Nathan's Blog

Arlo & Janis

2008-02-27T14:56:00.002-06:00

Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo.

2006-09-29T00:17:00.001-05:00

Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo.

That's about all I have to say for now.

iPods, Podcasts, and Postcolonialsim

2005-12-12T22:30:00.000-06:00

I got a 500 dollar gift card for Target from the Saturn dealer when I bought my car. It's really cool because Amazon and Target have this thing worked out so I can order anything off Amazon through Target, so my opportunities were endless. There were so many things that I could use it on but I took the easy way and just ordered an iPod. So I got this cool new gizmo in the mail. The problem with buying an iPod is that once I had the iPod there were several gizmos that it was "necessary" that I buy so I could make the most use of my iPod experience whether I’m in my room or in the car or in the bush. Now that I’ve spent my 500 dollars on the iPod and its various accoutrements, I have been trying to find out how to make the most use out of it.

never used iTunes before but it’s starting to grow on me. The podcast concept is something new to me. Since the glory days of Napster (can you remember back that far?)I’ve not really downloaded much stuff. There’s all kinds of cool stuff you can download. Some of it’s free and then there’s audio books and stuff. But I’m sure you already knew that. Anyways I was searching for some podcasts to download. I found some interesting things. Dr David Garrison has a bunch of stuff on Church Planting Movements. The NPR stuff is great. But I almost had a wreck today listening to a particular podcast I downloaded…

I’m in the middle of about 15 books at the moment but one of them is A New Kind of Christian by Brian McLaren. I’ll have to say it has made me think quite a bit, yet at the same time he says things that I’m already thinking. I just didn’t realize I was thinking them until I read it. If that makes any sense, explain it to me. I have no idea how I found them but I found several sermons by Mclaren and proceeded to download them. They sat in my iPod for several days and today I had to make a long trip down to the coast so I decided to listen to one of them. The first one was on The Emergent Church being Monastic and Communal. Some pretty good stuff there, and just about the right length of time so that it ended when I got to my destination. On the way back I about had a wreck. The next sermon I listened to was on how the Emerging Church is Postcolonial. He talked about how the modern church has had a colonial mindset and for about 20 minutes he used none other than the exploitation of the Angolans by the Portuguese colonists to explain the evils of colonialism. It turns out that his Grandfather was a pioneer missionary to Angola with the Plymouth Brethren not only that but his father grew up in Angola. What he had to say literally blew me away. I’ll write more about it later.

Burnin' Down the House

2005-12-06T22:39:00.000-06:00

I was in Pearlington this morning. The road was blocked where they were removing the remains of a house that had made its resting place on top of the road. Because I knew I would not be able to get through for a while, I pulled into the driveway of the property on the right. This is a picture of Edmund. That chair is where he spends pretty much all his time. He's sitting in his living room, complete with central heating and a dining room chair. A cold front just came through and the normal 60-70ish temperatures have dropped down to the low 30s at times. Yeah, you people up North may be jealous of our warm weather but you have a house to live in and warm clothes to wear. Edmund has taken up smoking again because he says it helps him forget how cold it is. As I was introducing myself his son (who's name I forgot) came up and threw some wood from what used to be part of the house on the fire. I stood and talked to him and his son for about 30 minutes as the Army Corps of Engineers cleared the road behind us. At least there are plenty of skeletons of houses to keep these people warm for the next couple of months.

Boulevard of Broken Dreams

2005-12-03T23:01:00.000-06:00

Today I drove down Highway 90. What used to be an overcrowded, casino infested, debaucherous paradise is now a Ghost Town. There is no traffic, no gambling, no naked people on beach, no fishermen, no old retired couples riding bicycles, no antebellum mansions, nothing but piles of rubble. I saw what must have been several hundred billion dollars worth of damage and destruction today. How much sleep am I going to loose over it? None.

I’ve gotten so used to seeing the most horrible things. I see kids playing in filth that I wouldn’t want to see a stray dog to play in, but they’re happy. The stench of death hangs in the air as rotting organic material like dead animals and saltwater polluted plants begin to decompose. It’s a feast of the senses for flies, mosquitos and biting gnats, but your nose gets used to it and you can always use bug spray. This has become normality. What can I do about it? Like everyone else, I find it hard to care anymore. I’m not saying I don’t care but I’m only caring on a rational level.

Maybe that’s why I’ve recently developed an unusual affinity to Punk Rock music. Ok, not really, I just descovered that I like a few songs by a few Punk Rock bands. I’m still not a huge fan of the genere as a whole but I guess I can just relate to the depressing, nihilistic and anarchistic lyrics in a way I never could before. As I was walking around the Ghost Towns of Gulfport and Biloxi taking pictures of the destruction a Green Day song came to mind.

“I walk this empty street
On the Boulevard of Broken Dreams
Where the city sleeps
and I'm the only one and I walk alone”

Though I have no idea what Green Day wrote that song about, depressing lyrics have a way of pricking my emotion and making me feel normal. It helps me to feel bad in a way I have trouble doing on my own. Lamentations and Ecclesiastes have new meaning and have even become my choices for pleasure reading. I’m just looking for something to help me feel.

Local Forcast on the 8s

2005-12-03T21:03:00.000-06:00

Actual weather forcast for Sunday, August 28th 2005 in Carriere MS:

Sunday night: Windy with a shower or thunderstorm possible early, then frequent rain showers along with heavy downpours and strong wind gusts. Overnight low 77F. NE winds at 20-30 mph, increasing to 80-100 mph. Rainfall may reach two inches.
Monday: Showery rains containing strong gusty winds and heavy downpours at times. High 84F. E winds at over 100 mph, diminishing to 80-100 mph. Rainfall over two inches . Wind gusts could reach 140 mph.
Monday night: Bands of heavy rain showers along with strong gusty winds, especially early. Low near 75F. S winds at 70-90 mph, diminishing to 40-60 mph. Rainfall over two inches.

Junk Food and Customs Taxes

2004-07-01T13:32:00.000-05:00

Velveta, Rotel, Snickers, Brownie Mix, Oreos, Kool-Aid, Peanut Butter, Taco Seasoning, Ziploc Bags, Popcorn, Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, and most importantly twelve 20 oz. bottles of Dr Pepper. Those were just a few of the things on our shopping list before we left the US. Oh yeah, and three huge transformers to convert 220 volts to 110. Before we left we packed our bags with 140 pounds of all those great things that Americans just can't live without and don't exist in Africa. Someone had given us 200 dollars to shop for all this junk that we could take with us to Mozambique and give to the missionaries. We had been dragging this stuff with us for a long time and looking forward to getting rid of it.

As we sat in the Conways living room in Nairobi looking at all this stuff, we realized we had a problem. Coming from America we had a 70 pound weight limit per bag and could check two bags per person. But flying from Nairobi to Mozambique we had a 30 pound per person limit. We each had 70 pounds of food and stuff and our own stuff on top of that. We had hoped that the airline person would not notice our extra 120 pounds of stuff, either that or just ignore it as we checked in. We were not so fortunate. We had to go through it all and decide what we really needed to take and what to leave behind with the Conways.

We boarded our tiny little plane in Nairobi. It was one of those scary planes with the big spinning propellers one of which happened to be right outside my window. When it was spinning I was sure that one of those propellers was going to fly off and decapitate me. I saw my first African snow on the peak of Mount Kilimanjaro below. As we flew over Kenya and northern Tanzania I could see huts and villages and the occasional city below. The closer we got to Mozambique the more there was nothing below us. No cities, villages, huts, roads, or anything, just bushes and dirt.

We flew into a little mom and pop airport in the costal town of Pemba, Mozambique. It was basically just a runway and a little building. There was not a white person to be seen but Jeremy and Martha Smith who were there to pick us up and take us back to their home 2 hours east in Montepuez. We got our passports stamped without any problems and then hoped and prayed that our luggage actually made it with us.

Our luggage did come, the only problem was trying to get it through customs. The one person that worked at the airport wanted to see inside one of our bags. He opened it and saw the huge transformer. He mumbled somthing that sounded nothing like Portuguese. It turns out that he was trying to say that he wanted us to pay Mt 500,000.00 ($20)for some sort of customs tax but he refused to give us a receipt. In other words he just wanted us to pay him a bribe to let us through. We refused to pay unless he provided an official receipt for it. So he refused to let us go. It then became a waiting game. The guy eventually got frustrated with us and wanted to go home because the airport was closing. He said, "Since you don't want to pay, just go!" so we did.

What's Your Sign?

2004-06-20T18:56:00.000-05:00

After the South African man reluctantly used his tow cable to pull us out of the mud in the game park, we went back to the cabin where the Conways were staying. By the time we arrived they were ready to leave for Eldoret which was the same place I needed to be. I hitched a ride with the Conways because the Mark and Ben had to stop at Chepkong’ony before going to Eldoret. It’s probably a good thing that we ended up driving back at the same time because that old American Isuzu with the steering wheel on the wrong side broke down three times on the way to town.

We arrived at the designated restaurant where I was to meet Chris and a campaign group from Texas right as they had finished eating. Chris and I were going to spend the next few days with this group from a church in Texas. Working in big groups like this can be a good way to get a lot done and it’s nice to be around other Americans who at least speak your own language. That’s usually the case at least, I think we got a lot done and they were Americans but this was a deaf campaign group. And I know about as much sign language as ancient Sanskrit.

When I was about 10 years old I remember the church in Colorado Springs had a deaf ministry. I learned a lot of sign language back then but now the only word I could remember was “airhead.” It’s an important word to know but as I’m trying to relate the love of Christ to the deaf people of Kenya I find it hard to integrate “airhead” into the conversation. It was great to work with and see the American deaf people interacting with the deaf Kenyans.

Fortunately there was a lot of work to be done in Eldoret that did not require me to use sign language to get accomplished. The church building at Langas was built about 10 years ago and needed some serious work done to it. It was built with roof to support tin but had a tile roof installed instead. Oops! So we spent most of one day removing all the heavy tiles that were causing to roof to collapse and the next day straightening the roof, reinforcing the walls that were about to cave out and putting a tin roof back on. It would have been a very sad thing if the roof had collapsed while there were people inside.

On Friday Chris and I drove back to Nairobi with the deaf campaign group. They were going to do a deaf workshop in for the deaf people from all around Kenya. Unfortunately we were not able to stick around for it because we were going to fly to Mozambique the next day. The Conways were nice enough to give us a place to stay again, this time at their home in Nairobi.

In the small amount of time we were in Nairobi we had the chance to visit an orphanage for AIDS babies. AIDS is a serious problem in Kenya and many of its victims die with young babies. The orphanage takes these babies and keeps them until they are three years old. A lot of the babies are HIV positive when they come to the orphanage and most of those test negative by the time they leave. One thing I have learned on this trip is that there are so many different types of ministry that are possible and needed. Just in the country of Kenya I have seen so many different works by different missionaries. Yet there is still so much that needs to be done.

Pointy-Toothed Creatures and Blue-Bottomed Baboons

2004-06-14T18:48:00.000-05:00

It was early in the morning long before anything in its right mind would be up, even an ibis! I looked at my watch but could see nothing because of the thick darkness. I felt around for my flashlight and saw that it was 5:30 AM. Rain was crashing down on the roof of our American Isuzu with four-wheel drive and a steering wheel on the left/wrong side of the car. Mark, Ben and I were up early to make sure we made our appointment at noon. We seemed to be making good time when all of a sudden we stopped…

I had been spending the last week with 5 guys from Harding who have taken a year off from college to teach at a secondary school (High School) in a very rural part of Kenya called Chepkong´ony. I spent a week with them helping out with a youth rally at Tenderet in the Nandi Hills area in southern Kenya. When they heard that I have been to Africa three times but had never once seen an African animal except for cows and chickens and ibises, Mark and Ben decided it was time to load the car and go camping in the Nakuru Game Park for the weekend.

I don’t know what to say about the game park except that it was awesome. I got to see my share of African animals that made up for the other times I’ve been to Africa and seen nothing. It was incredible to see the glory of God and the beauty of his creation. It was a beautiful day and I saw rhinos, cape buffalo, giraffes, zebra, gazelles, flamingos, a leopard and some baboons… well I’m not so sure why God created baboons. They are evil creatures. A 150-pound, huge-toothed, bare-blue-bottomed baboon attacked us and tried to steal our mangos.

Right after the baboon incident we got a call from Larry Conway, a missionary in Nairobi. It turns out that Larry and his family was spending the night in the game park and had rented a cabin. They were nice enough to invite us to stay with them when they heard that we were also there. As much as I like the adventure associated with camping among wild and hungry lions, panthers and baboons we decided to sacrifice and sleep in the cabin.

After a cozy night in the cabin we got up and left before 6:00 AM in order to reach Eldoret by noon. Leaving at such an early hour assured that we would be there on time. Or so we thought. We left on time and began to make our way out of the park. There was no evidence of sunlight yet but fortunately the rain had slowed down before we left. As the rain cleared the fog took it’s place and it became hard to see anything except for the occasional glowing eyes of who knows what.

We turned onto the main road out of the park… or at least we thought it was a main road. It very quickly turned to just two tire muddy tire tracks; it was not much of a road. We figured that it was just a side road that would turn on to the main road any minute. We thought that for one minute, then for two minutes then five minutes. After about twenty minutes we were pretty sure that we would have to run into a main road before too long.

Even though it was dark and foggy with no way to see any landmarks we were confident that we were going the right direction. All of a sudden a huge puddle jumped out in front of us. Before we could stop we hit it. This was not just any puddle it was one of those holes that the cape buffalo, rhinos and other large animals like to make so they can lay in the cool mud. Well of course that was no problem for us we were in a four-wheel drive vehicle and if all else fails we had a winch. We shifted down into low four and the wheels turned but we remained still.

We got out of the car and saw that the vehicle was up to the frame in mud and was not going to go anywhere by itself. As the sun eventually began to rise we noticed three things. 1) The sun was rising on the wrong side of the sky. In other words, we were lost 2) There was nothing to attach the winch to. We were stuck. And 3) there was an uncomfortable absence of any sort of wildlife. Ben made the keen observation that the only reason there were no small furry creatures around must be because there were large pointy-teethed creatures around. Since we had no way to get ourselves out we just sat there for a while.

Eventually after the sun had risen quite a way (on the wrong side of the sky) I decided that I would be either brave or stupid and go look around. If you are reading this email it is evident that a man-eating lion did not eat me. But as I looked around it became evident that we were seriously in the middle of nowhere. Fortunately we had a cell phone, but unfortunately it was out of range, out of batteries and out of minutes. We were able to send a text message to Larry Conway that we were in trouble, but that was it.

Sadly it was only after about two hours of sitting and being bored that we came up with the great idea to pray about the situation. About twenty minutes later some South Africans drove by. I have no idea why they decided to drive down this particular road on this particular morning. When I asked them about it the driver said in his thick South African accent “it just seemed like the thing to do at the time.” I have a feeling that God had something to do with it. They were happy to pull us out of the mud but they were somewhat reluctant to use their nice new tow cable. We didn’t make our appointment by noon but that’s ok, it was just a lunch appointment and I’ve gotten used to not eating lunch anyways.

Life on Mount Elgon

2004-06-05T16:43:00.000-05:00

The last couple of weeks I have spent on the side of the largest mountain in the world, Mt. Elgon. It’s not the tallest 14,000ft nor is it the highest but it’s the most massive mountain in the world. It is home to many people who dwell and farm its beautiful slopes. It is also home to my friend Chris Allison and his family. Sitting on top of one of the hills that makes up the mountain at 7000ft is a small house by American standards but huge by Mt Elgon standards. There is running water, but you cant drink it. Sometimes it’s even warm. There is a solar panel on the roof that collects what little electricity they have. It’s 2 hours from the nearest city complete with paved streets and electricity. Kitale town is where I write this update. Just in case you’ve been wondering what I do here in Africa I have tried to give you an idea of a typical day on Mt Elgon.

I wake up every morning before the sun rises to the obnoxious squall of the ibis (a bird) that must have built its nest right outside the window. I think the ibis wakes up the rooster who in turn wakes up the cows and the donkeys. In a matter of seconds there is a symphony of animal sounds resonating through the window. If all this did not happen every morning I don’t think that the sun would know that it's time to come up yet. I get up and walk into the kitchen where Janet Allison is already up cutting fresh fruit from the orchard in the backyard. Breakfast consists of fruit and any sort of bread you can imagine that is made with fruit.

Mornings are usually pretty relaxed if it is one of those mornings we don’t have to travel very far to get to the village. In this lazy morning time without much electricity to spare I've found plenty of time to read and have attempted to learn a little more Swahili. I actually picked up Wuthering Heights off the bookshelf for no apparent reason. I guess I was just curious as to what it was about. Now I'm hooked. It's a very strange book. I am often looking forward to the time that I can get back to reading it. I wish I could write in the elegant style of books of that time. Writing these days, with TV and email has gotten so relaxed, precise and action packed. It seems people don’t take time to write about observations, relationships, and those sorts of things... Perhaps I just read the wrong books. At least for me it’s something different.

Oops, I just got sidetracked. As I was saying, often mornings are very relaxed here on the mountain. But that is not always the case. Some mornings just after breakfast we pack up and hike to some village that is about 5 or 6 miles away and about 1500 feet higher. There are not roads to all the villages that we visit. Sometimes there is not even a trail to speak of and we have to hike through some cornfield. It seems no matter how early we leave it always takes longer than we expect to get to our destination. We end up dodging herds of cattle and then find that the bridge is out. Then we run into somebody who sees white people and wants advice about a sick mule or something.

As we climb the air gets thinner and the sky turns a darker shade of blue. Breathing becomes much harder and steps become shorter and I feel as if I take two steps back for every step forward. It’s at this point when my heart is racing and my asthma is causing intense pain in my lungs that I begin to wonder what in the world I’m doing here. But then I remember that if I think I’m traveling a long way, there are several Kenyans who are traveling even farther just because they know I’m coming.

When we arrive (late) at the church we are still the first to arrive. Some churches meet in the shadow of a tree or in the home of a member. Some churches are privileged enough to have a church building but they are not as common. So, someone welcomes and we sit and wait, and wait, and wait, and wait… Eventually people will start coming in. It is customary for everyone to greet everyone else. So greetings last a good 30 minutes or so.

As we sit and mingle the designated song leader will shout out the first couple words to a song. The congregation will then repeat what the song leader just sang. In the short time it takes them to sing that he gets to make up the next verse of the song. Many of the songs consist of simple little statements like “You’re the only one,” “Jesus is mine” or “Jesus is number moja (one). Many of the Christians are not literate and could not read out of a songbook if they had one. Although they are not literate they are not stupid. They can memorize much more than you or I ever could and a whole lot faster too.

During the preaching I get to listen to bla bla bla bla for about four hours. I have learned a little Swahili but the people preach in Sabaot so I don’t understand a word that is being said. Every man in the church would love to take the chance to preach if he had the opportunity and sometimes it seems like every man does. If it’s on a Sunday they often ask me to preach for the Lord’s Supper or giving. And yes, they have a sermon before each one. So every Sunday there will be at least three sermons but probably more.

It is only proper to feed any guests that one might have in this culture. Remember that fruit I had for breakfast? Well it’s 4:00 or so before I get lunch. And when I get it in the village it is usually the epitome of bland food, fried plantains, all kinds of beans, potatoes, as well as other strange vegetation. I try to eat a little and smile while I do so.

Then we get to take the hike back to the house. Fortunately most of the time it’s downhill on the way back. We will get back just before the sun sets. At least we always hope too. Nighttime is fun because the solar panels have been collecting sunlight all day so there is a little bit of electricity in the batteries to do something fun on the apple computer that is older than I am or watch a video on a TV from the same time period. If we are lucky we will finish the movie without the electricity running out. I go to bed at "missionary midnight" 9:00 and then the day starts over again at 5:30 or so. depending on that stupid ibis.

Well that may give you an idea of what I’m up too. On the 19th of June we will go to Mozambique. Hopefully I’ll get one more update in before then.

Down in the River...

2004-05-28T13:24:00.000-05:00

Last Wednesday Chris and I went with Shawn Tyler to a village about 30 km from Mbale,Uganda. We loaded up a truckload of about 18 people and took them to the nearest source of water to be baptized. It was another 20 km from there to a place where there was water that would be deep enough for baptizing. We pulled off on the side of the road that was built over a beautiful papyrus swamp. They asked me if I would like to help with the baptizing. I wasn't prepared for baptizing anyone but I stepped down into the water and got my blue jeans all wet anyways. I was excited and kind of nervous. This was going to be my first African baptism.

As I waded down into the water the first person to be baptized followed me down. It was a young girl, probably about 18 or so. She stepped into the water and then realized that her shirt was white and that everyone would see right through it afterwards. I suppose she thought it would be embarrassing to have a see through shirt so she did the next most logical thing. She took it off so it wouldn't get wet. I guess her logic was that she would only have to go without a shirt for a couple seconds and then she would have a dry shirt to wear. My logic on the other hand completely disappeared. All I knew was that all of a sudden there was a completely topless 18 year old girl standing in front of me, and I was about to baptize her! My first African baptism and my first topless baptism were one and the same.

I desperately attempted to divert my thoughts and attention to something else, the first thing that popped into my mind was "look at her nose." So I immediately looked at her nose and tried to focus all of my concentration on it then I vowed that I would not take my eyes off of it. But it was already too late, I had seen everything. I completely lost my train of thought and didn't know what to say or do or how to act and I couldn't remember where I was, what I was doing, or how to baptize someone. In fact I was so nervous and shaking so hard that I wouldn't be surprised if I baptized her several times. To tell you the truth I really don't remember what happened after that. All I remember is that nose.