Contagious joy

Continuing with our trip to Mfangano Island, in Lake Victoria, to attend the Suba people’s cultural celebration  …

Our little plane touched down on a beach-side landing strip lined with a handful of curious, giggling Suba children. We didn’t need our overnight bags until day’s end so we left them in the plane and hiked a couple of miles into the hills where the cultural celebration would occur.

         

Young Suba performers painted white designs on their bodies and wore traditional costumes made of dried grasses, bark, and animal skins.

They danced, they beat their drums, they sang their songs, and acted out folk tales.

Throughout each event, the Subas laughed—the performers, their parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. Their contagious joy made us laugh along with them.

         

The fun-loving Subas welcomed us strangers to their island, their celebration, and their homes.

Our co-worker Sally showed the ladies her

video of their dancing.

I had brought toothbrushes as gifts and handed them out to shy children gathered in the shade of a wide mango tree.

We couldn’t speak each other’s languages, but we communicated with smiles and handshakes. 


The celebrations lasted all day—longer than we expected—and at six o’clock the sun set, like it always does on the equator, with only a brief lingering dusk.


Festivities continued, though, and minute by minute, the darkness deepened. I worried that a boat trip after dark might not be safe.… (from Grandma’s Letters from Africa, Chapter 7) 

Did we have to change our plans and spend the night with resident rats? C’mon back to find out.

Our little plane touched down on a beach-side landing strip …

Our trip to Mfangano Island for a Suba cultural celebration, continued …

“And then we saw it—Lake Victoria!—stretched out before us, wide and flat and shiny in the sunshine. It looked almost as big as an ocean. Marvin told us to watch for Mfangano Island off the lake’s east shore.”

Can you see the landing strip toward the top of the picture?

We flew low over Mfangano Island . . .

. . . and got a view of fishing boats along the shore.

“Our little plane touched down on a beach-side landing strip lined with a handful of curious, giggling Suba children. We didn’t need our overnight bags until day’s end so we left them in the plane and hiked a couple of miles into the hills where the cultural celebration would occur.” (from Grandma’s Letters from Africa, Chapter 7)

A page from my scrapbook: On the left, another little plane that flew

others to the celebration; on the right, I'm hiking up into the hills

behind our AIM AIR pilot and Marvin.

C’mon back Saturday and I’ll show you glimpses of the Suba people’s rich culture!

I had no idea what memories that day would create

To recap: Our friends and coworkers, Marvin and Joyce, asked us to join them for a two-day cultural celebration among the Suba people on Mfangano Island, near the east shore of Lake Victoria, where Bible translation was taking place. 

“…Our six-seater plane lifted off the tarmac at tiny Wilson Airport in Nairobi, and we set out toward the northwest and Mfangano Island, some three hundred miles away.

“Since Wilson borders Nairobi’s game park, we watched out our windows for giraffes, buffalos, or antelopes.

“Before long, we approached the east fork of the Great Rift Valley. The morning sun’s rays created shadows along the Valley’s ridges, like stair steps, and accentuated the way the earth pulls apart kidogo, kidogo (little by little) year after year.”

“In the highlands beyond the Valley, we flew over hillsides and dales, green from recent rains. Small family-owned farms, shambas, dotted the landscape. Through our windows, in every direction, we saw thatch-roofed huts, stick-and-mud, the same color as the orange soil. Farmers’ crops, laid out in tidy squares, looked like a bright green and orange checkerboard.” 

“And then we saw it—Lake Victoria!—stretched out before us, wide and flat and shiny in the sunshine. It looked almost as big as an ocean. Marvin told us to watch for Mfangano Island off the lake’s east shore.” (from Grandma’s Letters from Africa, Chapter 7) 

I could not foresee the adventures, sights, smells, tastes, and sounds awaited me.

I could not imagine the sensations, joys—and stresses—that day would hold.

I had no idea what memories that day would create.

What would YOU have done? Part 2

Continuing with What would YOU have done?

Would I sleep on the floor

in a home in which rats would share that floor?

I had read in the local newspaper

about children with scarred toes

because rats nibbled at them while they slept.

What should I do? What would I do?

Last week I asked, What would YOU have done? Would you have stayed on Mfangano Island and slept on the floor with rats? Or would you have risked offending the Suba people by opting to stay on the mainland in a modern facility?

I appreciate comments several of you left. Penny was right-on when she said that spending the night in their homes would mean so much to them—more than most North Americans comprehend: Hospitality is much more important in the African culture.

Sarah left the funniest comment:  “I’D STAY! And I’d flank myself with the kids or girls or something.” (Check out dear Sarah and her blog, The Yellow Dress. Also, this week one of her most-shared blog posts, “They Don’t Understand,” was published at Women of the Harvest blog.)

When I pondered the decision, perhaps something from deep in the far corners of my memory subtly suggested that because I’d swallowed chicha, I’d already paid my dues when it came to earthy perplexing mysterious exotic cross-cultural stuff. (Click here for a link to that otherworldly moment.) 

Well, anyway, Marvin, Joyce, Dave, and I had to decide. We had a brief, awkward conversation with clumsy pauses and unfinished sentences.

In the end, we decided we’d take a small, hand-hewn wooden boat to the mainland and spend the night at a dudu research institute. Yes we did. Dudu, to North American ears, might sound about as icky as sleeping with rats, until you learn that dudu means insect in Swahili. We chose the dudu research institute.

Ah, but “People may make plans in their minds, but the Lord decides what they will do” (Proverbs 16:9, NCV).

We had no idea that despite our plans and our druthers, we might want to sleep with rats after all.

To be continued.…

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What would YOU have done?

Our friends Marvin and Joyce asked us to join them for a two-day cultural celebration among the Suba people on Mfangano Island, near the east shore of Lake Victoria, where Bible translation was taking place.

Marvin, who had traveled there before, said he’d arrange our flight, but he wanted the four of us to decide ahead of time where to stay overnight. We could stay with a Suba family, he said, or we could take a small boat to the mainland and stay at a research institute.

         

I wondered why we’d want to stay on the mainland instead of the island—until Marvin explained the Subas believe it’s a blessing to have a rat in one’s home. In fact, it’s more than a blessing. It’s a must. If a house doesn’t have a rat, they tear it down. (Grandma’s Letters from Africa, Chapter 7)

Only a few months earlier, my husband, Dave, and I completed our orientation to living in Africa. For three months, we had listened to lectures on the importance of appreciating and respecting and honoring the cultures of our host nations.

We learned the importance of not offending our host country’s people—our new coworkers.

During our orientation, we learned to stretch our thinking and scrutinize our assumptions.

We had opportunities to stand back and examine our American ways.

And when we did so, many times the African ways seemed better than ours.

Often Dave and I said to each other, “We Americans have much to learn from Africans.”

So now, with an invitation to stay overnight in a Suba home, the time had come to apply all that to real life: Would I sleep on the floor in a home in which rats would share that floor?

I had read in the local newspaper about children with scarred toes because rats nibbled at them while they slept.

At first, their belief made no sense, but I suppose the real blessing is having food in the house, and the evidence of that blessing is the rat’s interest in being there. However, to my way of thinking, a rat is not a blessing—it is a rat. (Grandma’s Letters from Africa, Chapter 7)

What should I do? What would I do?

What would you have done? Would you have slept on the floor with rats? Or would you have risked offending the Suba people by opting to stay on the mainland in a modern facility?

The most unlikely people can be God’s answer to prayer

.

Grab a handful of tissues and read on:

Friday, the day after I posted True hunger is— 

I read a heart-pounding, tear-inducing story

from World Concern,

a ministry dear to my heart

(a story I want to share with you sometime).

It was a perfect follow-up for True hunger is.

It shows that the most unlikely people

—because they are the most needy—

can be God’s answer to the pleas and prayers

of those who are starving.

“This week we received a donation of $60,” writes Cathy Herholdt of World Concern, a Christian ministry that provides emergency food, medicine, and water for families affected by famine.

“While that [relatively small donation] might not seem worthy of its own blog post, it is,” she said. “Trust me.”

Women of Hope International had sent the check—which seemed unusual to Cathy because WOH is a nonprofit humanitarian agency in Sierra Leone, West Africa, that helps needy women with severe disabilities.

Why, Cathy wondered, would WOH send World Concern money instead of using it for their own needs?

This question led Cathy to call Kim Kargbo, WOH’s Director, for the answer.

Cathy learned that most of these women are beggars living on less than a dollar a day. Most are illiterate. Some are crippled, some are blind.

In recent years, Sierra Leone has been torn apart by war.

These women have witnessed the murder and mutilation of tens of thousands of people.

They’ve watched the destruction of crops, health clinics, and schools.

More than two million of them have been forced into refugee camps.

On top of that, the WHO women suffer with a variety of physical disabilities—many were “thrown away” by parents or abandoned by husbands. According to the WOH website, “They have no place in society, no common ground, and nowhere to call their own.” 

WOH addresses the women’s physical, emotional, economic, social, and spiritual needs. It offers them a safe place to heal, regain their dignity, and learn to support themselves and their families.

In November, Kim told the WOH women about the ongoing famine in Somalia. Because of limited educational opportunities, some had never heard of Somalia so Kim showed them World Concern’s Eyewitness to the Famine video online.

They also discussed 1 Kings 17 in which a widow, suffering in a severe drought, was gathering a few sticks to cook what she expected would be her last meal and, she said, “then my son and I will die.”

At that moment, Elijah arrived and asked her for food. Can you imagine what thoughts must have gone through that poor dear’s tormented mind and heart?

But that impoverished, hopeless widow gave all she had—because Elijah promised God would provide for her. She put her trust in God and His mysterious ways, and He did, indeed, meet her needs.

In Sierra Leone, those WOH women could relate to the widow in the Bible as well as those in the Eyewitness to the Famine video—they knew all about hunger and malnutrition. They knew all about refugee camps in their own devastated country.

But they also knew—from experience—that God can provide in the most unlikely times and ways.

Cathy tells what happened next:

“Kim asked them a question. ‘If any of you didn’t eat today, would you die?’ They all shook their heads, no. They might be hungry, they said, but they wouldn’t die. ‘Well, some of these [Somali] people, if they don’t eat today, will die,’ she said. ‘Do you think there’s anything you could do to help?’”

They answered yes, pointing out that even if they donated only a few coins, they could help a little. Then Kim stepped forward and told them that WOH would match whatever they offered.

Cathy continues:

“The women returned a month later … and had raised a bit of money, but not much. They wanted to do more. So they decided to take an offering that night. What happened next was amazing.

“About 50 women came forward to give. One by one, they lined up—blind women being led by the hands of children, and others in wheelchairs—to drop their few coins in a cardboard box.” (Click here to see a picture.)

Those dear souls collected $30. With WOH’s matching gift, they sent $60 to World Concern!

“‘I know it’s not much,’ Kim said when I spoke with her on the phone,” Cathy says.

“‘Oh, but it is,’ I said. We’ve been asking donors to give $60 to provide emergency food rations, access to clean water, and long-term assistance to a family affected by the famine.

“‘It’s perfect.”

Perfect, indeed!

I hope you’ll join me in praising God for those dear women in faraway Sierra Leone. Pray with me that God will provide for those impoverished, hopeless women in the same way He did for the widow who gave, for Jesus said,

“Give and you will receive. You will be given much. It will be poured into your hands—more than you can hold. You will be given so much that it will spill into your lap. The way you give to others is the way God will give to you.” (Luke 6:38, New Century Version)

Let us never doubt the truth of these words, spoken by a man who knows—because he has seen it over and over again:

“God can do so much with just one person

who is willing

to respond to His call.

What He asks is not that we possess great skill

or ability or fame.

Instead, He simply asks

for us to be willing to be used by Him.

Whether that results in

the liberation of nations or racial groups,

or whether it means that one child can go to school,

saying ‘yes’ to God changes the world.”

 

Rich Stearns, President of World Vision

True hunger is—

.

“The proper definition of the word ‘hunger’ is ‘a compelling need or desire for food’ or ‘the painful sensation or state of weakness caused by the need for food.’ I recognize that my hunger,” says Michele Tvedt, “pales in light of what others go through, and the endless access I have to food is abnormal compared to the majority of the globe.”

Writing on the World Vision Blog, Michele continues:

“True hunger, especially at a young age, leads to a lack of brain development, an unhealthy heart, cracked skin that leads to infections, and weak bones that prevent proper growth.

“True hunger means making the painful choice of entering into the sex trade to provide for your family, or watching your family slowly get weaker and weaker.

“True hunger is an upstanding, honest man stealing maize from his neighbor to fill the bellies of his children.

“True hunger is a child unable to focus at school because of the weakness and dizziness pounding through her body. Or a child unable to go to school because he must beg for food on the streets instead.…”

According to World Vision, 13.3 million people have been affected by the drought in East Africa: Somalia, Kenya, Ethiopia, and Tanzania.

In Somalia, 53 percent of the population—4 million people—are in crisis: a child dies every six minutes.

Millions more are at risk.

But it’s not just East Africa that’s suffering. A few days ago Deb, blogging at Avec Deux Mains, told of the severe food crisis in Niger, West Africa, where she lives and works.

When I worked in Africa, my job took me to Niger for about a week and my heart aches when I think of the acute suffering there now.

The problem is twofold: food shortages combined with increasing violence carried out by militants in the nation to the south, Nigeria. You’ve probably heard about this in the news lately.

According to the BBC News, the cereal harvest took a blow from both drought and pests in much of the Sahel region, a semi-arid band along the Sahara Desert’s southern edge “… but it is Niger—one of the world’s poorest nations with chronically high levels of child malnutrition—that has the largest number of vulnerable children.

“The European Union’s Commissioner for Humanitarian Aid, Kristalina Georgieva called it ‘a race against time.’ She said that because of the poor harvest the traditional hunger season was expected to start in February or March rather than two months later.”

She urged, “If we act quickly to protect the most vulnerable we can prevent a catastrophe from happening.”

Can you help? Do you know others who can help?

Here’s what’s so sad: We all waited too long to help in East Africa a few months ago.

In “Slow Response to East Africa famine ‘cost lives,’” BBC reports:

“Thousands of needless deaths occurred from famine in East Africa last year because the international community failed to heed early warnings, say two leading British aid organizations.

“Oxfam and Save the Children say it took more than six months for aid agencies to act on warnings of imminent famine.

“Between 50,000 and 100,000 people have died in Kenya, Ethiopia and Somalia.

“The agencies say governments, donors, the United Nations, and NGOs need to learn from the mistakes.” (Read more at “Slow Response to East Africa famine ‘cost lives.’”)  

Read about babies left to die alongside the road at “Horn of Africa Drought: Survival of the Fittest.”

See BBC pictures at “Combating Drought in the Horn of Africa.”

How can you help? I hope and pray you’ll look into participating with one of these organizations already on the ground in Africa:

World Vision

World Concern 

“God can do so much with just one person

who is willing to respond to His call.

What He asks is not that we possess great skill

or ability or fame.

Instead, He simply asks

for us to be willing to be used by Him.

Whether that results in the liberation of nations

or racial groups,

or whether it means that one child can go to school,

saying ‘yes’ to God changes the world.”

 

Rich Stearns, President of World Vision 

Do you know someone who could help? If so, see the little square box below with the “f” in it? Click on that and this post will show up on your Facebook wall! Try clicking on those other little gray and white boxes, too, and you can e-mail this, share to Twitter, Google Buzz, or +1.