Before I was even out of bed, without my knowing it, my plans for a quiet Saturday with my husband were changing. We heard the normal greeting at the door. I quickly wrapped a skirt over my pajamas and greeted the group outside. A man had died in the night, would I transport the body from his home 25 miles away to his parents’ home here in the village. That is an expensive trip for a family so, after conferring with Pete, I agreed.

An hour later I was on my way, along with a grandmother, a brother, and a friend of the family who speaks English. They understood our policy of only three people in the vehicle, along with the coffin. We learned the hard way that if you don’t put a limit, twenty people will try to fit themselves into the back.

It was not difficult to find the home where we were to go. There were a hundred or more people milling around and as soon as we turned off the road onto the path, we heard wailing. The crowd parted as I pulled into the small yard and backed the car around. I was left alone as my companions got out to make arrangements with the family. It wasn’t long before two men approached the back of the Surf, one at each end of a mattress, upon which was the dead man. I have transported bodies before, but they have always been either in a coffin, or wrapped. This man, about 30 years old, was neither. He was simply lying on the mattress, looking as though he were just sleeping. All I had to do was look over my shoulder to see his expressionless face. The wailing became louder as he was being fitted into the vehicle. It took a while for us to sort out who was coming in the vehicle and who was not. I finally made a concession for the widow to come, along with the original three. But everyone else had to get out.

We finally pulled away, headed back to Fimpulu. The dead man’s widow broke out in wails from time to time. I wondered what was going through her mind. Life is difficult for a woman with small children and no husband. I thought of my own husband, back in our home, recovering from malaria and suffering from an unknown skin infection. This woman’s husband was alive yesterday. After a night of drinking, he went to bed. And didn’t wake up. Talk about a life-changer. Mine is alive and (relatively) well. But we never know what a day will bring. Or a night. Times like this always make us think of our own mortality. We’re not going to be here on earth forever. There used to be an insurance company whose tag line was “Life comes at you fast.” Well, death can come at you fast too. Are we ready?

That day it was funny, but there is a dark side to this issue. No one was going to die, or even suffer that day, if they didn’t get a ball or a cucumber. Other human needs are not so easily denied. And it’s not always easy to know which are the true needs and which are not.

Rarely does a day go by that we don’t receive some kind of request from the people who live around us. Some are easy to deal with. Are you going to town? Do you have any piecework I can do? I have pineapples for sale; will you buy? Will you lend me money so I can replace my grass roof with tin?

Others are not so easy.

A mother comes looking for sugar for her sick baby because the medicine the doctor gave her does not go down easily. A father wants school fees for his child. A husband has spent all of their money on drink and now there is nothing left for food. A mother doesn’t have enough money to buy a whole bag of maize meal; will I lend her some money until next week? A pregnant woman comes looking for good food; do I have any eggs to give her? A man with only one leg needs money to see a specialist far away.

A young woman who lives nearby, by name of Nancy, has come two times in the last 2 weeks looking for soap. Now I like Nancy. She is cute, she is sweet. She had to drop out of school when she became pregnant about 4 years ago. She married the father of her baby, and now has a new baby, whom she named after her elder brother, Joseph. You may remember Pete writing about the young man who was killed when he jumped in front of a mini-bus. That was Joseph. Nancy lost her mother several years ago as well.

Between using English and Bemba, I was able to discover that Nancy’s husband is several hours north of here, caring for his sick parents. That is what helped me decide. Two young children, one on her back, no mother, husband away. All she wants is soap. OK.

The woman who came to borrow money to buy mealie meal (one of the staple foods here) because she didn’t have enough for a whole bag – I had to say No to her. She said she would pay me back the next week. Where would the money come from? I didn’t know how to ask in Bemba, and she didn’t know how to answer in English. It’s not the money. I can afford $4. It’s an integrity thing. She wanted to buy mealie even though she already had cassava (another staple), but her daughter wouldn’t eat it.

How do you look into someone’s eyes and tell them No? I wish I could answer every need, but it’s just not possible. And it’s not wise. We may not have the wisdom it takes to know or meet the needs 100% of the time, but God does, even when we are all asking at the same time.

The children patiently listen as I stumble over difficult words, and I understand enough Bemba to be able to follow many of their comments. It is really a thrill to be able to read about creation, or Samson, or Jesus in a language the kids understand. It kills me when the kids want to read, but I am busy and can’t stop. But if there’s one thing I struggle with, it’s spending too much time with the kids (if that’s really possible) and not enough time doing the things I really need to be doing!

Sometimes I just thank God for giving me the opportunity to see his written Word spreading out through the villages. Many of the ladies in my classes have their very own Bibles now and I stand at the front of the class soaking in the scene as I watch them turning pages to find a particular verse. We practice reciting all the names of the books and every week ladies recite verses they are memorizing.

I’ll write more about this later, but I wanted to share with you how the Holy Spirit is getting the truth out, even through someone like me who can’t speak the local language! I can’t do it, but He can!

Thanks for all your encouragement and support, spiritual and financial. I am so blessed, in the truest sense of the word, to be doing what I’m doing! I wish everyone could experience this, whether here or there, wherever there is.

Ba Patrick is senior Elder in the Fimpulu West church. He is profoundly blind and has been that way since he was nine or ten. He is now married with several children and in his mid fifties. He reads Braille and seems to cope well with the challenge in spite of living in an African village, in a mud hut and so on. He speaks English well and has had a pretty good education, having gone up north and graduated from the Catholic School for the blind.

Ba Patrick is in my Tuesday class and I usually collect him for the six kilometer trip to the church where I teach. Having him sitting in the third row is a lot like having Ray Charles in the group. He sits there, usually with a smile and rocks a bit side to side. The 1960s vintage Ray Ban sunglasses look just like the ones Charles used to wear. I’ve never asked Patrick if he plays the piano.

A while ago, some missionary friends of mine gave me a couple of gizmos called The Proclaimer. This is a solar/crank powered machine that plays a digital audio recording of the New Testament in our local language, Bemba. It has a flip out solar panel, a hand crank, and a volume control. The rest of the buttons allow you to skip forward or backwards by book, or by chapter within a book.

Ba Patrick’s Braille Bible is incomplete and he is missing major sections of the New Testament, so I gave him one of the Proclaimers. I had the happy experience of sitting and moving his fingers over the equipment as I showed him how it worked. He smiled broadly and was the envy of all the other Elders in the class. Although, when I explained to them that no, you can’t charge your cell phone off it, there was slightly less enthusiasm.

A couple of weeks later, I asked Ba Patrick if he was using the Proclaimer. He smiled broadly and allowed as how all his neighbors were enjoying it. I was a little confused and asked him to explain. He told me that he puts the machine out in the sun and turns it on with the volume on full (life here seems to always have the volume on full!). There are a half dozen huts within earshot and, beginning with the children, the area around his house slowly fills with people who
listen to the stories being told. People ask questions and Patrick stops the machine. Since The Proclaimer will only advance or reverse one book at a time he hands them a bible and tells them where to look for that piece of the story that they’re hearing. He can’t look up the verses as the bible is a sighted Bible. He has people, who would normally never darken the doorway of a church, reading Bible verses and discussing the meanings of the stories.

He may be blind and at a serious disadvantage, compared to sighted men, but Ba Patrick is having a greater impact than a whole lot fully functional men I know!

As a side note, we always have a thundering herd of kids around our hut. Following Ba Patrick’s example, I have put the second Proclaimer to work on our front porch. Whenever I remember, I put the machine out there and turn it on. I actually heard one of the little boys muttering Amen and Halleluiah. What a crack-up!

The Word is going out!

Last Thursday, Trish and I had dinner with Tom and Amy. They were in town from Kazembe, where they operate an orphanage for twenty-six children under the age of six. Every couple of weeks they bring the Land Cruiser and trailer the three hours over dirt and tar-mac roads, and clean out the little grocery store near us. They’ve been in the country for a number of years and, though a somewhat younger, are much more seasoned than we. A great couple, and good friends, we try to hook up with them whenever we can.

Today, I encountered an exhausted and blood-spattered Tom. He was outside the market where several men were working with pails, swilling out the blood and gore that liberally coated the inside and outside of his Land Cruiser.

Tom is a reserve police officer in Luapula province. He’s also a game officer. Tom is one of the people that finds fascination in anything that walks, swims, crawls or flies. He has a raptors license, which allows him to hold and work with the huge eagles that we have around here. Tom is an herpetologist. At one point, Amy, who was in Lusaka, refused to come home until he relocated the bucket of baby pythons that he had in the living room. He didn’t tell her that several had already escaped. Tom also has a giant aquarium where he keeps some Puff Adders. As big around as a man’s forearm and about four feet long, these things are straight out of your worst nightmare. The head is as big as your fist, they have fangs like old-fashioned can openers and they just plain look evil. Brrrr!!! It almost seems anticlimactic to say that they’re also deadly poisonous. Tom routinely removes injured animals to various reserves and plantations. Every once in a while, he gets a call for something really serious. During dinner he mentioned that he had a new “game officer” assignment.

Kazembe Orphanage sits along the edge of the Luapula river, from which our province gets its name. The river is substantial and separates Zambia from the Democratic Republic of Congo. It is the watershed for both sides of the border and is home to everything that you might imagine lives in African rivers. This includes the Hippopotamus. I capitalize the name because I just feel that these huge mammals deserve the respect denoted by a capital letter. For hunters in
Africa, the Hippo is one of the big five. It is considered to be among the most dangerous animals on the continent. Generally speaking, the Hippo rules the river and even crocodiles give adult Hippos a lot of “personal space.” If a Hippo decides to do something, he usually does so unopposed. Hippos are protected here, which is rather laughable as, absent a high power rifle, there is no practical way to deal with them. Occasionally Hippos become a nuisance and have to be managed.

That’s when the government calls Tom. Did I mention that Tom is from Texas? For some reason, I feel that fact is significant.

On Saturday night, Tom set off with several local game officers to deal with a rogue Hippo that had been terrorizing a village and destroying their crops. He sat in a boat, uncovered, in the rain, through the night waiting until late the next day when the Hippo finally showed himself.

In preparation for the hunt, the local officers had brought the firearms. (In this country, registration of large rifles can be tricky and most expatriates will not risk losing a precious firearm to the uncertainties of  government functionaries.) So, in the boat they had a .375 rifle with six rounds (barely adequate), a military issue AK 47 (useless), a 12 gage shotgun (useless), and a .45 pistol (totally useless as was later demonstrated). Ammo for the .375 was at such a
premium that they could not even spare a round to be certain that the rifle (the only one capable of actually killing a Hippo) was, in fact, sighted-in and operational. To say that things were disorganized would be an understatement. Also, in the interest of accuracy, I will again point out that this is Tom’s story and that I, like you, only got the pre-digested version. I was not there (Trish said that she would vigorously oppose my going).

The tired team moved the boat this way and that until they were finally in position. At uncomfortably close range, the first shot was taken. Tom hit the animal on the neck and severed the main artery. As one who has done some hunting in the past, I must say that this was remarkable shooting! Using an unfamiliar rifle, in a moving boat and shooting at a semi-submerged moving target, to hit such a critical area was indeed remarkable! Stunned, the Hippo moved off and the pursuit was on. Keeping the fleeing Hippo in sight and continuing to maneuver they finally cornered it in the shallows.  Hippos, as previously stated, are very dangerous. Hippos, shot through with high powered rifles, are also highly unpredictable and generally sport a very bad attitude. Balancing how close to get in order to insure a clean shot, against the screaming instinct of self-preservation insisting that they stay as far away as possible, was a constant challenge. Finally the deed was done and it required three boats and a lot of rope to drag the huge animal into the shallows. I’ll spare you the details, but suffice it to say that it took a small army of men seven hours to finally skin and butcher this animal. Tom says that it was larger than my Toyota 4Runner wagon.

I’ve watched a lot of Tarzan movies and, like you, I’ve seen the parts where the natives, armed only with spears, kill Hippos. Tom says that the skin on this animal was four inches thick and that a .45 cal round fired directly into the forehead of the dead creature did not even penetrate the skull. Another shot fired into the ear of the animal simply stopped and the hollow point bullet never even deformed. These things are as close to armor-plated as a living creature can get. If any adult Hippos have actually been killed with spears, it must have been something to see! As a point of clarity, the shots fired with the handgun were to instruct the local officers as to just how absolutely useless anything less than a serious hunting rifle truly is. At best, the AK 47 and the shotgun would have only superficially wounded and angered a hippo.

The local Chief got half the animal. This is normal respect and is carefully observed. That half will feed the entire village for a couple of weeks. Various lower level government-aries got chunks of the other half. That second half was transported in and on Tom’s Land Cruiser.

The safety record of the mission was exemplary. In fact the only injury in the whole episode was when one of the men, in the process of unloading a Hippo leg from the roof-rack, got his finger caught in the cable and severed the end.

To some this whole story may seem a bit grisly, even barbaric. I would ask that you consider the fact that Tom insured a clean (relatively, given the choice of firearms) kill of a rogue and extremely dangerous animal. He did it while managing an inexperienced team and ensuring that no one got seriously hurt, or killed in the process. He helped to protect the families and farms of many local folk and to feed a lot of them to boot.

Just another day in the life of a bush missionary.

The less time there is, the faster it seems to go! The last two weeks went by fast. After almost missing our flight out of London (after waiting all day; don’t ask!), we are now in Lusaka, taking care of business before we head north. While we were gone a friend finished up the details of registering our vehicle. The “DMV” process is complicated here (surprise!) and we were happy to have Mulonga’s help. He began the registration of a small trailer we are purchasing, but we ran into difficulties, so we will be delayed by a day or two.

Our work visas were approved just before we left last September, so we anticipated the joy of waltzing into immigration to pick up the books. But… the agent could not find Pete’s file! Three people ended up looking, to no avail. They promised that it was there and they would keep looking. Perhaps Monday?

The national government has just rebased the currency. The largest old bill, 50,000 Kwacha, is now 50 Kwacha (roughly equal to $10 US). The 20,000 Kwacha is now 20 Kwacha and so on. A new 100 Kwacha bill has been introduced (about $20 US), not to be confused with the old 100 Kwacha bill (about 2 cents). And they have introduced coins, 1, 5, 10, and 50 Ngwee. We hardly ever used the old 50 Kwacha notes, which are only worth 1 US penny. It will be interesting to see if we ever use the coins. Perhaps we will have a coin jar, like we had in the states, and trade them in from time to time. I think someone could make a lot of money (relatively speaking) in the villages selling coin purses.

There is always shopping to do here in Lusaka. We have our choice of grocery stores, as opposed to having only one very small one in town near us. We buy things we can’t necessarily buy in Mansa (‘cause you never know what the store will have in stock). A luxury like olive oil, cereal other than corn flakes, dried beans, jam and spices have to be brought up from the city. For the longest time our store did not have peanut butter and the only jam you could buy was fig jam.

We spent an afternoon checking out health care providers, and trying to determine the quickest procedure for dealing with emergencies. Being ten hours away from even half-way decent health care makes it important to have a clear plan in place (still working on that, so thank you for praying about that with us).

And of course, we’ve been “busy” with that all important sleep. Jet lag takes its toll, and we found it to be more difficult this time. The weather is unusually hot as well, making nights sticky. Even I, Trish, lay in bed last night poaching. And for two people who just arrived from 9 degree weather in Maine, it’s quite a change!

As we look back on the last four months, we are amazed and pleased at everything that took place. We had safe travel; made new friends; experienced wonderful conversations; got lots of good rest; and enjoyed fun times. All that we needed was provided.

Now we’re looking forward to getting out of the city and back to the village. We eagerly await the smiles, handshakes, and hugs from our friends. And we’re keen to get back to the teaching, especially with brand new Bibles in every hand!!

Thank you all for being a part of our lives, to whatever degree that may be. We pray God’s blessings on you and ask that you pray for us as we move ahead in our work here.

Shortly after arriving in SC, I commented to someone: I’ve seen a side of God that I’ve never seen before. She asked me what I meant by that. At the time I was feeling quite overwhelmed and I didn’t really know how to express what I meant. I’ve been pondering it over the last few weeks and have come to a better understanding.

I realize now that it’s not just that I’ve been seeing God. I’ve been experiencing God.  I’ve not just been seeing him work in the lives of those around me; I’ve been right in the middle of the work.

To be the recipient of God’s love and care and to know that it comes from him, you just can’t beat that. In the last two months as Pete and I have traveled hundreds and thousands of miles across this huge country, we have experienced the love of God, through his people and his creation. In the book of Acts and chapter 2, there is a beautiful picture of how the Christians took care of one another. People even sold what they had so that no one would be lacking. That was the love of God working through them, even as it does today.

Pete and I have been overwhelmed by this outpouring of love from family and friends. Not that we haven’t been loved and cared for before. We have. But not to this magnitude, day after day, state after state (even country after country!), by people we’ve known for years, by people we have only just met, even by people we don’t know. People who have far less than we do have given financially and materially to our ministry. [May I add that even in Zambia, one of the poorest nations on earth, people have given freely to Pete and me, despite our coming from one of the richest nations on earth.]

We’ve had a comfortable home to live in (in two states!). We’ve been given good food to eat. A car, plus gas to put in it. Clothes to put on our backs. Money. People have offered words of encouragement and confirmation. We’ve been prayed for and prayed over. So much has been provided for us, and clearly not out of duty, but out of love. The Bible says to give, and it will come back to you, good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over.

The love runs over onto our brothers and sisters in Zambia. As God has used you to strengthen us and provide material resources for our ministry, we will return to Zambia in January, ready to continue the work he has given us to do.

So thank you, friends and family, not only for the many ways in which you have cared for us during this time, but more than that, for helping us to know God in a richer way.

If anyone does not yet know it, we are in the US! We arrived late last month and have been on the move ever since. I am currently writing from Dallas, Texas, having driven here from Bridgton, Maine, following a stop in South Carolina, and making a brief detour to Santa Barbara, California (we flew from Dallas). Before we get to spend the month of December in Maine, we will visit folks in Tupelo, Mississippi, South Carolina, North Carolina, Thanksgiving in Georgia and then up to Ithaca, New York.

Once upon a time, returning to the US, for missionaries, used to be called Furlough. The dictionary in Microsoft Word defines furlough as Rest and Relaxation. These days, the missionary community refers to the time as Home Assignment………. I wonder why?

The love and service being lavished, truly lavished, on us has made this trip a joy!

It has been a while since I last wrote and so much has happened. Aside from traveling halfway around the world, as well as driving top to bottom and moving side to side across the United States, we have begun the process of becoming Americans again. I am often asked “how are you settling in?” Well, since we currently move, on average, about every 6 days, we’re not settling. We are, however, adapting. While Trish and I may be native to this country, our perceptions have been colored by the last year and a half in Zambia. Some observations I can share include the following.

Let’s go shopping….

The visit to Publix grocery store, on the first night in South Carolina, was a shock. This was the first time that I’d been in a large grocery store in a very long time. The lights and colors and sounds made me feel like I was back at the carnival as a kid. Quite overwhelmed, I wandered from aisle to aisle in something of a daze, just looking at the amount and variety of products.

In Mansa, when there are baked beans at all, there will be one or two brands. In Publix, there were eleven brands in five different packaging sizes. There were innumerable flavors and variations of this most humble of foods. How does one decide? Oddly enough, I did remember that my favorite once was Bush’s Spicy Barbeque style…….

In Mansa, when there is bread available, there are three possibilities. I lost count of the brands, flavors, sizes and styles of bread on the shelves in this store. One whole side, five foot high, of a forty foot aisle was dedicated to breadstuffs alone.

I wandered down the aisle where the drugs are stocked and was stunned. There is a palliative for every ache or discomfort imaginable. One particular display I found completely fascinating. There before me, in various brands and packaging sizes were disablers, enablers and modifiers. That is to say, if you’re going too much and can’t stop, use this one, if you can’t go and need to, use this one, and if it’s not the right consistency, use this one. It was too much and I quickly moved on.

The variety and quantity of fresh produce was….. WOW. I told Trish of a pressing need to roll in the lettuce section (all twenty feet of it) she kept me moving.

I’m pretty sure that I gained five pounds just walking through the place.

The checkout was the final assault of sensory overload. Beeps and boops from the registers all around me created a feeling not unlike that of being in an amusement arcade. Candy, such as I’d not seen in a long time, was on one side and the latest in journalistic achievements on the other. I mean, who could have known that President Obama was really a Martian love child from Sacramento? “Inquiring minds want to know!”

Tell me the truth now, do you choose paper or plastic?

We miss so much important stuff living in the bush!

Anyone who has ever been near an unexpectedly activated fire alarm bell has a pretty good feel for what my nerves were doing as we exited the store. The relief I experienced was nearly total as we made our way across the parking lot to the car. Dr. Tom, my chiropractor, used to make me tense my muscles as he worked on them. He said it made the subsequent relaxation of the muscle more complete. If there’s a parallel for nerves, I found it. Then again, maybe I should have checked in the drug aisle when I was there. I’m sure they must have something for jangled hyper-sensitive African nerves! If they do, I’m sure it’s available in pill, cream, or spray.

As I recall, Trish drove home and I tried to help by constantly reminding her to stay on the right-hand-side of the road.

Next: What adventures await when two middle age, out-of-touch, driving on the wrong side of the road, fresh from the back seat of the developing world, Christians, set off across the most religiously diverse and technologically advanced country on the planet, in a borrowed 1998 Volkswagen New Beetle?

Where’s the Verizon guy when you need him? “Can you hear me now?”

I’m still puffin’ a bit and the T-shirt is a little damp as I sit here, but let’s start at the beginning.

Trish and I were out walking a couple of weeks ago and my BlackBerry made noise. This particular noise is one that is reserved for incoming emails. Since we were out hiking along a path, several kilometers into the bush, I considered the receipt of an email highly unlikely, but checked anyway.

There was a time, many months ago, when we had regular voice and email service on our phones. I remember sitting in the comfort (relative) of our home and corresponding with friends. That was long ago and despite repeated pleas to Airtel, our service provider, those happy times have been relegated to the status of fond memories. Now we have to drive thirty kilometers into town to get our messages.

So, here we are out in the middle of nowhere and the phone starts getting excited. I paused and reached into my pack and, wonder of wonder, I found several new emails on my phone. Ten meters to one side or the other, there is no signal. Where I was standing, I had three bars of EDGE which is what’s required to get emails. Now I think even the Verizon guy would have a hard time explaining this one! Somewhere, somehow, the planets aligned and a spacequake occurred causing a rift in interdimensional time and allowing the necessary 0s and 1s to squeek through. Hey, works for me!

Today, having preached in the morning, I needed some exercise. I decided that I would take our phones and head down, back across the river, and up the hill to see what condition the cosmos was in. I put the ringer on loud and set out. After about forty minutes of hoofing, I reached the place in front of the old hut and pulled out my phone. Sure enough, I had signal. I walked ten paces further up the track and lost it. I walked twenty paces back down the track and had no signal. Only the spot in front of the hut worked. It’s been a tough week and we’ve not made it to town for messages. Trish had 35 that downloaded. Wow!

On the way back, I was catching up to seven kids coming back from the fields where they’d picked the stuff that would be supper tonight. Trish and I are the only white people who use this track and that’s probably only a half dozen times this year. Seeing this big white man chugging up the hill behind them, the kids increased their pace. I picked up my pace and began really closing the gap. There was obvious alarm in the group and their short legs took on a rapid cadence. I broke into a trot and began eating up the yards between us. They tore into a run and the chase was on. Did I mention that we were going uphill? Pride is a terrible thing and I pushed on gasping, sucking in great gulps of air mixed with the cloud of dust that the urchin’s feet were creating. Up the uneven track we raced, them carrying their bags of food and me, carrying me. Well I caught them and everyone stopped. We stood there looking at each other and wondering what was supposed to happen next. The simple fact is that I really didn’t expect to catch them. They were obviously shaken and my puffing like a blacksmith’s bellows did little to reduce the tension. I can only imagine what was going through their heads as this large white man, gasping for breath, with red face and bugged out eyes, stood swaying and looking down at them! “Hello my pretties………!” One of the younger ones broke into a smile and began to laugh and the next thing I knew, we were all having a good guffaw.

I followed them, walking, the rest of the way up the hill. At the fork, we shared a greeting and went our separate directions.

Guess what the conversation is going to be around their nshima and relish tonight….

Trish was very happy to get all her emails!

Press on!

Pete

We were deeply honored to receive the invitation. Our village neighbors, across the road were excited that their daughter was taking Holy Orders, becoming a Nun, they wanted us to be there. This ceremony would cap six years of training and finally allow Dyness to wear the dress and habit of a full fledged, Sisters of Mercy, nun.

Bringing their friends and family, we arrived at the convent in plenty of time. One by one, the Bishop and several of the priests from the cathedral made their appearances and introduced themselves around. Trish and I are not unknown in the town, having lived in the village for well over a year now and being part of a very small white community in the general area. My preaching and teaching has made me a bit of a standout in Christian circles and though the Bishop and I had not met, we were both aware of each other’s work. While I have, on a couple of occasions, taught in the local Catholic church, my work is obviously not through the Diocese and It raised an eyebrow that we were not only not Catholic, but were very obviously not Zambian either. When I told the Bishop that I’d been an altar boy at one time, the eyebrow raised a bit farther.

The ceremony was delightful. The Zambian adaptation of some Latin hymns, that I’d not sung since before Vatican II, was wonderful. I’m not sure that the Jesuits are quite ready for these ladies and the drum playing, body swaying and ululating, that accompanied the old words. But I’m quite sure that God was pleased!

The high point of the early service was when the inductees for Novice came out. These young women, taking their first step into their training for a life of service, danced into the hall completely decked out. The finery they wore must have represented the very best of each of their villages. There was every form of dress from tight jeans and plunging necklines to a slinky evening gown. After the prayer time, they each removed all their jewelry and every form of adornment. They were handed a package and left the hall. Ten minutes later, the girls returned, nearly unrecognizable in the plain white blouses and baby blue, ankle length, skirts.

Finally, the Bishop said mass and the main event, the induction of the nuns, occurred. We were spellbound as the event unfolded. Each of the three young women being inducted took their vows and were welcomed by the Sisters into the fold. Singing, dancing and enthusiastic shouts from the families were part of the congratulations as these three made their commitments to Service, Chastity and Poverty.

I had been advised that I might be called upon to say some words. I was a bit uncomfortable with the idea and had jotted down some thoughts to share. During my jotting, Trish leaned over and reminded me that this was not a sermon. It’s true that I can get a bit long winded.

Zambians culture is very “high context”. That is to say, you just have to know what’s going on, to know what’s going on. There is no tidy bulletin with an order of worship, or agenda. You just have to know. I’m usually clueless anyway and this lack of structure has not helped me at all.

Towards the end of the service, all of which was conducted in Bemba, there was a long pause in the service. After a while, my friend Sabastian leaned over and advised me that “this is your time”. I had no idea what he was talking about. I was vaguely aware that the Sister leading the service had repeated herself. My adrenalin kicked up and I asked him to explain. He did by telling me again that “this is your time”. The coin dropped and I asked if this was when I was supposed to speak. He smiled placidly and nodded. Adrenalin on, I popped up like a marionette and looked around. All eyes were on me and it was a full minute before the laughter subsided. Thoroughly embarrassed and thoroughly rattled, I was able to stumble through a prayer and communal pledge of support for the new nuns. Once seated, I asked why there had been so much laughter before my words. Sabastian explained that it was after the third call for the Brother of the new Sister, that I had leapt up. No one had expected a white brother for any of the obviously non-white Sisters. Peter, Dyness’ father, later explained that he’d simply said that a “brother” would be making some remarks at the end. High context society……

Zambians, in general, and villagers, in particular are very gracious people. We were greeted by many of the folks in attendance and treated like royalty in the buffet line. The Sisters did everything to make us feel at home. We made a lot of new friends that day and cemented a “distant relative” relationship with our friends across the road.

Press on!

Pete