Recently I told you about the ride Dave and I had from
the international airport in Nairobi to the office compound where our future
offices were located. (Click on A sweet small world to read that post.) The
date was August 21, 1994.
I shared with you that Paul, our driver, had steered
the van out of wild and crazy traffic and onto a narrow, quiet lane lined with
towering eucalyptus trees. Within seconds, he pulled up to a wrought iron gate
with stone pillars on each side, and a blue-uniformed man stepped out of a
narrow wooden guardhouse.
He swung the gate open and Paul drove us into a small
compound. We slid open the van doors, climbed down, and—stepped into
springtime. Dappled sunshine filtered through tall old trees, and the
temperature felt about seventy degrees. After unruly city traffic, noise, and
exhaust, this place was a hushed haven.
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| BTL, photo by Jim O. Anderson |
Paul explained that our offices would be there on the
campus of Bible Translation and Literacy, or BTL, a Kenyan organization that
partners with Wycliffe Bible Translators. I looked around at three charming gray
stone buildings reminiscent of old British structures, three stories each, with
quaint, small-paned windows and ginger-colored tile roofs.
Tropical gardens—so different from the gardens I knew
in Washington State—teemed with bright colors and textures: Bird of Paradise,
lantana, begonias, rosemary, ferns, violets, marguerite daisies, banana trees,
fig trees, hibiscus, and the grand centerpiece—lofty old palm trees in the
center loop. I don’t think the Garden of Eden could’ve looked any prettier.
A room in BTL’s guesthouse was our first home in
Africa while we awaited the start of our orientation. We didn’t have to wait
for the course, though, to begin our education—my head spun with all I’d taken in at the airport and on our drive to BTL. Little could I imagine how much more
we would learn or how that learning would look, sound, taste, feel, or smell.
In the guesthouse, Dave and I slept in single beds in
a room about nine feet square. Our hand-made beds, stained dark, had foam-pad
mattresses four or five inches thick. We shared a kitchen and bathroom with
several other people, most of them Africans who had traveled to Nairobi for a
workshop.
On our first day, I made several trips to the laundry
room. On my first trip, two Kenyan children played by the doorway. They looked
up at me and whispered, “Hello.” I smiled and said hello back.
On my second trip, they smiled and said, “Hello,” when
I went in, but when I came out the children giggled and said, “Hi! Hi!” I
giggled with them.
On my next trip those charming little ones called out,
“Jambo!” (Swahili for hello). I called back, “Jambo!” and we laughed together.
Those bright eyes and quick smiles seemed like a serendipitous gift to me and,
as a bonus, I even spoke Swahili on my first day in Africa.
On our second day, Sunday, a Wycliffe couple invited
us to walk with them to a nearby Presbyterian church. The building showed its age,
but God lived as surely in that Nairobi church as He’d ever lived in the United
States. I felt strange as one of only a few white people, but no one stared or
tried to avoid me, so I felt welcome.
When we sang old Scottish Presbyterian hymns,
the Kenyans
sang reverently,
but when we sang Swahili songs,
the congregation came alive.
People sang out with great volume
and rich harmony.
They grinned, they clapped,
they danced,
and they lifted praise to God.
It was so very evident to me:
Their hearts and minds
felt more in touch with God
when they sang to Him in their own language.
That
first Sunday in Nairobi showed me
how important it is
for people to have
worship songs
in the language they know best—
and that is one of Wycliffe Bible
Translators’ tasks
and one of the reasons we had come to Africa.
Though everyone within the BTL compound spoke English,
we heard accents from around the world: Kenya, Ireland, the United Kingdom,
Holland, America, Switzerland, Germany, Russia, South Africa, and Scandinavia. And
New Zealand.
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| Jenny and Brian Caston and kids |
A dear young couple from New Zealand, Brian and Jenny
Caston, served as directors of the three-month orientation course Dave and I
would soon begin. Their accents were simply beautiful.
But when Jenny, a nurse, issued us our malaria
prophylaxes, she explained that it was very good medicine, although it gave
some people “MEE-ooth-ool-suz.”
She sensed I didn’t understand so she smiled and said
it again: “MEE-ooth-ool-suz.”
I looked at Dave, and he looked back with a blank
expression on his face. Within seconds, though, I saw him grin. “Mouth ulcers! She’s
talking about canker sores!”
Oh, we had so much to learn! And so many stretching
and bewildering experiences awaited us, and more—encounters and happenings I could hardly imagine.
My stomach knotted every time I thought of
our upcoming
orientation and what the next three months held.
(From Chapter 1, Grandma’sLetters from Africa.)
