MEE-ooth-ool-suz

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.

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.

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.)