Kikuyu land, Kisiis to Kissi land, Luos to Luo land, Americans to Disney Land. Failing that, people are flowing into Nairobi.

A friend of mine in Kenya wrote that the roads were filled with cars and trucks loaded up with beds, blankets and whatever a family could haul away. People without any transportation could be seen dragging their mattresses and furniture down the road.

More than 1,000 people have been slaughtered since the elections. Out in Nakuru, the provincial capital of The Rift Valley where Davide Zaccariello and I will be conducting a Leadership Workshop next week, close to 100 people have been murdered.

Tribal hostilities are always close to the surface in Africa, the slightest offense being seen as an occasion for defending tribal honor. But here in Kenya, people have lived in reasonable harmony for over five decades. Who knows, now. When those peaceful neighbors were the ones who attacked you with machetes and burned your house down, I am not so sure the recent Peace Agreement is going to inspire people to go home. As of now, the incumbent President, Mwai Kibaki, who was declared the winner, and the opposition leader, Raila Odinga, who claims to have won, had the elections not been rigged, will now preside as co-leaders. Will this assuage the hostilities?

Think of it like this: What if Al “We Were Robbed” Gore’s Tribe thought they would get away with whacking the Tribe of Bushites with impunity? And what if the resolution was, “I know: Why don’t you two men become Co-Presidents?”

Here in the US, winners reward their “Tribes” (Democrats or Republicans) with cushy appointments: so too in Kenya, only the rewards go to actual Tribes. Kibaki is a Kikuyu, which, I believe, is the largest and most powerful Tribe in Kenya, while Odinga is Luo, where, as luck would have it, the Luo’s have long felt that they have never been treated fairly. How’s this going to work, if it’s business as usual, and the Tribes (often referred in our media as “ethnic groups”) are already looking for the slightest slight?

No, it’s a mess, and there is no political panacea that is going to cover over the bleeding wounds. What is needed is new ways of thinking and seeing. As I see it, Tribal loyalty is only healthy when it is merged with something larger, some good that transcends and binds us all. However, getting people to see the whole and not just the parts, and to think in terms of the potential benefits that synergy among the Tribes can produce over time, as opposed to the barriers presented by maintaining strict Tribal separation, is one huge challenge.

If you think otherwise, consider this:

If it was all that easy, here in the US we wouldn’t have the divisions between Roman Catholic and Protestant, Pentecostal and Presbyterian, Baptist and every other Christian denomination that exists, would we? According to St Paul there is only one body, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of us all, who is over all and through all (Eph 4): so what’s up with our very acrimonious Tribal divisions? How is it, then, that after around 400 years of Christianity in the US, we have about 20,000 denominations—oops, make that 20,001, as some deacon was just offended with where the piano was placed in the sanctuary, and is taking his sub-tribe to create a New Tribe: Piano People for the Prince of Peace.

Copyright, Monte E Wilson, 2008