Yes, I really am a pastor.

I just got back from visiting family in my home town, Havre, Montana . Since I don’t get home too often, (and for my mom it will never be often enough) the trip tends to be a pilgrimage of sorts. I was like a pilgrim on the Via Dolorosa in Jerusalem, dragging my family to each site on Hwy 2 so that I could reminisce. The memories and the images came flooding back, as they always do. I showed my youngest son the house in Chinook where I lived until we moved to the big town of Havre, 21 miles down the road. He wanted to see the infamous tree into which I blindly was lead by a mean older sister. The tree was long gone and the house looked smaller than I remembered but all was still familiar.

We went to the Bear Paw Battle grounds where the Nez Perce finally surrendered after trying to flee to Canada. The ghosts of the warriors, women and children who died there in desperation trying to seek freedom still speak to me. It’s changed, of course. Now there are plaques, a full time ranger, and paths from which you cannot stray. I remembered Dad taking us in the Chevy and driving around looking for arrowheads.

We went to my alma mater, Havre High School, home of the Blue Ponies (don’t ask me how we ever got that name.) We drove around Havre looking at homes where my friends used to live, past the college where we swam before the public pool was built, and of course my wife and I had to have lunch at the Duck Inn and get our Caesar.

Every place I visited had changed, after all it’s been over 30 years since I left Havre. Though it all has changed, it was still familiar. The memories of a life long ago made me smile.  I remembered my Dad who died 30 some odd years ago.  I remembered friends, whose names I remembered a bit too easily.  I remembered what we did as a family: going to basketball games, getting our yearly Pronto Pup at the County Fair, walking to church, waiting for Grandma and Grandpa to drive up.  And the funny thing is, I realized as much as I enjoyed all of that I didn’t miss it.  It really was just like a pilgrimage. I walked the holy places of my childhood and for a moment lived, felt, smelled and tasted all that was good and right.  But I couldn’t stay there and I didn’t want to stay there.  It was part of my past and part of who I am, but I still have more memories to make as life goes on.

Believe it or not, as I was driving by my old grade school I thought about how this pilgrimage is like our liturgy, really I did.  Liturgy takes us back to the familiar, no matter how much things have changed.  It allows us to remember and re-live all that is good about our faith, but we can’t stay there either.  As the years go by so will the liturgy change.  We continually add to it so that it encompasses all the experiences of the people of God.  That’s why we go from black, to red, to green, to cranberry.  We remember the past, but let it go to live in the present so that we can look to the future.  ~Peace

Just a little side comment here:  For my son and his friend the best part of dad’s journey down memory lane was being able to go out and "plink" gophers.  For them, it made the 40+ hours in the car all worth it!

Fear

“We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.”
-Winston Churchill

“Weren’t you scared?” my colleague asked a couple of days after we had returned from Tanzania. “Weren’t you scared? My God, there’s so much danger! It must be a very scary place!”

I was as startled by the unnamed questions as I was by the one she had asked. Maybe she was wondering if we were in danger because of the disparity between their poverty and our wealth. Maybe she was convinced that white people would be automatic victims of stereotyping and hatred. Maybe she thought the violence that has plagued so many nations on that continent over the past decades was present everywhere.

I pondered her question. “Yes, I was scared at first.” I went on to explain, “You see, everything was so unfamiliar. I am not accustomed to being in the minority. I did not know instinctively what situations to avoid. I was suddenly dependent on people I had not yet learned to trust. And, foolishly, I had read a disturbing book on the plane.”

“What book?” she asked.

On the flight to Tanzania, I had finished Left to Tell: Discovering God Amidst the Rwandan Holocaust by Immaculee Ilibagiza, a first-person account by a Tutsi who had survived three months during the 1994 genocide by hiding in a tiny bathroom with six other women. "It is a frightening description of the unbelievable atrocities which took place in a country that borders Tanzania. The book culminates in redemption, but the images of violent gangs wielding machetes and of the unspeakable, unthinking hatred haunted me. I could have picked a better book to read.”

She nodded, believing that she understood.

“As soon as we landed, though, I had the opportunity to interact with the Tanzanian people. They are soft-spoken, loving, and gentle. Most have very few material possessions. (Tanzania ranks in the bottom 10% of countries with a median income of $340 per year – less than one dollar per day.) They seemed oblivious to the deeply rutted roads and the near-complete lack of infrastructure. They didn’t seem to mind walking for miles in driving downpours. The few with access to electricity didn’t notice when the power went out yet again. I can’t recall any of them ever complaining.

“You see, their schedules and priorities seemed so different than ours. After a couple of days, I began to notice things. We saw almost no begging in the city of Arusha. We noticed how the people took pride in their small homes, carefully sweeping the dirt in front of their doorways. We heard stories of how they take care of each other and their extended families. We learned from their farmers, their pastors, their teachers, and their health care workers. We marveled at how they creatively carry on despite a near-complete lack of resources. I found myself envying their peace, serenity, and generosity in the face of seemingly insurmountable challenges, even though I barely understood their culture.”

She furrowed her brow. “But weren’t you ever scared?”

I laughed. “Yes. Without a doubt, the scariest night was the first time we heard lions roaring a few hundred meters from our tent camp in the Serengeti. That was a little unnerving.”

She shuddered and went back to work.

Later, that same day I was still thinking about my colleague’s question. Suddenly, my pager went off and I responded to the Trauma Operating Room. A young woman had been slashed with a knife by someone she knew. The trauma surgeons had saved her life and had asked us to repair some of the damage. The multiple wounds were deep and long. It had been a serious attempt to kill her.

As she lay asleep on the operating table, I explored the injuries. Here was a wound that could just as easily have occurred as a result of a machete attack during the time of the Rwandan genocide, from a brutal assault in Darfur, as a result of the recent unrest in Kenya, during ethnic cleansing in the Balkans, as a reprisal for a killing in Iraq, or in any of a hundred troubled lands in the world. Our patient was different only in that she would survive.

Silently, I thought to myself, “Weren’t you scared? My God, there’s so much danger!” I am scared that we will never learn the lessons that are just as evident in our own towns and cities as they are half a world away. I am repentant that our position of privilege has yet to teach us how to discern ways that make everyone safer and more secure. Mostly, though, I am grateful to our new friends in Tanzania for helping me realize that each of us, me included, is called to make a real difference whenever and wherever we are able.

When I went to Africa I saw more than just God’s beautiful creatures and the hand of Jesus in the many churches and places of hope we visited. I took time to look past the splendor of the many rich tourist shops where we and other travelers buy our souvenirs while shunning the beggars and peddlers on the street. For food for the night, the families of those street peddlers depend on their selling meager handmade merchandise to a rich tourist who cares to listen and contribute.

On our free day in Arusha, I sat and listened to the stories of those peddlers, as I knew Jesus would want of me. I believe it is through Jesus’ hand that I write this proposal. I would like to make a contribution box and a poster for donations to the Heifer Project. Heifer Project is an organization that gives animals (cows, pigs, goats, chickens, fish) to needy people. It also provides the education needed for raising the animals. This program helps people actually eat and have surplus animals to sell. Heifer Project gives to the poorest of the poor and offers training about livestock and crops so that the recipients of gift animals can, in turn, teach their neighbors.

As I sat and cried with poor people, I knew I could not sit back and watch children go hungry. God wants me to act. I hope that my Heifer Project suggestion is just the first of many projects I come up with to help people who need to get food on the table, and who struggle just to have a sparkle of hope that things can soon change. I, for one, will do everything I can to make sure change starts to happen.
The Heifer Project is a great start. The front doors of Heifer Project Tanzania in Arusha say it best:
Peace begins when the hungry are fed.

(Steve will soon have a box in the narthex for contributions to the Heifer Project).

This is from Pr. Kristine’s sermon given on April 20, 2008 at St. John’s Lutheran Church

There is nothing like flying into an African airport at night. After a couple grueling, long flights, I’m not sure the members of our delegation knew what they were getting into as they stepped out of Kilimanjaro airport into the heat and the smell and the “otherness” of Africa. Hot and sweaty and exhausted, we descended from the plane and walked across the tarmac to the dimly lit airport. Eventually we passed through immigration, got our bags, we stepped out of the airport, where we were greeted by darkness and a man from our tour company who held a sign with my name on it. But that wasn’t all…there were also other men and women pressing forward to see us, to greet us and help us with our suitcases. Who were these people? As tired and groggy and apprehensive as we were, it took a while to figure out what was going on. As it turned out, Pr. Akyoo and some members of Akeri Parish had come all the way to the airport to welcome us. In kind of a stupor as we shook hands and introduced ourselves. Roses were placed in our hands. And Pr. Akyoo found me and wanted to know, how many of us would be staying in Akeri overnight for a homestay? Back in the States, we had thought that six of us would do it, but now Pr. Akyoo was pressing us, “No, 10 of you. We can do as many as you want.” And so on the spot a few more decided, wide-eyed and more than a little hesitant, that they’d stay overnight in Akeri. Finally there were 8 of us on the list. Satisfied, Pr. Akyoo and the church members said their goodbyes as we climbed into three vehicles that took us to our hotel.
What were we in for? Little did we know.
Scorpions, slugs, mosquito nets, bumpy roads.
Tents with no running water, bucket showers, squat toilets. Kunta Kinte’s revenge. Passing around of Immodium.
Walking with flashlights.

Hundreds of thousands of wildebeest, baby elephants walking underneath their mother.
Vervet monkeys stealing our snacks.
Lions and leopards and rhinoceros. Giraffe and zebras with their necks entwined.

School libraries with only a few antiquated books.
Classrooms with broken windows. Crowded dorms.
Hospitals with rudimentary equipment, pharmacies with few medications.

All of this was memorable, but it was nothing compared to the people we met and came to love. Everywhere we went we felt the welcome and grace of the Tanzanian people. Because of them, it didn’t take us long to settle in and begin to feel at home. Our days were filled with things that came to be familiar:
The shaking of hands, the signing of guestbooks. Warm and gracious welcomes.
The washing of hands before a meal. Tea with milk and sugar. Peanuts, and tiny sweet bananas. Gentle smiles, the exchange of email addresses.
The days flowed by too quickly, and in the end it was very difficult for us to leave. We felt so blessed by our new friendships.
These are images of Tanzania that will never leave us:

Proud Maasai men walking with spears, their brilliant red and blue garments a stunning contrast to the green and brown scenery.
Women and businessmen, immaculately dressed, carefully walking on muddy, pitted roads.
Earnest children, grinning and shouting “Jambo!”
Hospital patients, so understanding as we entered their hospital rooms to see the facilities.
Wide-eyed orphans who cling to us and don’t want us to let go.
Pastors and church workers who won’t let us leave without a prayer.
Church members proudly showing us their churches and schools, feeding us.
Gracious and gentle Tanzanian Christians, welcoming us into their homes and into their lives, sharing with us their faith and their hope.

I think I can speak for all of us, that we have been changed. Our experience in Africa affirmed for us the wonder of faith, and the resilience of the human spirit. And for many, the realization slowly came that we had come to Africa, comfortably well-off people hoping to give so much, but now seeing that we had received so much more than we had given. From our brothers and sisters in Meru we learned what it is like to come before God with so little, waiting to be filled, but yet full of so much joy and hope. We learned what it is like to have a poverty of material goods, but an abundance of grace.
It has been said that:
“There is no church that is so poor that it has nothing to give;
There is no church that is so rich that it has nothing to receive.”

The 21 of us who went to the Meru Diocese have come to know that this is true.
Our trip culminated with our stay in Akeri. Akeri, the place where the first Lutheran missionaries to Tanzania came over a hundred years ago, where those same missionaries were killed, the place I had fallen in love with when I first went to Meru three years ago.

We 8 homestay people arrived in the late afternoon. As we stepped out of the truck, the people of Akeri were waiting, Pr. Akyoo and Martha and Jeffrey and the rest of the people who’d met us at the airport. And not just them, dozens of people, adults and children. The choir began to sing, we were ushered in for tea, chapati, and peanuts. This was familiar to us by now, this felt like home. And we sat at tables in the church meeting room, which had been specially decorated with fabric and bows and tablecloths…as though a wedding were going to happen there.

A wedding of sorts was about to happen. The joining of two faith communities, so different, but so much the same, both committed to loving and serving the same Lord.

We received the most gracious hospitality, and each of us went home with our host family to have dinner and spend the night. By now no one was apprehensive about staying in an African home–it had become a joy and a privilege! The next morning the rest of our group arrived to join us at Akeri. We got a tour of the area around the church. The kindergarten sang for us, the older school kids came outside from their classrooms to sing the national anthem for us. We went into the church’s decorated room, and learned about each other, and talked and shared. Scot told you about this last week. We ate a tremendous meal, dishes and dishes of food, the best that could be offered. And then, in accordance with Meru custom, came the whole roasted goat, the most precious gift that can be offered a guest. We shared the meat. The whole community ate.

And then we pledged our mutual companionship in Christ’s name. Pr. Akyoo and I signed our covenant agreement, in which our congregations agreed to pray for each other at every opportunity, to learn about each other, to exchange information and visits, and to give completely of ourselves to each other as Christ gave of himself for our sake. Tears were shed, gifts were shared. And the members of both churches felt God’s presence and blessing.

God’s family is a huge and wonderful family, and we are so much better together than we are alone. We need each other; we keep each other faithful.

We are partners in faith with our brothers and sisters in Akeri. And because of this partnership, we are richer indeed. Asante sana, Bwana! Thank you, Lord!