Simon's Nairobi Diary - Archive 27

14 June 2006 6:57pm

What does it mean to be part of the church that preaches Jesus as the son of God?

Because: the percentage of born again Christians who have ended a marriage (26%) is higher than non-Christians (22%) 1. 90% of these divorces have occured after accepting Christ 2. For those couples who remain married, the rates of physical and sexual abuse show almost no difference against the national average 3.

Only 6% of declared Christians tithe money to the church 4, and those who tithe give an average of only 2.6% of their income, down from 3.2% in 1955 when US Christians had 541% less money 5. It appears that as Christians become wealthier they give less and less. In fact, the average household income in the US is $42,409. If American Christians gave a full 10% tithe of their income, it would generate in one year alone $143 billion to help the poor and spread the gospel 6. The UN estimates that half of this amount is enough to provide access to health care and education for all the poor of the earth 7.

Christians are almost as sexually promiscuous as non-Christians, seen in a March 2004 report by Columbia and Yale, which found that 88% of 12,000 teens who pledged to wait with sex till marriage failed to keep their promise. The same report found that sexually trasmitted disease rates were the same within Christians who took this pledge compared with those who had not 8. 24% of Americans who define themselves as "born-again Christians" have moved into the house of their boyfriend or girlfriend, verses 33% of the national US average 9.

Christians spend seven times more hours each week watching TV than praying, Bible reading, and in church 10.

I know this is all a bit critical, but I feel it is so beneficial for us to occaisionally get a swift kick in the pants. I get criticized once in a while for being too motivated to want some sort of crazy revolution, but stats like these seem to proclaim that something needs to happen. Those who proclaim Jesus as the son of God must bust loose of this nominalism, make Christ their very reason to live and die, and run free towards remarkability. After all, if being part of the Christian church shows no distinction in our marriages, finances, promiscuity, and priorities, what does it even mean?

13 June 2006 8:47pm

Saturday we climbed Mount Longonot, a dormant volcano in the Rift Valley near Naivasha. It was about a two hour hike from the base to the top, about 9,000 ft above sea level. Sometimes it was so steep that I had to grab handfuls of grass to not fall back and roll on down. When we finally reached the top, we stood on the edge of the most awesome geographical formation I think I have ever seen. There was the crater lip we stood on, there was the crater, and there was the other side of the lip about two miles away. Far in the distance I could pick out hikers walking around the ridge. We had to be careful about the sheer dropoff that faced the inside. Some guys near us had brought a soccer ball, with the goal of climbing down into the crater to play, but it seemed as if the impossible decent had stopped their intentions. I asked them if they wanted to play a game on the lip, but they shrugged me off.

The crater itself was filled, absolutely, with green. Apparently, a volcano is a very fertile place for things to grow, and Mt. Longonot had almost neon green foliage in its crater. The Ngorongoro volcano crater in Tanzania was even used for farming during its colonial days.

I guess I had never seen the foot prints of the power of this earth. So often the world seems something delicately and softly shaped, but that volcano was more like a gunshot. We stood on its ridge and looked down and it was apparent that we had become witnesses of a colossal tectonic piece of what God forms and calls good.

12 June 2006 4:21pm

Betty was teaching me today to make qey wat, an ethiopian berberi sauce, when water came out of the tap. We cheered. The pumps had been broken for a long time. I love water.

Yesterday, though, was a much bigger surprise. My friend Weche and I were doing some late night Pragmatics in a chapel prayer room, since the power had been out all day, and the generator covers the chapel but not our rooms. Well, anyways, I walked outside to answer a phone call when I thought I saw a familiar face. The entire campus was empty except for Weche and I and our take home exams, and then I was eye to eye with Verl, a friend from the past two summers at Springhill and Calvin College. We sort of jumped around, then he wretched into the bushes because he had got food poisoning from eggs as soon as he arrived, but it was altogether wonderful and pretty much the most random thing I have ever experienced.

He is volunteering at a school in the north part of the country for the summer, and last night happened to be his only night in Nairobi.

8 June 2006 8:01pm

I used to hate this guy Andy. We were in Mrs. Simon's fourth grade class and he was really popular and handholding with the girl who got everybody's attention. He was really good at sports and quick mouthed and not 6ft 85lbs like I was. Every recess the boys would gather and cuss and play touch football. Unless I wanted another recess singing Bonnie Raitt songs by myself, I joined the throng. There was nobody else to play with except for the girls and the smelly poor kids that made me self-conscious when they talked to me. They would do the "I got Minch" "I got Randy" style of dividing up. Andy usually was a first round draft pick while I was backwash. Once the apples were counted, Andy usually made a touchdown or five. I only made one, ever, and it was a big day (ask my mom). I was always soaked in envy because he got to invent endzone dances. When I finally caught the Nerf ball behind the two ballcap markers, I was so shocked that I just stood there, really tall. Mostly I hated Andy because he was popular through being a jerk to Bonnie Raitt singers like me.

One day, when the class was on an overnight educational fieldtrip, I found out the truth about this guy I hated. He was afraid of the dark. I was sleeping on the bottom bunk, it was night, and he was in upper bunk. He woke me up and I mumbled at him about what he wanted. He wept and asked if I would walk with him to the bathroom. I remember how I enjoyed this new twist of events, since I had gotten over being afraid of the dark, like woah, at least a year ago. Popular Andy was at my mercy, and it buzzed like a battery on the tongue. We went outside, entered the bathrooms, and I enjoyed myself while I commanded him to hurry up and pee. He grew very quiet and very focused.

I am overwhelmed by how quick Jesus was cut loose, and how quick my hunger for confidence was fastened around my neck - even at such an age of innocence. It was/is just so ridiculously instinctual. I wish I could have used this one moment of vulnerability, not to be like he was, but to be his friend. I am really sorry.

7 June 2006 8:21pm

Harrietta July 8.

One image that I see again and again, so distinctive to Kenya versus anywhere else I've been, are the 'Caution: Driver in Training' vehicles. I wish I would have had a camera. Truck drivers in training was the first one today. A massive flat bed painted bright blue with a huge banner on the roof of the cab. It bounced slowly in front of us, pouring pitch plumes of diesel exhaust. The back of the truck was loaded with at least ten people standing against the walls and bouncing along in the bed of it. The small car was about five miles later. Driver and instructor in the front, five people in the back seat. Waliendesha vizuri!

I have joined the gents on my floor using bar soap as shampoo. Converted, there is a 36% chance I will do this forever. Its off the chain.

6 June 2006 7:08pm

I place a contact into each eye around noon, since I had been reading all morning and my optical disfunction is only in distances. The world, for the first time in about 15 hours, is cut clean and rigid. I am so sporatically moved for some reason, this day, for appreciation of the clarity with which I could now see.

Within the walk behind Jesus is this theme of having to feel gratitude towards him at all times. This verse has been a hard pill to swallow. Especially with certain other's eyes and fingers I have held these last nine months, because I get this picture in my mind of HappyPastor giving them an mighty slap on the back and saying "Cheer up! The bible says 'give thanks always!'". I want to slap HappyPastor on the back with a Stihl saw.

Mostly though, its because of myself, as I have felt an uneasy corner of the faith sticking into my ribs, reminding me about giving gratitude during those worst of days. Coming to Kenya has included knowing fuller what a bad day can truly be, or a bad week/month/year, and that its human to have those.

And, -stretch-, a new morning such as today arrives. The rise of the sun brings goodness again that is felt in the air and the pleasure of the creator is felt on my forehead and I am almost soothed to tipping towards the floor by its contrast against how things have been. Do I thank God for these bad days? No. Do I feel, deep in the bones, a resonating gratitude that I am being molded towards Christ and the way he sees? Truly, because today was not just a good day, it was goooooood.

5 June 2006 8:38pm

The president of Kenya, Mwai Kibaki, drove by us in Nairobi with his motorcade. They stopped all the traffic, including the car I was in, while the 25 government cars went by. I was wondering why they had posted a group of policemen with machineguns at all the intersections we had seen so far. The cars drove by, all Mercedes with camouflaged military officers inside, little Kenya flags waving on the corners of the hood and trunk.

I was describing this experience to a friend of mine and he related to me how different Kibaki is from the previous president Daniel Arap Moi. Moi, if he was passing through, would close down traffic for the whole day. He would plant secret police in the public squares to listen for any criticism or opposition to him. If a person was caught criticizing President Moi publicly, they would be arrested in the middle of the night. They would be blindfolded, driven to a unknown location, and tortured until they would agree to confess to crimes they never committed. For example, my friend described an Anarchist book they would make a person admit they had written. Then this confession was placed before a secret panel of judges and the person would be incarcerated and never seen again. The Kenyan prisons continue to be in such awful condition that many who are taken there die within a couple of years.

One such political critic created the school that my current church gathers in. This man publicly expressed discontent with President Moi and was secretly arrested. He would have died from his torture wounds if he would not have somehow escaped and been delivered to a hospital in the UK. He continues to be a political voice of Kenya, even though parts of his body remain crippled from his previous torture.